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1. An appeal of a bureaucrat 2. Gist of suggestion on Examinatio system. 3. NCW - an appraisal 4. Sati was a challenge to Society 5. Payment of subsistence allowance - a case study in systematic changes for office efficiency. 6. Sex Differential trend in Infant Mortality 7. Revival of Sanskrit An appeal: of a bureaucrat - Leena Mehendale,IAS It is 25 years since I joined the Indian Administrative Service and was allotted to the comparatively happier cadre of Maharashtra. I did my routine postings as any other IAS officer - that of the SDM and DC and the CEO of the Zilla Parishad, the divisional Commissioner, MD of some corporations, and in various departments, getting my chunk of experiences in various sectors, various districts and various levels of administration. Myself and many others like me felt that with our entry into a high profile service like this, it was possible to achieve something great and substantive for this country - it was only a matter of few more years of experience - may be just one more year and then one would plunge into action for higher and higher achievements taking the country ahead with great strides. And suddenly at the close of 25 years, it appears that everything is lost, the time is gone past, achievement is as distant as it was on the day one - but this time not because of inexperience but because of the sudden realisation that something, somewhere has gone wrong. And the wrong is that we have not nurtured any collective goal or any collective vision for the country. I have often heard it said as a panacea that if each one of us did one�s job properly, we would be a great nation. Is that true? Which one of us has not worked well in her/his job? Ask anyone if one was successful in one�s job. The anwer will be a chorus of yes-always, because while answering this, each one is thinking of the glorious self assessment one is going to write for oneself at the end of the year. Our self assessment reports ask five questions - what was your post, what was the job chart, what did you perform against it, what were special achievements, what were reasons for non-achievement. What perhaps, should be asked is, what do you consider as the goal for the country! What is your organisation�s goal and how does it fit into country�s goal? What is your achievement, how does it fulfil the goal of your organisation and the goal for the country. Perhaps then some collective vision and goal for the country can be developed. If I think that with my 25 years of service, not much has been achieved for the country, I am not alone in this critical assessment. I am aware that many officers of my age group have similar feeling. With 8 to 12 years of service ahead of us, it is time to consider if we can pin point some key factors that led to this situation. What are the failures, if we may say so, of the IAS, the bureaucracy and the government? Two prominent points emerge - non-clarity of goal and imbalance in the two wheels of the chariot. The IAS as a generalist service has not been able to achieve many important goals - it has not been able to coordinate among various sectors, thus failing to provide integrated approach to sectoral developments. The IAS officers who put a natural claim on expertise in public administration have miserably failed to mould the administration and to simplify the labyrinth of bureaucratic rules to reflect the public aspirations. The skill of administration lies in three fold capacity - to provide a standard, uniform, convenient system for nearly eighty percent public who fall in the middle range of the curve, provide special rules and systems for those who are lagging behinf and provide fast track for those who are geneus. Secondly, every system needs systemic corrections from time to time. Both these skills have not been learnt or implemented. It is strange that whereas management skills have become more and more necessary in industries, the generalist service of IAS which also deals with management has become less and less popular. Individual success can still be seem as in case of Seshan, (Ex-Election Commissioner) or Chandrashekhar, (the present Municipal Commissioner of Thane). But these are successes over a limited issue and over a limited time span. They do not bring success for the country as such. It is like the present world cup cricket - with highest number of centuries by Indian batsmen and the higherst number of wickets by Indian bowlers, the two have not been converted into highest number of team victories for India. What is the failure of bureaucracy as such? It is often said that bureaucracy and political leadership are like two wheels of the chariet. One wing provides continuity or stability - the other wing provides for the aspirations of people and thus progress. Over the years bureaucrats have abdicted their authority and their responsibility. They have surrendered to the vagaries of individual political bosses. Again what is forgotton is that an individual bureauctat must also know and understand people�s aspirations, and provide ways and means to achieve the same, even though people may not be expressing these through him. Similarly any good political administrtor must know and understand the system, what rules provide and which rules need systemic modifications in accordance with people�s needs and aspirations. They also must understand what rules & systems need to be guarded so that country�s resources are not squandered away. Both the bureaucrats and the politicians have taken very segmented view of their role & their job. Bureaucrats have not been able to convince anyone why a system is good because they have not learned to dispense with the unnecessary rigidities of the system, which are bound to crop up with passage of time. Where has administration as a whole failed? Again it is a case of imbalance of two wheels of the chariot. In our country of hundred crore people, the administration is really run by a handful of about thousand people (the ratio comes to one per million). These are both the political and the bureaucratic administrators. They decide a whole lot of things for the people. However, together they represent only one wheel. The second wheel it the small small initiatives taken at thousands of places in different of sections of the society. It is these small initiatives by ordinary citizens, or the common man which takes the country ahead (or, by absence, pull it back). The government has not been able to sufficiently encourage, facilitate, promote, sustain or respect these initiatives. Taking advantage or using them in the planning process is a still farther vision. To allow their prticipation in deciding the country�s vision is almost unthinkable. Let us use all our channels of communication - the notice boards of our offices, the newspapers, the TV channels, the internet, the innumerable govt. ceremonies, the one page advertisements and so on and start stating the five important objectives as visions for our country. Let these visions be shared and let us see if it is possible to generate a commonality of vision and then work for it. I start by stating my five goals as- � That the women should be able to walk anywhere with no fear or apology for being a women. � Vocational education for every child so that the child is able to stand on own if & when needed. � That country achieves excellence in Arts, Science, Technology Industry etc. � That we are able to preserve our bio-diversity and cultural unity. � Let thesre be Peace, Truth and good governance. It is only when more people join each others efforts for their goals with the good results for the society or the country will be shown. Hence, I appeal to all the IAS, all the bureaucracy, all the members of government and of the public to work out a common vision and a common agenda of action. This article suggest some of the essential modifications in our present method of examination. It is also important argument that if we see the advantage of these modifications then actually carryuing out the modifications is not a very difficult task. What is more important is it can also be carried out on modular basis. It is first argued that even through now our department of education is called Human Resource Development Department. We really dod not treat our classes as resources we do not bother to them about their deployment or how to use them for further improving the resources namely reducing the further illiteracy. As far as the pattern of examinatioin is concerned it is argued that the present day technology used for examination has printing technology which is essentially centralised in the character. With the number of children every year the load on this centralised system is very heavy. It is necessary to change our examination pattern to promote decentralisation of examination technology by replacing