How an episode of The Simpsons is made

By Chris Plante

on October 25, 2015 10:00 am

In 1996, The Simpsons passed The Flintstones as the longest running prime-time animated show. In the 30-year interim, the tenor of adult cartoons had shifted dramatically: The Simpsons was more caustic and puerile than The Flintstones, a shameless Stone Age remake of hit 1950s sitcom The Honeymooners. What had hardly changed was the creative process.

Like The Flintstones, The Simpsons relied on a large Los Angeles-based writer’s room, a coterie of directors, a squad of storyboard and design artists, and dozens of animators. The biggest change in production over three decades was simply geography; by 1996, The Simpsons had begun outsourcing the final stage of animation to a studio in South Korea.

A year after The Simpsons passed The Flintstones, South Park premiered on Comedy Central. If The Simpsons was a middle finger to the establishment, the animation of Trey Parker and Matt Stone was a burning bag of shit. It was cheap and fast to animate with paper cutouts, which allowed the show to comment on recent events. Cartoons at the time, requiring months of costly animation, needed to be comparably timeless in their story and humor, but South Park targeted the present.

Thanks to computer animation and the internet, South Park, the shows of Adult Swim, and countless online-only animated shorts, like Homestar Runner, have made animation faster, rougher, and looser. But The Simpsons, to this day, embraces the formula of the past. While an episode of South Park can now be created in a single week by a lean team, The Simpsons has actually added roles and failsafes to its lengthy process. In the world of animated TV, The Simpsons may be the last of its kind, an expensive, high-touch, slow-paced production built on formulas dating back to Walt Disney and Hanna-Barbera.

The Simpsons is now in its 27th season. This is how an episode of the program is made, a detailed, meticulous look at a process that has its bedrock but builds upon it with the tools and lessons of the future.

It begins with a pitch….

A few weeks before the warm Christmas of Southern California, the writers of The Simpsons — the longest-running sitcom in the US, starring everybody’s favorite family: Homer, Marge, Lisa, Baby Maggie, and their son Bart — take a retreat. The rest of the season, the team breaks scripts in the sterile writers' rooms of the Fox studio lot, but the creative process always began in a home or the big conference space of a nearby hotel.

Each writer brings a fleshed-out minute or so episode pitch, which they deliver with gusto to a room full of funny people. They laugh, take notes, then co-creator Matt Groening, executive producer James L. Brooks, and showrunner Al Jean — a portion of the braintrust from the earliest days — provide feedback.
In an essay on Splitsider about the writing process of seasons three through eight, former Simpsons writer and producer Bill Oakley described the pleasure of the retreats:

"It was always a huge treat to see. You had no idea what George Meyer (for instance) was going to say, and suddenly it was like this fantastic Simpsons episode pouring out of his mouth that you never dreamed of. And it was like, wow, this is where this stuff comes from.
A lot of times people worked collaboratively, too. We would work with Conan, back and forth, and we’d exchange ideas and help polish them up. And so everybody would usually come with two, sometimes three ideas. You’d take fifteen minutes and you’d say your idea in front of everybody — all the writers, Jim Brooks, Matt Groening, Sam Simon when he was still there, and also the writers assistants who would be there taking notes on all this stuff."

Writing a draft

After receiving notes and some creative direction, an episode’s writer takes two weeks to pen a first draft. "Almost all of the writing is done here at the Fox [lot] in one of two rewrite rooms," says Al Jean, who at the time of the interview is deep into production of the show’s upcoming 27th season. "The two rooms was a change that came about around season nine. We split because we had enough writers, and we could get more done."

The writers' retreat has evolved, but the purpose remains the same

 

Getting more done with more tools and more hands is the throughline of the modern Simpsons production process. There are more people doing more jobs with more failsafes at a higher cost on The Simpsons than the majority of — if not all — animated television shows.

A writer has four to six weeks to complete rewrites. "We’ll continue to rework [the script] six or seven times before the table read," says Al Jean. "Jim and I will give notes. We rewrite it."

In those late night television commercials that promise to make everyone a screenwriter, the script is often called the blueprint of our favorite television shows and films, a term that implies an exacting, blessed, top level instruction which the rest of the dozens if not hundreds if not thousands of artists involved obey. That notion — as anyone who has seen a summer blockbuster or network sitcom can tell — is false. The script is vulnerable, malleable, and subject to constant scrutiny. There's a blueprint for animated shows, but it comes later. The completed draft is like a guide through the woods, ready to be supplemented, revised, or outright redrawn if need be.

(An excerpt from Judd Apatow's The Simpsons script, The Daily Beast)

 

The table read

Each Thursday of production, the cast, producers, and writers meet for a table read of the latest script. Some of the cast attends the table read, others phone into the room. Occasionally, voice actor Chris Edgerly, who has handled "additional voices" for the show since 2011, will fill in for one of the leads. "It’s very unusual that they’re all at the table at the same time now," says Jean. "People’s schedules got busier, people actually moved out of Los Angeles. It’s the normal sort of entropy of life, you know."
Despite being to hundreds of table reads, Al Jean still can’t get comfortable. He describes a critical setting in which the script is judged on its creative value, but also under the duress of external forces. A cell phone might go off or an actor might be fighting a cold, and the read's vibe shifts. "Last week," says Jean, "there was a truck backing up, that came in the middle, and that was distracting people. The table read is my number one unpleasant experience."

Voice recording

"[The role is akin to a TV director] except our director has to create everything."

