Democracy is in decline

DEMOCRACY INDEX

• The Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) latest Democracy Index 2016 shows 72 countries experienced a decline in democratic values last year. Countries with declining levels of democracy outnumbered those becoming more democratic by more than 2 to 1.
• The EIU’s Democracy Index measures the state of democracy by rating electoral processes and pluralism, the state of civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation and political culture in more than 160 countries worldwide. 
• World strongest democracies are (1) Norway (2) Iceland (3) Sweden (4) New Zealand (5) Denmark (6) Canada & Ireland (8) Switzerland (9) Finland and (10) Australia in the same order.

• Less than half (49%) the world’s population lives in a democracy of some sort, and only 4.5% reside in a “full democracy.” This is a steep decline from 2015, when it was just under 9%.

• The US is now a flawed democracy. This dramatic decline of US getting demoted to a “flawed democracy,” is as a result of low public confidence in the government in evidence prior to the presidential election that saw Donald Trump become president.
• In the EU referendum, 72% of the UK population turned out to vote, compared to an average of 63% in general elections over the past decade. The UK also saw a marked increase in membership of political parties. As a result, Britain’s democracy score has gone up from 8.31 in 2015 to 8.36 this year, placing it 16th among the “full democracies.”
• The former communist bloc in Eastern Europe has experienced the most significant regression since 2006. There is widespread disenchantment with democracy, with 18 countries in regression on its democratic trajectory and the remaining nine stalling to various degrees. Estonia ranks the highest, at number 29. 
• Sub-Saharan Africa is beating Eastern Europe but is on the back foot in terms of formal democracy. The region has made very little progress, suggesting that it still has a long way to go to improve aspects such as pluralism, the functioning of government and civil liberties, amongst others. Mauritius tops the regional list and is also the only country in the region to be considered a full democracy.
• Latin America has been ahead and last year saw the region supporting pro-market candidates stepping into office. However, Uruguay is the only country to make it into the list of “full democracies,” at number 19.
• After achieving significant headway over the past decade, Asia’s score stagnated in 2016 (5.7), and is lagging behind Latin America (6.3), Europe (8.4) and North America (8.6). Japan is the highest rated, at number 20, which also makes it top of the list of flawed democracies.
• In the Arab countries, Tunisia has slipped by 12 places in the global ranking, putting it toward the bottom of the list of flawed democracies.
• The report confirms that the quality of democracy has receded in the world as more and more of the electorate has been left disenchanted. However, it would appear that there is a silver lining in the increased political participation this has led to in many parts of the world.

INDIA IMPROVES DEMOCRACY INDEX; CIVIL LIBERTIES CURTAILED

• Democracy Index 2016: Revenge Of The Deplorables published by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has yet again termed India a flawed democracy. In the index published by the magazine, India is ranked 32 out 165 nations. Last year India was ranked 35 on the same index. The parameters include electoral processes, functioning of government, political participation, political culture and civil liberties.
• Although India ranked below USA on the overall index, scores better than the USA on all parameters except one. India’s political culture is worse than some authoritarian regimes like China and Sub Saharan African nations like Sierra Leone. 
• Since the Narendra Modi government came to power, there has been a significant improvement in functioning of the government and political participation in India. However, this has been accompanied by a decline in civil liberties and political culture.
• It seeks data from the World Values Survey (WVS) about the proportion of a country’s population that thinks “it would be fairly good to have a strong leader who doesn’t bother with parliament or elections.” 

Political leaders with majority succumbing to temptations and 

overriding institutional procedures in the garb of speed and efficiency 

are betraying the sacrifices made by our freedom fighters and founding fathers 

in establishing the sovereign republic of India ... Manmohan Singh

Since 2014, there is gradual deterioration in democratic governance by Prime Minister Modi with his cabinet ignored, institutions undermined, parliament irrelevant, bureaucracy subverted, election commission influenced, state governments disrespected, media brought to knees, all decisions originating from PMO and quack advises taking precedence over expert advisers and decisions hurriedly implemented. This type of governance is similar to that of Nizams and erstwhile Maharajas, in history books, but unacceptable in 21st century democracies where transparency & accountability are paramount with discretion eliminated. In democratic governance, as a matter of rule, defined procedure must be followed by all including by Prime Minister. The fears of Ambedkar are coming true - Modi's regime is nothing short of establishing Hindu Raj, which in the Indian context meant unbridled rule of the majority community, the Hindus. Modi’s penchant has a chilling similarity with Mussolini's Fascist Italy regime where politics starts to be less concerned with the act of governing people in an efficient way, for instance, in solving their economic problems and social well being. Instead, it is focused more on the spectacle of power, on the visual and impressive display of symbols, myths and rituals. In short India's democracy is in peril!

Gujarat model OR Gujarat muddle?

Scholars have shown that Gujarat’s development achievements are actually far from dazzling. The State has grown fast in the last twenty years. And anyone who travels around Gujarat is bound to notice the good roads, mushrooming factories, and regular power supply. But what about people’s living conditions? Whether we look at poverty, nutrition, education, health or related indicators, the dominant pattern is one of indifferent outcomes. Gujarat is doing a little better than the all-India average in many respects, but there is nothing there that justifies it being called a “model.” Anyone who doubts this can download the latest National Family Health Survey report and verify the facts.