the printer technology with computer technology. For these it will be essential to prepare a question bank in the computer on different subjects and for different levels. This task has already started on a meagre scale in some places. However, taking examination by such system has already been adopted for the Indian students taking the CRE examination before going to America or other foreign countries. Next it is argued that if without shifting some printing technology to computer technology will save a tremendous amount of time for a very large number of teachers and administrative staff in the school boards or colleges or universities. This time and manpower resources can then be utilised for bringing in computer qualitative matters in the pattern of actually checking the or evaluating the question paper. for taking computer technology it is facilitated more if the number of children per examination is less. Hence it is argued that rather than on the children to take examination in the same subject on the same date and time earlier we should encourage children to take the examination according to their convenience and when they want to do so. Therefore, in many places examination centres can be opened where children can come according to their convenience not once in two month and take the examination in their in the subject of their own choice and for the level of their choice. It is argued that it should not be compulsory for the children to take the examination in all the question in the same month or in the same book it may be allowed to take examination in different subject in different months and also for a different level in different months. Because the number of examinees per subject per course per month will be fewer than the present number of examinees per early examination, therefore, teachers were evaluating the question computers will do better justice to their evaluation. Such a system in which the computer will be containing question bank and will formal the question paper and reduce the print out what question paper for the student at the two advantage will be that the menace as copying will reduce also menace various unionised staff going staff right in the nick of examination time and this putting the children and their parents in a tense situation than also reduce considerably. It is also argued that the present system must be stopped under which attendance by a school or college is compulsory and a student in having the minimum adequate number of attendances is debarrted from taking examination and that children should be allowed to take examination and number of or society for this their own ability and level even without formally setting through the formal education school or college. The advantage of formal school have been discussed namely: i) It allows the large number of students to pass together through the students pattern of education and thus reduce the time and staff spent by the society producing the standardised batch of children. ii) Different experts can sit together from time to time and discuss about the changes and the reasons and the curriculum and need to new modern subjects thus there is a continuous updating of the syllabus done by the experts the present case in for self studying pattern is not this advantage. iii) Formal education allows children to mix with the other children of different age group. Despite these three advantages of formalsystem it is argued that the formal system cannot be the only right and we have to think of other systems. Specifically the system of allowing the children to miss their school or colleges but still allow them to take the examination or enter into any formal stream of schooling at their being entry. It is argued that our present illiteracy in the country which is nearly 45% and also the present drop out rate from the 100 enrolled at student 1 to a minimu of 30% drop out to 50% drop out before they comes to the age of standard of V. This speaks volumes of different adequacies of our formal system of education required compulsory attendance in school and hence to the need to immediately to do away with this requirement. It is argued that considered the cases: a) Attend who has to earn his bread by working in hotel or by any other type of child labour such a called cannot attend school in our formal system of education. b) Consder such who is a genious and wants to use much more time in developing his ability for international competition and the pattern also want to encourage his but are bogged on by the formal system of edxucation which requires with this boy must leave aside his abilities and must attend to the drive school hours without which there will be no formal education scope allowed for improving his education abilities. c) Consider the case of child who is interested in tricking environmental tricks, forest, world wide and want to spent much more in these activities and can take different a little bit of time for studying a subject and want to get himself evaluated in the present system of education so that in later date if he wishes his enter in the formal system is allowed to him. In our present the above three categories of children are allowed to prove their capacities and abilities and in our country there are more than 50% of children who would benefit tremendous is such an opportunity of evaluation of their own as study is allowed to them alongwith their flexibility of entering into formal whenever they want to do so. It is also argued that the children who were not satisfied that their evaluated marks must be allowed some chance of satisfying themselves that their evaluation was broadly proper. When this not allowed is under the present system it leaves the children that the schools of suspiciuos and injustice and we cannot expect that if growing up and becoming adult citizens there will be to the concepts of justice and interest. It is further argued that once this children to write their examination in their own mother tongue rather insisting that the examination for 11th standard especially in the subjects of science, engineering etc. must be written in English language. This is thinking a major under for a large number of brilliant students so far cenrtainly results into this valuable human resources. Mrs. Leena Mehendale Jt. Secretary National Commission for Women 4, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg New Delhi-110002. Ph. 3236110(O)/4678802(R) This article suggest some modifications in our examination system which can be easily carried out on modular basis. They will be conducive to improve our human resources. At present we use printing technology for our question papers which is essentially centralised in character and hence heavily burdened with increase in no. of examinees per year. We should change examination pattern to introduce decentralisation in examinations by replacing the printing technology with computer technology. A question bank can be put in the computer on different subjects and for different levels. For every student the computer will pull out a question paper by random selection of questions. Two advantages are: (a) the menace of copying will reduce (b) menace of unionised staff going on strike in the nick of examinations time creating tension for the children and their parents will reduce. Shifting from printing technology to computer technology will save valuable time of many teachers and administrative staff in the School Exam. Boards, colleges or universities. This time and manpower can then be utilised for better quality evaluation of the question papers. It will be easier to implement this change if the no. of students per examination is less. Hence having all examinations in the same subject on the same date and time should be avoided. Encourage children to take the examination according to their convenience, say once in two months in any subject and for any level. With fewer examinees also, the quality of evaluation will improve. The attendance in the school or college must not be compulsory. No student be debarred from taking examination on grounds of non-attendance in school. Children should be allowed to take examination according to their own ability and level even without formally sitting through the formal education in school or college. Later or sooner, they should be allowed to enter formal system at their convenient choice. The advantage of formal school are: (i) It allows large number of students to go through a standard pattern of education together and thus reduce the time and staff needed to produce a standard batch; (ii) Curriculum development by experts and continuous updating of the syllabus; (iii) Opportunity to mix with the other children of same age group. Despite this, the formal system is not and cannot be the only right system, as is evident from the present 45% illiteracy and present steep drop out