 

On the Monday following a table read, the cast performs the voice recording, typically at the studio in LA. The actors and actresses record on separate tracks, rather than together — a common method for capturing voice-over. "It’s funny," says Jean. "I read a review in The AV Club where they said about a certain show there was great interaction between two people, and they never met. They didn’t record in the same place. I’m glad it worked, but there was no physical connection."

Direction

As work transitions from script to animation, the episode is offered to a director, who, if they accept, is given ownership of production and animation responsibilities. "[The role is] sort of akin to a TV director who takes the script of a show and turns it into an episode," says Jean. "Except our director has to create everything. [... The director] takes the audio track, supervises the design, the motions, and what we call the acting of the animation, and [supervises] the whole visual aspect of [the episode]."

Both Jean, who serves as story liaison throughout production of the series as a whole, and each episode’s director work in tandem to shepherd the script through the animation process.

(The Simpsons storyboard)

 

Storyboard

According to veteran Simpsons storyboard artist Luis Escobar, the animation phase of a new season will begin between February and April, depending on the status of scripts and other production variables. Some animators have a hiatus between seasons; others periodically transition directly from one season to the next.
An episode’s animation begins with storyboarding, a process that contains multiple steps, and ultimately produces the materials a South Korean animation studio named Akom will use to complete the episode.

"[The storyboard] is just a blueprint of the episode."

 

"Our job," says Escobar, "is to do all the thinking, planning, and [design] of the show. This is what it's going to eventually look like. That’s what a storyboard is: just a blueprint of the episode."

An episode is assigned to a small group of initial storyboard artists at The Simpsons' work space in Southern California. According to an extensive series of posts on Escobar’s blog about the animation of the show, the board is reviewed, revised, and then sent to Fox for another round of notes. Alongside the storyboard, an additional squad of designers is assigned props, characters, and backgrounds unique to the episode, all of which undergo a similar series of internal and external drafts and reviews.

In early seasons, storyboarding was done entirely on paper. In mid-season, the show switched to animatics — a series of images paired with the voice track — that would be edited on tapes. Relatively recently, storyboards transitioned to digital, in which all of the art and audio is uploaded to an online hub accessible anywhere from computers and smart devices.

Jean says he can now edit audio from his phone instead of visiting an editing bay, and video effects can be made with a few digital tweaks, instead of requiring portions of the board to be entirely redrawn.

(The Simpsons storyboard)

 

Story reel

The storyboard — revised from Fox’s notes and accompanied by the voice track — is screened to story reel artists, who are each assigned a portion of the episode. The work of the story reel artists, a mix of character and background animators, can range from polish to triage, depending on the storyboard's quality upon arrival. As Escobar explains, the reel artists add additional characters' poses, clean backgrounds, and incorporate notes from the director, who at this stage is refining the composition of the shots.

As work is completed, the artists once again upload to a server, and the editor inserts the fleshed-out segments in place of their respective portions of the storyboard until the entire storyboard is replaced with a completed story reel.

The two phases sound quite similar, but they serve different functions. Where the storyboard is somewhere between a picture book and the flip book, the story reel visualization ideally plays like a barebones, black-and-white version of the actual episode.

"Oh no! Homer needs to be on the other side of the room."

Once the reel is ready, shareholders — Al Jean and the producers, writers, and episode director — meet at Fox for a screening. "It’s an interesting situation," writes Escobar, "because everyone in the room potentially knows all the jokes and how they should play out."

Shareholders take notes, discuss what works and doesn’t, then pitch additions or changes they’d like made. After a short break, the team reconvenes and watches the episode again, this time stopping and starting the reel to discuss how those changes will be incorporated, sketch rough stills of what the changes should look like, and nail down any other tweaks to be made by the storyboard revisionist.

Storyboard revisions

Storyboard revisionists get roughly two weeks to revise or outright create new scenes, following notes from the previous screening. Because hundreds of hours of animation and design have already gone into the storyboard, revisionists try to salvage parts from scenes that have been cut by repurposing them within the revisions.

The revisionist must also make sure the changes flow with the rest of the story reel. On his blog, Escobar provides an example:

"Oh no! Homer needs to be on the other side of the room by the end of the sequence, but he no longer has that line that made him walk over there to begin with! How in blazes is he suppose to get to the other side to deliver his joke? CUT to a quick reaction shot of Bart or Marge. CUT back to Homer who is magically in the other side of the room. He must of walked over there while he was off screen. Problem solved."

(Bart Simpson style sheet, Reddit)

Layout

According to Escobar, few American animated shows still do the layout process, let alone do so in house.
Layout, he says, is the closest phase to what the layperson imagines animation to be — that classic image of a Disney cartoonist fanning paper back and forth, sketching characters into motion. At The Simpsons, layout is a digitized version of that method. Each animator — divided into character and background artists — uses Pencil Check Pro to animate roughly 15 scenes for an episode, making as accurate a depiction of the final product as possible. While storyboards are rough, layout is refined.

The layout artist is, at once, performer and cameraperson

Characters are drawn to match a model sheet (above) — a guide of established poses and expressions for the show’s characters. Whenever Homer shouts with joy, the style sheet explains, his mouth opens in just this way.