• Development economist and activist John Dreze today said there was "no evidence" that the so-called "Gujarat Model" was a model in any sense, pointing out to the state's backwardness in social indicators.
• Almost all ranking of development indicators, whether it is social indicators, human development index, child development index, multi-dimensional poverty index and all the standard poverty indexes of the planning commission. Gujarat almost always comes around the middle.
• It was the case much before Modi became chief minister and it remained the case after that, said Dreze, who helped draft the first version of NREGA (now called the MNREGA).
• He describes the Gujarat's development model as a counter-example, because of the disappointing social indicators inspite of the high growth in terms of standard economic indicators.
• Dreze believes that something lacking and it can be an illustration of the limitations of relying on private-enterprise growth for development in the larger sense.
• Commenting on ratings-agency Moody's recent upgrade of India's sovereign-credit rating to 'Baa2' from 'Baa3', Dreze says he doubts the credibility of such an index. "If you dig into the methods behind these indexes, there is very little to them, except that they are taken seriously!"
• He also raised concerns about the Aadhaar scheme, fearing that it will create an infrastructure of surveillance. His opposition to Aadhaar was not related to welfare programmes, but civil liberties. Aadhaar multiplies the power of the state to keep track of everybody over time - he said, flagging apprehensions that it could lead to stifling of dissent, as a lot of the databases that are going to be linked will become accessible to the government.
• Dreze partly blamed the stagnation of agricultural growth for the unrest and the recent agitations of Patidars, Jats and others for reservations. The people, who have seen the size of their landholding shrink with the population explosion in the last few decades, have certainly suffered. That creates a sense of grievance, but there must be other things also.

 

Read the article "Gujarat Muddle" dated April 11, 2014

Any development model with Public Private Partnership (PPP) is fundamentally flawed and unsustainable because it enables few enterprising people become extraordinarily rich at the state expense, breeding corruption and impoverishes the state and its people. The state ends up paying huge amounts of money in future payments in the range of 2-10 times. Consequently rich poor divide will increase. Modi's Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train is another white elephant in disguise which will enable Japan loot away our money perennially. Development based on market borrowing is not development at all but is similar to selling family silver for fancy expenses. 

Habeus Corpus for producing Naxal leader RK

Habeus Corpus writ filed in HC by Naxal leader RK's wife

Naxals or Maoists wearing lethal weapons smuggled from other countries, living away from society in jungles and commanding people at their will and ruthlessly killing people not obeying them and also policemen encountering them are nothing but terrorists. There is no such thing called 'foreign terrorists' and 'Indian terrorists'. Both are anti-nationals and enemies of the civilized world.

You see the audacity of the naxal leader RK's wife Padma and civil liberties leaders Varavara Rao & co. On one hand they defy constitution and laws of the land creating terror among tribals on some pretext or other and when caught by police they expect police treat them with all civil rights honored. Suddenly they remember that Naxals are also citizens of this country and approach courts and human rights commissions for their well being. HC commenting that Naxals or otherwise, government must provide security to all citizens is simply obnoxious. What about the rights of the victims of Naxals and families of policemen who are killed by Naxals brutally? Policemen risks their lives in catching them and our blind courts often releases them in accordance with laws of the land. Thus policemen after catching these terrorists has no incentive and produce them in courts for trial etc. which is nothing but farcical. When encounter takes place in forests especially during dark from where police will get eye witness to prosecute them. The easy option for them is kill them under the pretext of self defense.

RK shot into fame when his gang blasted AP CM Chandrababu Naidu's car at Alipiri ghat. But he survived with grievous injuries on Oct 01, 2003 because the car was rugged and bulletproof and above all luck.

How will he & his family feel for letting RK and his rights being upheld by courts.

Group of 40-50 Maoists in military like uniform armed with lethal weapons -- what legitimate activity they are doing in prohibited reserved forests walking 28 km, other than conspiring against the state. Any sane government would challenge them and if they retaliate surely would eliminate them.

It has been policy of all governments to eliminate Naxals for their illegal ans anti-social activities and eliminating them is the only way.


My View:
I do remember in 1976 when Palestine terrorists hijacked Ar France plane and kept 100 Isreali citizens as hostages at Entebbe Airport, Uganda, neither Israeli government nor people of Isreal have shown any interest for exchanging jailed terrorists and ransom amount as demanded by hijackers. They preferred dare devil military rescue operation which had successfully rescued all the hostages except few casualties. Thus they insulated themselves from future hijacks for next 30 years. Prior to Entebbe raid, 2 to 3 hijacks were common every month. A hostage has told the hijacker at Entebbe that "My country doesn't bargain with terrorists". See the clarity and firmness in resolution.

Naxals or anybody, yielding lethel weapons other than licensed by Government are terrorists and must be dealt with iron fist and society must be made secure and safe by eliminating them. Their principles might be noble but their actions are untolerable, unbearable and unacceptable. Courts should be careful while dealing such cases and refrain from the temptations of  'judicial activism'. Courts must refrain making adverse comments on government during the course of hearing is unacceptable nonsense. They should reserve all comments and advise till the day of judgement. They should emulate Justice Jagmohanlal Sinha. Otherwise sooner or later they too could become victims of some terrorists.

Those who doesn't respect 'Constitution of India' 

have no right to seek for protection under its aegis.