rate from Class-I to Class-V and above. This speaks volumes of inadequacies of our formal system and need for alternatives. Removing compulsory attendance in school has many advantages. Consider the following cases who cannot/should not attend school as needed in formal system. a) A student who has to earn his bread by any type of child labour. b) A genious who wants to use more time in developing her ability for international chess competition. c) A child who is interested in trecking, or environmental issues, forests, wild life etc. and can take out only some time for studying the school subjects. All of them need an evaluation so that at a later date they may enter in the formal system if they wish to. Evaluation must be more transparent. When secretive, it leaves the children suspicious of schools and examinations and we cannot expect that on growing up they will respect the concepts of justice or honesty. Allow children to write the examination in their mother tongue rather than insisting on English as in the subjects of science, engineering etc. This way a large number of brilliant students will get chance to demonstrate their ability. Perhaps not every child wants to know his exact marks but only the grade. Two types of evaluation can be done. One for those who only want to know their grade and other for those who want their exact marks. It should be possible for the children of the first type to later ask for further evaluation of their exact marks. This will also reduce the burden on the system of examination. The honorarium given to the examiner per answer paper ranges between 70 paise to 120 paise. This and the time for examining one question paper must be enhanced considerably for a better quality evaluation. Today�s examinatiion system is only for standarised pattern of education meant for average students. It does not give justice to two categories - those who are extremely genious or those who for economic or other inabilities cannot afford formal schooling. Together they are 50% of our children population. They can get self esteem and confidence if allowed/chance to prove their abilities by the above suggested alternative methods. National Commission for Women-An appraisal A nation or a society goes ahead only through the contribution of all its members. Push the women into the backyards, and the society itself will be dragged behind. During the struggle for independence, Mahatma Gandhi, realising this, took special efforts to include women in political as well as economic and social struggles. Even before him, stalwarts like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Swami Vivekananda and Mahatma Phule had laid great emphasis on women�s participation in their revival programs. After independence, however, the progress of women and of the society seems to have retarded. Even after forty years, examples were galore where on one hand the sensitivity over women�s issues was lacking and on the other hand atrocities against women were rising. The committee on Status of Women in India (CSWI) recommended as early as in 1975, the setting up of a National Commission for Women . Many women activists and organisations also pressed for the demand and finally the Parliament passed the Act in 1990 for setting up of a Women�s Commission. Actual formation and functioning of National Commission for Women started in 1992. Women related issues have many dimensions but they can be summarised as violence, denial and deprivation. Violence can be in parental or matrimonial house, or at work place or elsewhere in the society. Denial comes as denial of the right to be born, or denial of nutrition, education, health, home, property etc. Deprivation results from debarring them from several opportunities of empowerment - political economir or career-wise. also importnt are the questions of women in jail (pre-trial or post conviction), women in mental asylums, single women and so on. These are the problems. But what about the systems designed to solve these problems? How effective are they? A review shows that right from the judicial system to police investigation to medico-legal recordings to the system of evidence, which has been badly twisted in the hands of advocates. everywhere we find systemic insensitivity. Ultimately the buck will stop at the door steps of the society which itself has become too insensitive. But the buck has to be brought there through studies, debates, seminars, action plans etc. All this provides the working ideology for National Commission for Women. The NCW Act, 1990 has some very strong and all encompassing provisions. The most important and operative section lists some Section 10 of the Act narrates fourteen important areas in which the Commission has to function they include investigation of all matters relating to safeguards, suggest amendments to various laws, look into complaints relating to deprivation of women�s rights, take up matters of non-implementation of Acts meant for achieving equality and development of women and non-compliance of policy decisions etc. The commission can call for special studies and investigations and fund litigations involving women�s issue of larger dimensions. Commission can also inspect jails and investigate the conditions of women therein. On the empowerment side Section 10 enjoins NCW to suggest ways for ensuring due representation of women in all spheres, to participate and advice on the planning process of socio-economic development of women and to evaluate such development. NCW can make reports on all the above matters to government and can also require that such a report be placed before the Parliament or the State Assembly as the case may be. This is one very powerful methodology in the hands of NCW. Further, as a tool for NCW�s investigations powers of civil court for summoning a person, summoning the record or taking statements on oath have also been given to the NCW. The Commission works mainly through its members and team of officers. However, Commission can set up expert committees specific issues and can also . Similarly experts can be coopted even as a part of investigating team. Thus NCW maintaining a strong network with NGOs working all over the country and can tap the best available brains and activists for the purpose of situation analysis and recommendations. The best tool to assess the work of the Commission is its Annual Reports. The annual reports from 1992-93 onwards tell us about the work done so far, the work methodology and the future directions. These reports have a set pattern. Every report has chapters on �Status of Violence against Women� and �Custodial Justice� to deal with the menace of violence which is naturally the first concern of NCW. There is a complaints and counselling cell in the organisation which looks into complaints received and gives guidance to the visitors who come to seek help, legal advice or otherwise. Some of these complaints are of a serious nature where investigation by the Commission is warranted and undertaken. Details of these investigations can be seen in the Annual Reports. The complaint cell is an interface between the suffering women and the NCW. First objective of the complaint is know doubt to redress the complaint of the individual sufferer bu the Commission cannot just stopped there. These cases give very important insight to the Commission about various social administrative and legal maladies. NCW can then file that upon its mandate and recommend to various government agencies and the systemic changes within the sectors are needed in order to ensure that women did not keep suffering in future. It allows the Commission to larger issues involving policy decision and methods of implementation and monitoring within other government sectors. NCW needs strong ability to analyse data available in the complaint cell so as to be able to suggest the systemic changes to other government offices. To the extent the NCW can do these, the complaint cell will provide an interface between the suffering women individuals and the concerned administrative departments. Annual Report also has chapters on �Review of Laws� done by Commission and recommendations given to government on various new bill or amendments to existing laws. Participation of eminent lawyers, judges, academicians and activists is enlisted before these recommendations are made. Commission runs a programme of funding for legal literacy camps and Parivarik Mahila Lok Adalat (PMLA). The publication wing of NCW has, in past, brought out substantive publications on these issues. The annual report also examines what is happening on the side of Empowerment by examining the scenario on political and economic front and in media. Political participation of women right from the village panchayat upto Parliament, avenues for economic independence to women at all levels and the portrayal of women in media are the