Arguably the most important function of the layout artist is imbuing the static storyboard images with performance. When Homer cracks a beer, Lisa plays the saxophone, or Sideshow Bob steps on a rake, the layout artist decides precisely how that will look. In some capacity, they double as actors, using the storyboard and voiceover as direction, then emoting through the residents of Springfield as they feel fit.
The acting, the poses, the backgrounds, props, emotions — everything the story layout artists draw will be directly incorporated in the final "clean line" version of the episode animated by the studio in South Korea.
Along with performance, layout is when shots are framed, as they would be with a camera in the real world, exactly as they will appear in the finished episode.

Story layout is the longest and most detailed step, and can take anywhere from a month to a month and a half, depending on the complexity of the episode and whether or not other episodes are in production. "[It’s where the director has] the most control over what happens," says Escobar. "[As a storyboard artist,] I hear the words ‘I’ll take care of it in layout’ a lot from directors."

(The Simpsons exposure sheet)

 

The timer

As soon as a character layout artist finishes a scene, they deliver to the timer. A timer’s role is to write exposure sheets, the notes for Akom on how to interpret and apply the work of the story layout artist. If the layout artist's work is the wood for your new bookshelf, the exposure sheet is the instruction booklet. And like any furniture instructions, it's indecipherable to everyone but the experts.

Hhh-ooh-ohm-me-er-Si-im-ps-suh-hnn

The role is called "timer," because in the past, the timer broke down all dialogue and animation, assigning tiny pieces to specific frames — or times — of the episode. Each line on the exposure sheet represents a frame or group of frames of film. To the right of each frame number, the timer writes what needs to be animated and how.

The Simpsons is animated at 24 frames per second — every second, 24 images appear on the screen — which is to say thousands of drawings can compose a single scene. To break down all of those drawings, the timer writes dialogue phonetically, and the established mouth shapes that match each sound, onto the exposure sheet. For example, Homer saying his own name would look something like Hhh-ooh-ohm-me-er-Si-im-ps-suh-hnn, each sound running down the page alongside their assigned frame numbers.
The timer would also include references to Homer’s character model sheet, and any specific accents or flourishes that needed to be made to his face or body. And the timers, of which there are two on The Simpsons' team, do this for every character in every scene.

(For those fascinated by the most unusual and overlooked position, former Simpsons director Chuck Sheetz created a tutorial on how to write classic exposure sheet, which should help you picture the timing in action.)

Escobar says that with the move to digital, character layout artists often "rough time" their scenes by creating a digital animatic, using the frames they've drawn to produce a very rough animation of a scene. The timer takes that animatic and documents the visuals onto the exposure sheet, adding any touches the animatic doesn’t include. Eye blinks, finger twiddles, fidgeting — there’s no detail too small for the timer to add to the exposure sheet, ensuring the team in LA maximum control over what the South Korean animation studio delivers.

Scene planning

If a scene is particularly complicated, it’s sent to Scene Planning, an internal team formed after The Simpsons Movie, that digitally animates elaborate scenes. The really flashy, fast-moving, large-scale scenes that feature a bevy of characters: they usually go through here.

Print

"There’s a specific position held by a production guy called Peter Gave," says Escobar. "His job is to take all of the digital character layout scenes, along with the timing and everything [else], and he prints them out on paper and those are shipped to [South] Korea." Escobar laughs. "When we do character layouts, [even though its art is digital] we are restricted to the field sizes of actual paper."
"They're making sure there aren't any mistakes."

Checkers

Two checkers review everything — all of the character layout artwork, the exposure sheet, and the printed materials — and they make sure that every piece of art and line of direction matches on the exposure sheet.
"They’re basically the spell checkers," says Escobar. "They’re checking the grammar [of the animation]. They’re making sure that there aren’t any mistakes." If they find an inconsistency or a missing portion for artwork, they return to the director and get the error fixed.

Once every portion of the episode is checked and approved, it’s shipped to South Korea.

Akom

The role of Akom, a South Korean animation studio located west of Seoul, is to animate all of the frames between the drawings in the final reel delivered by the layout artists. Say the layout artists animated 20 frames for a 3-second scene. At 24 frames per second, the sequence is 72 frames long. The animation studio would need to do a clean line version of the original 20 frames and the 52 frames of animation between them. The process is called original equipment manufacturing; Akom is one of many OEM studios in its nation.

According to a 2005 report by China Daily, Akom has handled the more or less final and unquestionably significant phase of animation on The Simpsons for nearly 25 years. At the time of China Daily’s report, roughly 120 animators and technicians translated the storyboard and layouts into the completed rough edit of an episode, a process that takes about three months, depending on the episode’s complexity and position within the season. The report cites OEM animators making a third of US counterparts, though it's unclear how pay has changed over the past decade.

Akom has helped animate The Simpsons for nearly 25 years

Despite Akom's position in the animation wing of the show, Escobar couldn’t really speak to any other details about the work done at the animation studio. Escobar compared the aforementioned layout process in Los Angeles to the male animators of Disney’s golden era, but a paragraph in the China Daily report echoes Disney’s former band of women inkers and painters that put the finishing touches on the studio’s classics: "On one floor, a staff of mostly young women sit at computers as they scan animation cells, add colours and put the final technical touches to the show." Akom is the magic; the all-but-invisible twist that brings everything together.

Final review, retakes, and final edit

Akom ships a completed, full color version of the episode from South Korea back to the studio in Los Angeles, where it’s edited, then shown to the shareholders, who once again give notes for revisions. With the show approaching air date, this is where a few topical jokes are sometimes added.