matters of continuous advocary in NCW. The reports also contains a chapter on our planning process and how specific planning can be helpful in removing gender disparities in various geographical and social arenas. Special studies are undertaken and sponsored by Commission. Another tool is organisation of national workshop and seminars. The subjects range from child rape to tribal women to food security to agricultural labour, to health related matters to credit policy for women and so on. More than three hundred recommendations have been made so far and nearly 100 publications have been brought out. Later other government organisations the NCW also stops short at the stage of �Output guarantee� which is the necessary stage after situatiion analysis and recommendations. I am reminded of a fine poster by a dear friend which asks �50 years of Independence�. Is that All? Our situation analysis is always excellent , our recommendations always lying for the best, but what about designing step by step implementation strategy and its actual execution. What about designing continuity and sustainability in the system. The real index of empowerment of women will be situation when the commission does not have to exist anymore for them. But in our vision of the NCW, do we see that day possible sometime in future, are our eyes set on that day or is it a vision of perpetual existence of the Commission? The NCW has been designed also as a watchdog on how the other government sectors perform. In coming years NCW will have to focus on various government efforts to ensure that they have a proper strategy, proper execution plan and proper monitoring system rather than just having excellent recommendations. Need to define whole range of sexual assaults. Lot has been said about this inadequacies of our three main Criminal Laws, namely IPC, Cr.PC and IEA to deal with increasing cases of sexual assaults and harassment of women - Yet, not much progress seems to have been made towards amending these Acts. In the whole of IPC, containing more than 500 sections, only two sections deal with rape of a women and one section deals with perfunctory or minor sexual crimes like trivial instances of eve teasing for which simple and small term punishments are prescribed. Thus you have either rigorous punishment of 7 years for rape or two years simple imprisonment for other non rape crimes and nothing in between. Similarly, crimes relating to kidnapping, abduction, seduction or luring of women (including girl child) and their subsequent use in brothels is also dealt with without very deterrent punishment. Similarly there is nothing much to say about crimes against children. The inherrent lacunae in the provisions of laws is, however, not the only malady in our justice-delivery system. Lacunae, insensitivity and inefficiency of the investigating agencies, medical profession, prosecuting and defence councels, judicial delays and inadequacies or leniency in punishment are other lacunae which require a different way of handling and systemic improvements. This article will be confined only to the simpler task of pointing out the need of amending and adding some sections to our criman law trio. Simpler? That is perhaps only my perception of things, because the country has already taken fifty years after independence and not yet suitably amended them. Even when amendments are suggested by bodies like Law Commission, it can actually tak as much as ten years to pass the same in the Parliament and make it into a Law. And yet, it is simpler because it is only a question of conceptualising and then making a theoretical (and perhaps ivory tower) expercise. The other problem is of tackling inefficiency and attitudinal change for a vast number of government servants�. Let us first see the provisions for sexual assault against women. IPC deals with one such assault namely rape in some details under Section 375 and prescribe the punishment for the same under Section 376. Rape is defined as sexual intercourse with a women committed under following circumstances:- 1) Without her consent 2) With her consent, but the consent is obtained because either as the Women is below 15 years of age a) the said lady believes or made to believe that the person having sex with her is her husband, or, b) She is mentally disabled and does not understand the meaning or concept of sexual intercourse or consent for it, or. c) She has been put under the influence of drugs/intodication so that she gives consent under that influence, or; d) She has been threatened of harm either to herself or to someone else, or; Under these provisions, the sexual intercourse by a men with his wife even without her consent is not a rape unless the wife is below the age of 16 years. In some judgements of the recent past, the right of a women to freedom and a life with dignity, as guaranteed to her under Article 15 of the Constitution of India, have been interpreted to hotel that a man�s right of sex with his wife without her consent interferes with her Right to life of dignity and freedom and hence the Constitution must override the provisions of IPC and hence, sexual intercourse by a man with his wife without consent must be tracted as a crime and be punished. However, despite the invocation of none less than the Constitution of India itself and by name less than the Supreme Court of India itself, the IPC has not yet been amended to include marital rape as rape. Section 376 deals with punishment for rape, and prescribes a punishment of - ____________________________________ In 19 an amendment of very important consequence was made to this Section. In earlier Act, like in any other Acts, there was an inherrent presumption that the law keepers will not break the law. However, by early eighties, cases kept growing in number where it was alleged that women were raped while in custody. The case of vs. Union of India, also otherwise known as Mathura rape case was the one to receive adequate attention of social activists, government and judiciary. This was the case of a woman Mathura having been raped by two constables when she was in their custody enquiry into a matter of alleged theft by her brother. This and some more cases of similar situation, finally led the government to pass an amendment under which the punishment for rape by a person who is keeping the women under custody has been increased from a normal of _______ to years. In addition, the burden of proof that sexual intercourse was with consent is put on the accused. If the victim women in question says that she had not given consent, then her non consent is to be presumed and accepted unless proved otherwise by the accused. The concept of custody, as applicable to this section is wider than the usual dictionary meaning of the word. It includes In addition, section 377 of IPC deals with cases unnatural sex i.e. a) the sex between a man and a man or b) between women and a woman or (c) by a person with the some animal. Thus it can be seen that the present legal provisions do not adequately deal with a large variety of cases of serious sexual crimes against women, especially when their instances have increased over past 10 to 15 years. Following type of cases are not adequately handled -- I. (A) Rape against small girls (B) Gang rape where the women is totally helpless against the brute force of many more people against her. (C) Rape inflicted as a punishment with a view to kill the fighting spirit of any women. (D) Rape committed on women in order to kill the fighting spirit of the whole tribe in question - or to take revenge against the whole tribe. (E) Rape against old women. The above five types of rape are definitely much more henious and have a much more devastating effect on the victim - both physically and mentally. And yet present Law is inadequate to punish these types of cases. In the whole of judicial history of the country there are not many cases of rape where the accused was punished with more than 7 years of imprisonment. This inadequacy of judicial system becomes even more glaring when we come across a data stating that at the end of 1996, more than 40000 rape cases were still pending in the courts and the conviction rate in rape cases so far decided was only six per cent. Recently, a country wide controversy arose when Home Minister declared the intention of the government to prescribe death sentence for rapists. Whatever be the outcome of that controversy, it remains a necessity that the five types of cases described aboe be given higher punishment. II] Cases of non rape but causing equivalent trauma Under present law, a crime of rape is committed only if there is actual penetration of vagine of the victim. Therefore it fails to tackle cases where there may not be actual penetration of vagina but the trauma and mental shock undergone by the victim is not less in any way. This includes following