If there’s time, the notes are handled by Akom. If there isn’t time, the revisions are handled by the retakes division, a skeleton crew of two or three artists who can perform all functions of the animation process: storyboards, character layout, clean up, animation, and final timing.

"It gets really hectic," says Escobar, "because [retakes division has] to deal with the actual air dates. There have been situations or circumstances where the retakes finish the day or the night before [an episode] airs, that sort of thing where they’re like at work, actually cleaning the stuff up and coloring it."

Finally, an editor works with Al Jean to incorporate the retakes into the episode, does a final pass on the show’s colors, music is added — a process so substantive and distinct, it warrants an explainer unto its own — sound is mixed, the episode is wrapped, and it's sent to Fox where the new episodes air on Sunday nights.

The process doesn't so much start again, as it continues. As the production ramps, multiple episodes are in development at once, with every step of the process constantly overlapping. You understand why the writers — and everyone else involved — would need a retreat.

Looking back

When does Al Jean know an episode will make it safely through the process?
"Usually at the mix," he says, "when everything’s all set. That’s pretty pleasant. The thing is, there’s always the potential that things are not coming together the way you expected. They can fall apart at the first audio assembly. They can fall apart at the animatic. They can fall apart in the color screening. You’re never really off the hook."

"The first episode ever done," Jean says, "was by someone who didn’t quite get the show. It needed a lot of rework. It was held back 'til maybe the last episode of the first season. It’s pretty well known it was very disappointing to everybody. Fortunately the second episode, 'Bart the Genius,' directed by David Silverman, was very good. The show was originally going to debut in the fall of ‘89, but because the first [episode] didn’t work, we decided to wait 'til Christmas so the episode directed by Silverman could be the first [airing in January, a little under a month after The Simpsons’ Christmas special, 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire'].

We never, other than that, have taken a color and not aired it. We’ve done heavy rewrites sometimes at colors. We’ve never even thrown a script out after a [table] read. Maybe a couple of times we should’ve, but we never have."

Source: theverge

In letter to PM, President, Admiral Ramdas alleges RSS pushing ‘Hindu Rashtra’ agenda

Ramdas, who was the chief of naval staff between 1990-93, accused the country’s leadership of playing with fire.

By: Express News Service | New Delhi | Updated: October 26, 2015 6:27 am

Ramdas, who was the chief of naval staff between 1990-93, accused the country’s leadership of playing with fire.

In an open letter to President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former Navy chief Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas alleged that the “RSS and their network” were leading a “systematic and well orchestrated attempt to impose a majoritarian single-point agenda of creating a Hindu Rashtra in India”. Admiral Ramdas was also the former internal Lokpal of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Stressing that the Hinduism he “knew” was “not filled with the kind of violence and intolerance represented by the current brand of “Hindutva” that was “fanning the flames of division and fear across the country”, he said that series of attacks on “minorities and Dalits” had forced him to hang his head in “shame”.

Ramdas, who was the chief of naval staff between 1990-93, accused the country’s leadership of playing with fire.

In his three-page letter, Ramdas wrote that it was “most shocking” to see no condemnation of such activities by those at the helm of affairs. He said that the “co-ordinated response of those in government seems to be to downplay the attacks – by terming them ‘sad’ and ‘unfortunate’.”

Later, speaking to The Indian Express, Ramdas said that he had no hope that the country’s top leadership will respond to his letter. “I have done my job by pointing out that the fabric of Indian Constitution is in danger.”

Source: indianexpress

Boutique Liberal Activism: Has our freedom of expression really been suppressed?

Tuesday, 20 October 2015 - 9:06am IST | Agency: dna webdesk

Vivek Agnihotri

When the myth of secularism failed, freedom of expression became the new moral parameter. Intolerance is the new fad.


Sudhir Shetty dna

“You love it when I have problems. You love it because then you can be the good one…”, says Jennifer Lawrence’s character in the highly acclaimed film, Silver Linings Playbook.

It’s a game people play. More, if you happen to be an Indian Liberal.

Like everyone else, I was also born liberal. I played with every child, responded to every idea, and in my imagination, my world wasn’t divided between Hindu, Muslim, Christian etc. It wasn’t divided between rich and poor. There was no discrimination, no hatred. I loved women and men equally. For me, this world was one. Full of people who loved me, and whom I loved. Then who created these fragments in my mind? As I grew, at every step, my world kept shrinking. At every step, I was reminded of my unique identity in terms of my nationality, colour, caste and regionality. While in Bhopal, as a child of a powerful Government officer, I was an elite. Then I did some anti-establishment plays and local newspapers introduced me as a young leftist. When I went to study in Delhi, I became a vernacular, Hindi speaking, small town, middle-class, outsider. While studying in the US, I was a third world, brown Indian. Back in India, in advertising, I was an elite capitalist. When I joined the world of entertainment, I became a progressive creative person. When I joined Anna’s movement, I was a liberal, intellectual voice of Bollywood. Last year, when I openly supported Modi for PM, I became a right-wing bhakt. Recently, I questioned provocative ‘beefy’ statements of some, and now I have become a Sanghi, a Hindu. Hindus see me as upper caste Brahmin.  My family thinks I am not the same upper caste Brahmin as my children eat beef (not cow meat). In the film industry, I am either a commercial filmmaker or an indie filmmaker but never a pure filmmaker. I always feel fragmented and divided. This is true for everyone. Despite this fragmentation, discrimination and prejudices, I live freely, happily and in harmony with the other fragments of our society. We tolerate each other, effortlessly. Why are then some people feeling ‘creeping intolerance’ in our society?

The other day I was invited to India’s loudest news channel and the famous anchor asked for my stand on FTII issue. I said I am against the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan and also against student’s manhandling of the Director. I was told ‘No, you have to take one stand as I have to seat you either on my left or on my right.” In the school of Indian liberalism, you have to be pitted against someone. In the Indian Boutique of Liberalism, you don’t get to express your opinion until it’s in black and white. Conflict, contradiction and chaos are the tools to submerge any voice of reason. You have to be either here or there. You have to be in constant conflict. If you happen to be living in harmony, you lose your utility to them. You have to have a problem, for them to love you. You just can’t be against the lynching of a Muslim and in favour of cow-slaughter at the same time. Either you tweet about Muslim victims or Hindu victims. But never about both in a single tweet. We are dividing our worlds in 140 characters. Ghettoism of thoughts has replaced ‘global ideas’.  Branded, boutique activism has become the character of our intellectual society. When the myth of secularism failed, freedom of expression became the new moral parameter. Intolerance is the new fad.

Is our Freedom of Expression really suppressed? If yes, how come people are freely expressing it? I remember the times when plain clothed CID officers followed anyone who was anti-Indira. Are we really intolerant? How come we have so many political parties ruling so many different states? This means there is political tolerance. In industry we have equal opportunities for all kinds of enterprise. Malls exist in the midst of local bazaars and street vendors. Sikhs have shops in the heart of Srinagar. Biharis have farms in Punjab. Which means there is no financial intolerance. In administration, education and health we never question the religion or political alignment of the practitioner. If people can openly criticise the Prime Minister, ridicule religious leaders, question social taboos, debate issues ranging from FTII to bar dancers, return Akademi awards, make fun of regional leaders, it proves that there is no media or FoE intolerance. Close your eyes and visualise Indian map. Try to visualise each and every town, village and hamlet, focusing on how people live there? Are they at conflict? Are they killing each other? Are people eating what they wish? Are they wearing what they wish to wear? Do Hindus, Muslims, Christians and other minorities live, work, socialise together? We enjoy kavi sammelans and mushairas with same enthusiasm. We hum our geet and our ghazals with same joy. All young lovers fall back on Urdu shayari to express their love. Bollywood music will lose its sheen without Urdu lyrics. In movies, don’t we cry and laugh together? Generally speaking, people live in harmony and in a certain social order. Supreme Court opening at midnight to reconsider Yakub Memon’s death penalty on one side and some people celebrating Godse’s anniversary on the other side. It indicates that there is extreme tolerance for polarised cultural and religious sensibilities. Writers are free to write on any subject, take, and then return their awards as a protest. In art, in literature, in films and in almost all creative fields there is tremendous tolerance for different ideas and creations. We don’t buy a pot on the basis of the colour of its potter. Is this fear of intolerance built on real threat or perceived threat?  Does this exist in flesh or is it just a ghost?

Who is dividing our society? Who is communalising issues? When a Dadri happens why do TV channels invite Owaisi and Sadhvi Prachi? What has Owaisi’s relevance to this theme when he has no locus standi in the politics of UP? How is Sadhvi Prachi relevant to cow-slaughter? Is Sakshi Maharaj a spokesperson for Hindu aspirations? Is he the sole BJP MP to comment on every social issue? Why aren’t sane, rational voices heard anymore? Why haven’t I heard a ‘cow slaughter laws’ expert enlightening us on ‘Cowism’? I’ll tell you why. If you invite sane voices of reason, the game of boutique activism stands exposed. Boutique Liberal Activism feeds on misery of others. Schadenfreude is the oxygen of their business. That’s why they show only the miserable side of our society. Have you noticed that the evolved, enlightened and reasonable voice of India is absolutely absent from national discourse? Now, you decide, who divides.

Our society is divided into ‘overclass’ (as described by Michale Find) and ‘underclass’. Overclass has systematically siphoned off the national wealth leaving underclass to fight for two square meals. They either inherited or, in collusion with the corrupt regimes, appointed themselves to the positions of power and influence. With strong control over information, they kept underclass in the dark. Their word was the final word. The biggest trick the overclass played on underclass is keeping the hope alive that only they can get them out of this abject poverty. That we have problems and they have the solution. This is the same trick godmen and Satan play on us. The same trick Indian overclass played on us. This disproportionate overclass with social, economic and political clout has constantly shown disdain and contempt for the traditional social values and the underclass is now questioning their motives. If different ideologies, traditions and cultures co-exist and democracy finds popular favour, it’s not due to this narrow but influential elite. It’s due to the tolerance level of the underclass. With level playing field in social media, their game is exposed.