cases:- A) Penetration or attempt to penetrate the anus or mouth by the rapist. B) Pentration of the vagine/anus of the victim by any other instrument or object. III] Cases of child sexual abuse: Child sexual abuse has acquired alarming populations of late. These include cases of incest i.e. sex by father with the daughter and also cases of near relatives including in child sexual abuse. Sexual abuse of the child and Sati - was a challenge to Society - Leena Mehendale 25.11.99 The word �Sati� has been the �go-word� in last two weeks in the media. Scenarios and conclusions have been hyped. Ordinarily the word Sati has come to be associated with a backward looking, non-developmental mind. There is no dearth of words to describe how the illiterate, uneducated, dumb women of our country fall prey to the vision of Sati. This is an issue where I consider the intelligentia guilty on more than one count. Firstly they have not made proper assessment of the enormity of the problem which is both quantitative and qualitative. We have nearly fifty crore women in the country out of which more than twenty crore are illiterate, and uneducated. Those who are educated are either steeped in tradition without knowing where the original idea came from or are extremely critical of present day tradition but have not tried to look into the origin and enlighten others about it. The idea of Sati has not come from some meek women surrendering to death after the demise of the husband. In fact, the original legendary personality in Indian mythology bearing the name Sati was the beloved daughter of Prajapati Daksha and the beloved wife of Lord Shiva. Those were the days of early human settlements of the Vedic period. There appears to have been an attempt to relegate Shiva in the background and project Indra and such other deities in the fore front. Hence Daksha organised a �Yagya� for which all deities and local leaders were invited except Lord Shiva and his wife Sati. The story goes that Sati learnt of this Yagya, and feeling that she need not stand on the formalities of being invited by her own fire, went to attend the Yagya where she was not welcome. Further, she found that while all smaller and bigger deities were given their due recognitiion, Lord shiva, was sought to be dismissed and ignored despite his great capabilities. Furious at the behaviour of all her society, her kith and kin, for their inability to recognize and respect the Abilities of Lord Shiva, she created her own five through Yogic action and immolated herself. She condemned the society and ordained that Lord Shiva who was otherwise too docile, lenient and tolerant towards their misdemeanour must come forward and take revenge of her death and demand and ensure that the society recognises and respects his due place. Thus we see that the first mythological personality performing self immolation and giving her name �Sati� to the act of self immolation was a fiery lady, well versed in Hathoyoga, to be able to create her own Yogic Fire and also well versed in how society should behave and why the due respect must be given by society to a person of abilities. She is perhaps the first person to have emphasized that Rights are NOT for surrendering. She performed self immolation not on her husband�s pier as it were but as a protest against the society who failed to give respect and recognition where it was due. She was a fighter for her rights and her husband�s right and a martyr to that cause rather than someone who gives up fight against society because the husband had died. Another glorious personality of Indian mythology who is reverred equally as Sati and for the similarly wrong ideas is Savitri. Here was another fighter. She was a princess and a great warrier who used to accompany her father on battlefields. She was a great charioteer and a horse rider who set out on a long journey all alone so that �She could find a suitable husband for herself�. She found Satyawan, who once a prince, was living in jungles with his old parents after his father lost his kingdom in a battle and had become blind. What had Satyawan to offer to a princess but for his truthfulness! When Savitri went back to her father and declared her decision to marry Satyawan, the fortune tellers of her father�s court tried to disuade her by pointing out that Satywan was destined to die after a year. Look at the sharp wit and intelligence of Savitri. She asked whether she was destined to be a widow! �No� came the answer. Then where was need to worry for the destiny of Satyawan? The same wit is seen again when finally the Death God Yama comes to take away the life of Satyawan. First Yama has to acknowledge that she could see him face to face because she was utterly fearless. Later she tricked Yama in returning life back to Satyawan. Savitri fought her war with Yama not by weapons but by keeping her cool, going with Yama and engaging him in a polite but brilliant conversation in which she could trick him. This was a battle of wits and nerve! Savitri is the only personality in the Indian or the world mythology who is �Mrityunjayee� i.e. the conqueror of Death. What a denigration of our society that an act of meekly surrendering before the world, the society and the death by a woman gets associated with the two great ladies who did exactly the opposite. One fought for her husband�s rightful place and did something to bring him to realise that he must demand his rights. The other fought and conquered the Death God himself. Why has not our society been able to catch and retain a glimpse of their fighting spirit? And what a failure of our intelligentia to educate the men and women of this country regarding what was the true fighting spirits of Sati and Savitri. Our intelligentia have learned only to condemn those millions of men and women for their superstitions and their patriarchal attitudes. Instead why not educate them about the original personalities and their issues! Is not it high time to educate people that the word Sati cannot be associated with any lady not having the courage to dare and to challenge the society! Sati and Savitri are for daring, challenging and conquering your rights even by defeating Death itself. Payment of subsistance Allowance : - A case study in systemic changes for office efficiency The settlement Commissioner of Maharashtra has a contingent of nearly 10000 personal under suspension. This must be the scenario in many more offices at this operative level. The Department Enquiry Rules and Manuals provide for how to deal with these people. Two rules are crucial for present discussion (i) for a personal under suspension, the enquiry should be completed in six months - let this time is extendable by authorities at various levels (ii) The person under suspension will be paid a subsistance allowance which will be 50% of his pay and allowanc es for the initial 3 (?) months, to be enhanced to 75% for the remaining period of enquiry - however the authorisation for allowing him to draw these SA�s have to be only for three months (or less) and has to be revised by appropriate authority every three months. The office of Settlement Commissioner has to issue orders only for Class II and Class I officers. However, considering four orders per person per year, the average still came to nearly twenty orders per month. This appears very simple and trivial work for the dealing clerk. However, we realised that there was invariably a delay in issuing the order, which meant many letters, telegrams and complaint letters also per month. The concerned clerk would take quite a lot of time to prepare the order but he, with his desk officer always came to the SC with a panic on his face and demand immediate clearing of the file. The original dates of issue of suspension order are randomly distributed throughout the year and since all the authorisation for drawing the SA are issued for three calender months the renewed authorisation orders are also randomly distributed throughout the year. This means that all the concerned persons who have to write / rea / sign the file or dispatch have to do the same type of work almost once per day. The systemic change introduced in this procedure was done in 4-5 stages as below:- i) I kept signing the files as and when they came for introduci8ng any systemic change it is necessary to avoid all possible initial confusions) I only changed the end-date of authorisation to bring it to all end of the month by giving authorisation for less than 3 months. It was possible to give authorisation for more than 3 months and match the end date with the next month but no accounting man would allow it for fear of Audit para. 2) At the end of 3-4 months, the clerk suddenly found that nearly twenty cases had become due for renewed authorisation w.e.f. the 1st date of the month. This increased his panic by 20 times. At this stage I called a meeting of the concerned clerks, the concerned desk officers and the Establishment officers and asked them to prepare one single order, showing all the names in a tabular form. Initially they seemed confused and pleaded they couldn�t take out such an order or that it will not be acceptible to the various treasuip officers. However the EO, agreed to sign in original all copies going to all TO�s and found the no. of signatures was less than twenty, though all to be put on one single day. 3) At the end of 6 months, the clerk realised that he has to just look at the previous order and most probably repeat it in toto and thus has the guarantee of not missing any name. This brought down the complaints (in this complaint is equivalent to a minimum two man hours of work which is totally unproductive. The outward clerk has to just paste on cyclostyled copy of this order to his register and mention the total franking stamps he has put in and thus save most of the written work in the dispatch register. 