Two phenomenon disturbed this status quo. One, the advent of social media, and second, the rise of Narendra Modi. With the easy access to social and digital media, underclass started questioning the authenticity of information provided by the overclass. Suddenly, their statements are scrutinised, their credibility is questioned, their sinister campaigns and lies are exposed. Their dilemma is that they if they quit social media, they lose their relevance and if they stay, they lose their credibility. This war of intolerance isn’t between HDL (Hindu Defence League) and MDL (Muslim Defence league). This isn’t between the left and the right. This is between the overclass and the underclass. The intellectual hierarchy has been demolished. It’s a sad commentary that in the world’s largest democracy, the writers’ protest has become a subject of jokes. The power hungry artists, writers, academia and media in India waste so much time making political statements to hide behind their lack of intellectual stands. Michel Houellebecq wrote 'Submission', a strong political statement, he didn’t get press coverage for returning some award. The lustre is gone from our intellectual discourse. Secularism has lost its ideological currency. Artists, writers, activists are all suspects. Media czars have lost their access to corridors of power and to people’s hearts. It’s the overclass’ space that has been taken over by the underclass. Their discomfort is with the new order where the others are also heard. Hence, the feeling of shrinking space, by the overclass. They are intolerant to this new phenomenon— the emergence of underclass. They try to devalue this new, empowered underclass by associating it with Modi and, therefore, Hindutva, and that’s a grave mistake. The universe that was full of their voice has shrunk to accommodate this new voice. This is what they call an attack on FoE and growing intolerance.

They work exactly like religion. Most of the religious books are based on fear. If you do this, that will happen. Nobody knows what ‘this’ or ‘that’ is. Social justice, if it has to come, will come only from a free and fair market. Why didn’t our liberals tell us this simple truth? When agendas, vote banks and self-delusion take over, reasoning and sympathy are needed to keep up a common conversation. Without it, there is aggression, deafness, and an obsession with purification; hence the divisive politics of Boutique Liberalism.  Boutique Liberalism is an Indian tragedy and a very damaging detour into the quicksand of communalism. Indian Liberalism has come to mean the colour opposite of saffron. That’s their failure. In a desperate attempt, their new mantra is -“We don’t care if you are a gay, we want to know whether you are a liberal or a Sanghi gay?”

Stupid ideas thrive on stupid people.  If we let stupid ideas become central to our national debate, we are also proving ourselves to be stupid. Like excellence, stupidity is also habit forming. Who is stupid and dumb? The newsmen who sell rubbish as news or the audience who believe in rubbish as news? They will keep pointing at our problems. They will love us only when we have problems. This illusion needs to be destroyed before it sucks us in. We have that power. The power to ignore the stupid.

Vivek Agnihotri is a filmmaker, writer and motivational speaker. He tweets at @vivekagnihotri

Source: dnaindia

Rising intolerance: What is at stake is the very soul of India

What most Indians who voted for the BJP don’t realise (or accept) is that they were duped by Prime Minister Modi.

Published:October 20, 2015 1:53 pm

Why people tolerate the Sangh’s divisive agenda is because constitutional principles (which define the idea of India) are not deeply embedded in the “collective consciousness” of India.

By Pushparaj Deshpande

To much public consternation, Haryana CM Manohar Khattar recently asserted that “Muslims can continue to live in India, but they will have to give up eating beef”. He contended that because cow slaughter hurts the sentiments of Hindus, Muslims and Christians must learn to live without it. In defending Khattar’s views, BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj also justified the assault on J&K legislator Sheik Abdul Rashid as a “natural reaction” to his beef party. He went so far as to advocate the death penalty for cow slaughter. In what must have caused considerable heartburn to its core constituency, Venkaiah Naidu has sought to distance the BJP from Khattar’s views arguing that “it is not correct to link eating habits to religion”, and that eating was a personal choice. Meanwhile, BJP’s chief Amit Shah summoned several BJP leaders to reprimand them for their public comments.

A vast majority of Indians voted in the BJP because it gave them hope in its promise of development and freedom from corruption. It promised to take India to soaring heights, so it could march shoulder to shoulder with the superpowers of the day. It is these very supporters who are increasingly feeling disappointed at the numerous crises that engulf India today. To some, all of it is merely circumstantial, to others the responsibility lies solely with “fringe elements”. What unites them is disbelief in their beloved Prime Minister’s complicity in any of it. To them, it’s just a Congress/pseudo-sickular/leftist/intellectual/anti-national/anti-Hindu conspiracy to undermine PM Modi and the visionary development path that he has laid down for India. Is this really the case? Does the BJP and PM Modi have nothing to these so called “fringe elements”? Are these incidents just unnecessary impediments to their development agenda for India?

In trying to understand this, one has to contextualise the BJP’s foundational roots. The BJP draws inspiration from the likes of MS Golwakar, who contentiously argued (“We: Our Nationhood Defined”) that “foreign races in Hindustan must either adopt… Hindu culture and language… must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e. of the Hindu nation, and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race; or may stay in the country… claiming nothing, deserving no privileges… not even citizen’s rights”. These views were echoed by VD Savarkar who vehemently endorsed (“Essentials of Hindutva”) a “nation… united… by the bonds of a common blood”, which is the only thing that’ll makes them a “race-jati”. Their arguments are remarkably similar to Wilhelm Stuckart’s (one of the most prominent Nazi legal theorists, who co-authored the Nuremberg laws) who in “Commentary on Racial Legislation”, provided the basis for the racial discrimination, and eventually persecution of Jews.

Various BJP and RSS leaders have consequently blindly endorsed these inherently divisive ideologies, and the NDA government has purposefully spearheaded contentious policies on them. Consider the beef ban which seeks to primarily criminalise the food habits of Muslims and Scheduled Castes. The penultimate reason for this ban has been socio-religious, something Ambedkar debunked masterfully (see “Untouchability, the Dead Cow and the Brahmin”). If cow slaughter does have to be banned because it affects the sentiments of a community (which is what Khattar argued), why not extend the same logic to pork (which is anathema in Islam) or all meat, indeed all root vegetables (which are prohibited in Jainism)? Given that almost all animals are vehicles of some god or goddess in Hinduism, why does the BJP not ban meat altogether?