4) Whenever the enquiry is delayed (in almsot 100% cases) and extension of suspension period has to be authorised by govt., the general practice was to ask for 1 or 2 or 3 months extension depending on the report from enquiry officer. By the time this is received from govt., case is generally due for asking for another extension and the process goes on by its own momentum and the enquiry never seems to be fixed for hearing or completion., We started sending cases to govt. in a bunch with one covering letter and one tabulated information and ask for extension upto end of a quarter for all the cases in that bunch. Sometime this meant asking for an extension for 4 to 5 months also. One Desk officer had to go Bombay to explain the desk officers there, why and how theyneed to give these extensions batch-wise rather than clear it on file to file basis. Once that was done the extensions by govt. has also started coming as one single order for several cases together. This has made actual file work very easy but more important, it made monitoring at my level very easy. This experiment of systemic change had the added advantage of attitudinal change - the office has started (I hope)thinking of various establishment problems in their totality (i.e. how many total files to process per month or per year or how many times to process one file during one year etc) rather than deal with them on a file to file basis. The office has also started thinking of other areas where similar clubbing procedure is possible. This has also brought in a certain degree of transperancy. One employee whose order is issued alongwith other twenty cases on one occasion, will immediately come to know that he has been missed on next occasion if he finds that other orders have come through. Similarly if someone has not received an order but finds that his name is included in the total list, then instead of coming to us, he can just procure a zerox copy because the office and the Treasury both have the original copy. The whole exercise and even this write up seems irrelevent and even unethical if we allow one question : Why are the DE�s kept pending for such long durations? What systemic changes are thought of to reduce this pendency? Still, without going into those questions at this occasion, I may claim that first experiment has led to a total saving of 70% of time spent by all personnel involved in this exercise. 5) The regional Deputy Commissioners have to issue similar orders for Class II staff. Some of them were smart to pick up the idea others were told to do so. However, the idea was explained to them in a meeting of the concerned desk officers besides the SC explaining it to the Deputy Commissioners. So after nearly 8 months the change has been completely implemented. Still it does not undermine the importance of the change because in coming years more and more such systemic changes are going to be needed if we have to take care of our growing volume of work in govt. offices. Sex differential trends in Infant Mortality *********** [Leena Mehendale] It is a biologically recognised fact in all scientific communities that male child is more vulnerable to illnesses than female child. Hence out of any given population of 1000, more male children would die than the female children. Nature has her own methods of checks and balances. She allows more male children to be born to begin with. Thus at birth there should always be more boys than girls. Then more male children would die so that finally the FMR would come to a favourable figure of around 1010. This is called favourable becasue it has been observed sociologically that any society having an FMR of 1010 or more is less crime prone, more peaceful and more advancing than the others. While we celebrate our reaching the One Billion Mark there is already an alarm that our FMR is already as low as 927 and is declining further which is a sure sign of great social malice. If we want to think of policy interventions, it helps to know where the desease is more acute, and how much more than the rest. An analytical report released by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of india, which studies death rates from Sample Registration System (SRS) tell us about the undercurrents in our existing demographic pattern. The overall death rate in India has decreased steadily which means that,now less number of people are dying per year, only 9.8 out of thousand people in 1993. This death pattern, however, is not uniform for people of all ages. Infants, that is children below one year age are most vulnerable and so also older people above the age of 70. Highest vitality is among the children in the agegroup of 10 to 14. A typical study of 1984 pattern showed that the death rate was 110.4 per thousand for children below 1 year, it came down to 15.9 for 1-4 age group and further down to 1.6 for 10-14 age group. Then it slowly moved upto only 4.1 for 35-39 age group. After the age of forty, the vulnerability was again higher, it was 8.0 for 45-49 and 44.1 for 65-59 age group. Death rate for 70+age group was 95.9. This demonstrates the natural phenomenon that infants are much more prone to die than any other age group, while children in the age group 10-14 are least prone. It is here that male-female death rate differential study becomes important. By nature�s design the male infant mortality should be more than the female infant mortality. However, this is not true of many Indian states. It is not very difficult to guess that the reason is rampant female infanticide. But the trends reveal more than that. The analysis of the Male Female death rate differential shows that the culprits are Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, UP, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and very surprisingly Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. Here is a very significant aspect. If we are trying to achieve better justice for the girl child, then we have to talk not only of BIMARU states, but also the so called affluent states like Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. For infants, the All India death rate decreased from 113 to 84 during 1983-93, and the male female differential remained nerarly 2 per thousand during the decade. In 1983, while 114.84 male infants dired per thousand the female infants dying were 112.94. For 1993 the figures were 85.84 and respectively . In that Kerala has far superior record than any other state, both in having low infant mortality rate and the male-female mortality differential rate. Barring Kerala, the three states of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Assam top the list of being very fair to the infant girls. The male female infant death differential in these states was above 9 throught the 1983-93 decade. Most cruel was Haryana whose differential was negative and remained around MINUS 10 throughout the decade of report. When only 73.14 infant boys were dying per 1000, as high as 83.39 infant girls were dying. If we take Karnataka, Maharashtra and Assam as the ideal situation with 10 more infant girls surviving than the infant boys then we find that Haryana record is just the reverse, where ten more infant girls die. Comparatively Punjab picture is much less bleak; only about 3 more infant girls dying than the boys throughout 1983-93. Himachal Pradesh shows a sudden alarm. It started with 3 more infant girls surviving in 1983, and went to as bad as 10 more girls dying upto 1991. The trend thereafter seems reversing again in favour of girl infants, with only 4 more girls dying than the boys. But it still remains alarming . Uttar Pradesh comes next to Haryana where the study shows a steady trend of nearly 8 more infant girls dying while the Bihar report throws a surprise. Earlier 4 more infant girls were dying but the differential came down close to zero in 1993. Knowing the otherwise worsening pictures in Bihar, someone may undertake a deeper study there. In three states, MP, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh which have a large tribal population, the trend is going against the girl infants. Andhra had a high record of favourable atmosphere to girl infants. Their death rate was less by 14.87 compared to male infant death rate in 1984. This differential has come down to 7.24 in 1993. Madhya Pradesh having the MF differential of 11.91 in 1983, has MF differential of only 2 in 1993. Orissa differential fluctuates between 9 and 4 but fortunately does not show a steadily declining trend. What could this mean? These states have a high tribal population who traditionally do not have a bias against girl child. Does the alarming trend of higher female infant mortality mean that the rate have become far worse in non-tribals or does it mean that the not has started setting in tribal culture also. One has to carefully watch and analyse the data for tribals. During the decade of 1983-93, the Tamil Nadu differential remains between - 2 and + 2 while Rajasthan remains within 0 to - 4. West Bengal has remained within 5 to 10. If we are worrying about a �faster than the normal� elimination of female infants, we have to look more closely in the social attitudes of Haryana, followed by Uttar Pradesh. Next to them more specific studies need to be undertaken to understand why Himachal Pradesh recorded an unfavourable trend of -10 differential, and is continuing to record -4 and why Gujarat recorded -9 differential before coming to the present +1 differential. What social and attitudinal changes have led to this reversal of trend in favour of girl infants in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. Even Bihar shows a favourable trend. How has the social psyche changed in just a decade? Next worrisome reports are from Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Rajasthan who all remain in the category of steady unfavourable conditions for girl infants. Orissa, West Bengal, Kerala show a steadily favourable trend. Maharashtra and Assam show an even better trend and Karnataka holds the best record for not eliminating the infant girls. In passing, it is useful to look at the overall infant mortality also. By 1993, the all India IMR has come down to 84. States showing higher IMRs are Madhya Pradesh (130), Orissa (119), Uttar Pradesh (105), Rajasthan (100), and Assam (95). All other states including Bihar have smaller IMR than All India figures. Maharashtra and Tamilnadu IMRs are around 55 while Kerala has the best record of only 17 IMRs. Smt. Leena Mehendale Joint Secretary National Commission for Women 4, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg New Delhi-110002. 1 REVIVAL OF SANSKRIT -Leena Mehendale 1. Time Constraint The study of Sanskrit both in terms of quanity and quality has suffered immense deterioration during the 20th century. It is quite likely that after the A.D. 2010 we will not be able to retain or protect this vast heritage which was ours for thousands of years. In our present population of about 100 crores we can hardly find about 5 lakh people who have some working knowledge of Sanskrit. Out of these most have proficiency only in some Sanskrit recital e.g. stotra or mantra which are employed in various rituals. A few others have proficiency in the language. People who can be called expert in Sanskrit are mostly in the age group of 60+. They will be lost to us within a short period of 15-20 years. There may be only few hundred of experts who are below the age group of 50 years and they may be far too inadequate for promotion of Sanskrit all by themselves. We cannot rely on them to take the study of Sanskrit much farther. Hence all the efforts for protection of Sanskrit must concentrate now for the coming 10-15 years. 2. Role of Modern Technology The problem of protection of Sanskrit must deal with the twin task of preservation of the old knowledge and its propagation. The preservation of traditional knowledge was done earlier by word of mouth and later by printing the books. Now very strong methods of retentioin have become available in terms of audio and video cassettes and CDs and other computer storages. However, we have not yet made use of these strong techniques for the promotion of Sanskrit. It is, therefore, necessary to see how we can get together and adopt a project approach running for a minimum of 10 years in order to create audio and video material which will at least document the presently available knowledge of Sanskrit. To give an example, it is estimated that there will be about 500 people wtill who can very well recite the Vedas in their true format. It would be a good idea to use this expertise and make audio and video cassettes of the Vedic recital. Similarly to print the Vedas, we have to use many more symbols than our present set of alphabets. For each such symbol there is typical rhythum and method of pronounciation. Hence, the proper and accurate printing of these texts and their true and honest rendering an audio cassettes must also be undertaken as a continuous and frequently repeated process. Then we come to the question of propagation. Merely preserving the heritage in the form of archieval knowledge will not be sufficient and efforts must be made to also promote the study of Sanskrit, both in terms of quality and quantity. 3. Lacunae in System of Education Methods of education adopted during 20th century were not at all conducive to propagation of Sanskrit. Alongwith Sanskrit other traditional knowledges such as Ayurved, astrology and astronomy, philosophy etc. have also suffered. Let us examine the lacunae in the present education that has led to such deterioration of our traditional knowledge. We use any language as means of communication to be used for the study of subject. For example, I may be studying physics or economics or botany and the aim of my study is to know these subjects. The medium which I may adopt may be Hindi, English or French etc. Thus language is only a means for the study of the subject and while that subject is being studied not much by thinking or effort should be needed into the study of a language. However, in case of Sanskrit this is not so, because Sanskrit has to be first studied as a subject before any other subject is studied through its medium. The study of this subject is an additional task which must be undertaken and at least a good level of proficiency must be acquired before we can actually reach out of the vast treasure of subject-wise knowledge from various Sanskrit texts. Our present system of education is NOT so designed as to fulfill this need of the extra effort. 4. The study of Sanskrit presently available in two forms: (i) one is general education of Sanskrit in which a nominal acquintance with the knowledge is given upto matriculation. Even further, upto graduation students can offer Sanskrit as one of three subjects of studies and may further opt for Sanskrit as the subject for post graduation. ii) The other system of studying Sanskrit is through the traditional vidyapeeths, at four levels. Prarthama, Madhyama, Shastri and Acharya. Madhyama level is equivalent to Matriculation and is expected to make the student proficient enough so as to undertake the study of other subjects through the medium of Sanskrit. However this fact is not fully appreciated or utilised in the study of Shastri or Acharya levels. The present syllabi at these levels offer only the following subjects for higher study: 1) Sanskrit itself 2) Dharamshastra which is a major convas and accommodates many other subjects like ethics, philosophy, economics, political science etc. and also science in small amounts. 3) Jyotish: It is necessary to change this approach of offering only three subjects and that too such subjects which are considered as relics of past. It is, quite obvious that this kind of higher study does not really help anyone to promote Sanskrit or bring it at par with other languages which are considered as storage of knowledge. Since that does not happen, therefore, gradually the vast knowledge of other subjects which is available in Sanskrit will also be lost. It becomes a vicious circle where both the language and the subjects will be lost to postereity. 