Consider also Mohan Bhagwat’s views on reimagining affirmative action (contrary to popular perception, the government is well aware that SC/STs are deliberately excluded from both the public and private sectors in India precisely because of their castes). Given the NDA sees itself as ultimately accountable to the RSS (not to the people), it is safe to assume that they’ve apprised the Sangh of this. Bhagwat’s views are made inspite of this knowledge, and are therefore reflective of the inherent casteism in the Sangh Parivar/BJP. Similarly, consider the Minister of Culture Mahesh Sharma’s comments on the freedoms of women (their movement after dark is against Indian culture), or the NDA’s efforts to ‘cleanse’ historical, and cultural institutions to bring them in sync with a Hinduised vision of India. In fact, the drastic cuts the NDA has made in welfare expenditure are also partly motivated by its ideological imperatives.

How is it that the RSS and its agents (who first effected its agenda through stealth) so brazenly scuttle the Constitution? And why is it that people are so unconcerned with the waves of injustice that threaten to engulf India? Are we as a people simply indifferent to it all? Or even more worryingly, do Indians genuinely believe that what’s happening is acceptable and legitimate?

In unravelling this, one must understand that in India, there exist two sets of laws: a law of the land, and the law in the land. The law of the land is the set of secular norms and principles enshrined in the Constitution of India, which every government in India is mandated to uphold (which the NDA has been found wanting in). Resisting and opposing this supra framework exist various associations (the most prominent example being the Sangh Parivar) who religiously adhere to the law in the land (that is diagrammatically opposed to the law of the land).

Essentially, the Sangh overtly and covertly challenges not just the sovereign position of the State, but also the Constitution of India. The Sangh Parivar and the BJP have, and are consciously undermining the rights which the Constitution of India guarantees (be it freedom of religion, of speech, of expression etc.). They first did that by infiltrating the state, and now by capturing it. What most Indians who voted for the BJP don’t realise (or accept) is that they were duped by Prime Minister Modi. The BJP instrumentally sold hope and the idea of development, and now in office, it has embarked on its real project. The reason Amit Shah and Venkaiah Naidu are scrambling to be seen to pull up the most visible of these so called “fringe elements” is because they know that this will cost them electorally (the first impending jolt being Bihar).

But this doesn’t really explain why as a people, we accept their heinous assault on India. To do that, we needn’t look any further than the father of India’s Constitution, who precisely anticipated this organised resistance. Ambedkar argued that “rights are not protected by law but by the social and moral conscience of society. If social conscience is such that it is prepared to recognises the rights which law chooses to enact rights will be safe and secure. But if the fundamental rights are opposed by the community, no Law no Parliament, no judiciary can guarantee them in the real sense of the word”. And therein lies the real problem.

Why people tolerate the Sangh’s divisive agenda is because constitutional principles (which define the idea of India) are not deeply embedded in the “collective consciousness” of India. This has in turn created fertile ground for the instrumental exploitation of communal (Muzzafarnagar, Dadri, Mainpuri etc.), casteist (Dankaur, Hamirpur, Virar etc.), regional and linguistic disunities. This is partly because the Sangh has rigorously engaged with society, hoping to embed radical Hindutva norms in India’s collective consciousness. It is because of their tireless efforts that large sections of India have been socialised to orthodox norms.

In stark contrast, the numerous conscientious individuals and groups of people who oppose the RSS’ talibanised idea of India keep pinning their hopes on the state. They hope against hope that the state will leash the madness that is the RSS. However, it is not adequately recognised that the state’s ability to influence people is very limited (simply because in the Weberian imagination, it can only impose rules and guidelines). And what they also fail to realise is that this particular government doesn’t really subscribe to the constitutional idea of India at all, and that the BJP will always allow the Sangh to run amuck. It is therefore imperative for us to pay heed to Gandhi’s insistence on a bottom up socio-economic and political revolution (which will effect an organic attitudinal transformation in the hearts and minds of people). As Edmund Burke once said that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. Let us pray that we find it in ourselves to do something, for what is at stake is the very soul of India.

– The author is an analyst with the Congress party. Views expressed by the author are personal.

Source: indianexpress

Judging the Judge-maker

October 19, 2015 | Updated: October 19, 2015 01:09 IST

Sanjay Hegde

 Till 1993, judges were appointed by the executive in consultation with the judiciary. Illustration: Deepak Harichandran

The four judgments of the majority have reasserted judicial independence, with its concomitant autonomy in appointments, as an integral part of the Constitution’s basic structure. 

A powerful two-term Chief Minister of a central Indian State was seen obsequiously bowing and scraping and loudly saying “Yes Sir, No Sir, As you please, Sir” to an innocuous High Court judge. A friend of the Chief Minister later asked him why the most powerful man in a huge State was kowtowing to someone who only a few months prior, as an undistinguished government pleader, would not have been given even an audience. The Chief Minister’s eyes twinkled as he replied to his friend, “Now, he is one of the few people who can remove me from my chair”. The friend’s eyes twinkled as well when he recollected that the Chief Minister too owed his fortune to his predecessor having to resign after a court verdict.

The story may be apocryphal, as many stories from the bar are, but it explains exactly why judicial appointments are so vital in the running of a constitutional democracy. It also explains why the executive and legislature seek to have a say in the process of selecting judges and why today’s judges zealously seek to protect their two decade-old process of immaculate conception, unassisted by other organs of the state.