5. Let us consider what were the subjects in which quite a great deal of study has taken place in the past. These subjects included astronomy, astrology zoology, economics, political science, ethics, logic, philosophy architecture, Ayurved, Botany, Physiology etc. It shall be appreciated that these were subjects in themselves, which is quite different from studying Sanskrit literature which comprises the study of dramas, stories or poetry in that language. However, the study of vast texts on these subjects has not been continued in the present era, through Sanskrit, because it is more convenient and up-to-date to study them through English. This preference for English as the language of learning any subject is likely to continue in future thus relegating Sanskrit further to past. However, in order that the study of Sanskrit is utilised to protect and expand the knowledge of the different subject it will be necessary that the many old Sanskrit texts on these subjects are supplemented by bringing the present concepts to them. For example, the study of archeology must be associated and supplemented by a study of chemistry, whether in English language or in Hindi language. Similarly the study of Ayurved must be supplemented vastly from the new innovations made in the field of basic sciences such as physics, chemistry, botany, zoology etc. It should be recalled that progress of Allopathy did not happen only through what can be called modern medicine. The innovations from basic sciences have contributed tremendously to the allopathic practices. For example, the concept of measuring pressure has helped in devicing the blood pressure instrument while technology of measuring temperature has helped in measuring the fever of a patient. The technology of producing X-rays has been greatly used in the Orthopedics. While the modern medicine or allopathy has kept up with these new innovationn in basic sciences, Ayurved has not done so. The reason for this can be solely attributed to the lack governmental support during the 19th and 20th Century which also amounted to lack of public support during the entire 20th century. Even today the government policy on Ayurved prescribes that Ayurved is only that knowledge which was written and documented in the days of Sushrut and Charak which must be of at least 500 years old. Therefore, the government policy itself does not allow Ayurved to be dynamic and derive the benefits of latest innovations in basic sciences. If Ayurved is to be understood as a science of life and a science of healthy life free of diseases and as a science of proper cures for the diseases then Ayurved must be treated as applied technology which should be able to draw upon the current scientific knowledge and match the current demands. For this Ayurved has to take into account and go hand in hand with the inventions of modern basic science. Today no Ayurvedic doctor seems to be capable of matching and comparing his knowledge of Ayurved with the modern knowledge of basic science. The Government has also not promoted this. In fact it can be stated that the government has not promoted this even in case of Allopaths, because, a student of MBBS does not generally attempt to get expertise in say chemistry or physics. However, the allopathic practitioner does not lose on account of this government lacunae because allopathic practitioners from other countries are encouraged for such simultaneous studies and they discover methods of adoption and application of basic sciences, thus additing on the available knowledge of modern allopathy. then the allopaths of our country only have to borrow whatever has come in practice in other countries. Unfortunately for Ayurved no such mechanism exists whereby some student will be able to combine Ayurved with the inventions of basic sciences to take Ayurved further from where it was in the era of Sushrut and Charak. Unless and until government is able to provide for this gap the study of Ayurved is going to remain a static study and will soon be converted into dead data base. Here, therefore, comes the role of Sanskrit scholars and institutions teaching Sanskrit. Through the study of Sanskrit they have to explore the hidden past knowledge of Ayurved but they also have to make the students conscious and capable of simultaneously studying the modern subjects. Then only the knowledge of Sanskrit can be widened and be made relevant and useful to the present day situation. Other subject of great importance but vastly ignored by our educationists who design the syllabi of Sanskrit and Ayurved is the field of research especially, numerical research including the skill of handling statisticaal data base. Our Ayurved practioners do not have expertise to conduct any numerical study to really find out the efficacy of their methods. It is not only their fault. They have not been trained to undertake any study or research or how to handle statistical data base. Therefore alongwith study of Ayurved we have to introduce more such studies. In short, we have look for more capable students than the average and this will come through only with proper strategies. Here I would like to quote the example of Alberuni, the famous historian who visited India alongwith Mahmud Gaznavi during the 11th century. It is stated that Mr. Alberuni after visiting India studied Sanskrit language. Then he studied the Indian philosophy, then he studied in depth, the concept of various rituals for Sanskar. After all that, he visited several houses at different localities and took actual tally of how and how much these households or communities were actually conducting and participating in such rituals. This kind of numerical study is quite unthinkable for the present day students of Ayurved or students of traditional Sanskrit Vidyapeeths. Hence it appears that whatever is taught today in the Sanskrit Vidyapeeth is soon going to become irrelevent and once that happenes we would have completely lost this vast heritage of ours. 6. What can the individuals contribute? It is, therefore, necessary now to sit up or stand up and do something for the preservation and propagation of Sanskrit. I put forward the following questions for the consideration of all those who have any interest in the subject: 1) Do you wish that efforts should be made for the preservation and propagation of Sanskrit? 2) Do you wish to contribute to such efforts? 3) Are you ready to go into some action for fulfilling your wish? 4) Given only the period of next 10 years or 3600 days, how much period are you willing to contribute for this cause? Kindly answer in terms of number of days per year and no. of hours per week. 5) Can you specify how many hours per day you will be in a position to contribute for this cause? 6) In addition to time will you also be in a position to contribute in terms of money or professional expertise or influence? 7) Your professional expertise in following areas will be necessary:- a) Knowledge of Sanskrit language including the knowledge of literature available in Sanskrit dealing with various subjects. b) Managerial expertise to undertake a project for protection and propogation of Sanskrit. c) Knowledge of modern science such as mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, Botany, economics, sociology, archaeology, astrology, architecture engineering, etc. d) Your knowledge and expertise of handling media either through writing or through photographs or through audio and video cassettes. e) Your expertise in handling advertising. f) Expertise in printing methodology. g) Expertise in fund collection. h) Expertise in accounts, book keeping, library science and library management. i) Your expertise in PR relations to identify and motivate personalities who will be of use for the cause. j) Expertise in computers and other techniques of data - storage. k) Expertise in preparing Educational material. In order to support or encourage the propagation of Sanskrit some scholarship arrangement will have to be made immediately. I would like to suggest that very good scholarship involving lot of monetary and other incentives should be given for the students for simultaneously acquiring proficiencies in modern sciences + Sanskrit, or modern science + Ayurved, or modern subjects + corresponding literature available in Sanskrit. Historian must be encouraged to do the dating of various books and text written in different era. The language used in Sanskrit texts has changed from period to period and therefore, we also need to have scholar with expertise in understanding how the grammar and usage in Sanskrit has changed from period to period. We also have to prepare a catalogue of all the available literature either in the form of printed or hand written material available with a large number of household and institutions. We also need expertise in the deciphering technique of all this material. One major source of literature and genetic or family heritages is the vast record lying with large number of Pandas in various pilgrim places. We may have to make efforts to get this material collected and preserved in the form of prints, CD�s etc. These are some of the thoughts which I have put up as a draft paper to explain the objectives of a project which will have to be worked out by all those who feel concern for our language, knowledge and heritage. -- -xxxxx--- Smt. Leena Mehendale Joint Secretary National Commission for Women 4, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg New Delhi-110002.

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