Till 1993, judges were appointed by the executive in consultation with the judiciary. In good times, consultation with the judiciary went beyond seeking of opinion to attempt a consensus. However, the judicial voice was often neither dominant nor decisive. In bad times, however, governments made calls for a “committed judiciary”, attempted to court-pack and sometimes indulged in rank favouritism. The situation prompted Ram Jethmalani to famously remark, “There are two kinds of judges, those who know the law and those who know the law minister.”

Quiet revolution

It was in this backdrop, in 1993 during Narasimha Rao’s minority government, with Mandal, mandir and economic liberalisation simultaneously boiling, that a quiet declaration of judicial independence occurred. Justice J.S. Verma’s judgment in the Supreme Court Advocates on Record case, gave the Chief Justice and senior judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts the power of making almost binding recommendations, for future appointments of judges in the constitutional courts.

Whenever a vacancy arose in the brotherhood, it would be filled by someone pre-approved by the judges and the executive could only demur in the appointment if cogent grounds existed. If, despite executive demur, the judges insisted on the appointment, the executive would have to confirm it. The Indian judiciary managed to create, by constitutional interpretation, a self-appointing elite. Within that elite, the power to recommend appointments belonged to a super-elite called the collegium.

In 1998, during the Vajpayee Government, on a presidential reference, the Court defined the collegium thus: “The opinion of the Chief Justice of India ...has to be formed in consultation with a collegium of Judges. Presently, and for a long time now, that collegium consists of the two seniormost puisne Judges of the Supreme Court. ...The principal objective of the collegium is to ensure that the best available talent is brought to the Supreme Court bench.”

The judgment also went on to increase the size of the collegium by holding that “we think it is desirable that the collegium should consist of the Chief Justice of India and the four seniormost puisne Judges of the Supreme Court…” Separate Collegiums of three senior judges were provided for the appointment of High Court judges.

Unstable structure

Since the collegium comprised of the most senior amongst the judges, who all retired upon turning 65, its composition was never stable. On an average, a senior judge would normally serve in the collegium for three years or less and would head it for less than a year. Hence, securing judicial appointments through the collegium became a deadly game of musical chairs and Russian Roulette, randomly mixed. Any High Court judge, hopeful of going higher, found himself desperately seeking not to anger any possible member of the collegium. Sometimes, collegiums got stymied, when old rivalries between its members saw each other’s favourites getting vetoed. There were also times that collegium meetings became examples of bargaining within the collective, and consensus emerging from a division of the spoils. In this system, while no single politician could ensure that a candidate became a judge, it was quite likely that a single judge’s wrath could wreck a hitherto promising judicial career.

The resultant appointments by the collegium, can largely be described as middle-of-the-road, with the elimination of most outliers. Thus, brilliance often got mistaken for unsteadiness and vice versa. Seniority became an indispensable shibboleth. Equally, while a reputation for corruption was a disqualifier, lesser evils like tardiness or sloth often got glossed over. Most importantly, decisions on appointments were hugely delayed, as judges resorted to politicking.

But the collegium also ensured that judges were not beholden to any politician. A bold judgment could end up unseating the most powerful of politicians or irretrievably damaging them. Politicians of all hues yearned for the early years of strong governments with huge parliamentary majorities, where judges were sometimes seen, but rarely heard of.

Towards the end of the UPA regime, the government sought to tame judges by demolishing the collegium. It brought in a constitutional amendment to provide for the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) — an independent commission with three senior judges, two eminent outsiders and the Law Minister. The UPA’s inept parliamentary handling led to a failure of the bill. A commanding NDA victory in 2014 saw the Modi government revive the proposal and Parliament amended the Constitution brought about the 99th Amendment to provide for the NJAC. Subsequent ratification of 20 States was obtained and it seemed that the collegium was history.

Petitions were filed challenging the constitutional amendment. Going by earlier experiences of judicial standoffs, many men of law expected that a constitutional amendment, almost unanimously passed by Parliament, would be rubber-stamped by the Court. Some were hopeful of judicial creativity finding a via-media which, while upholding the amendment, limited governmental interference. When the judgment was delivered on October 15, 2015, it was a decisive blow. The Court by a 4-1 majority, struck down the 99th Amendment. Justice Kehar’s judgment concluded that the NJAC did “not provide an adequate representation, to the judicial component” and that “clauses (a) and (b) of Article 124A(1) are insufficient to preserve the primacy of the judiciary in the matter of selection and appointment of Judges” It further held that “Article 124A(1) is ultra vires the provisions of the Constitution, because of the inclusion of the Union Minister in charge of Law and Justice as an ex officio Member of the NJAC.” The clause it was held, impinged upon the principles of “independence of the judiciary”, as well as, “separation of powers”. The clause which provided for the inclusion of two “eminent persons” as Members of the NJAC was held ultra vires the provisions of the Constitution, for a variety of reasons.

The four judgments of the majority have reasserted judicial independence with its concomitant autonomy in appointments, as an integral part of the Constitution’s basic structure. No parliamentary majority can amend the Constitution to alter its basic structure and hence the 99th Amendment failed constitutional scrutiny. The court has reinstated the collegium as the clearinghouse of all judicial appointments to the constitutional courts. It has also decided to have further hearings in November to iron out wrinkles in the working of the collegium.

Justice Chellameshwar’s dissenting judgment, has, with strong logic, beautifully worded, upheld the constitutional amendment which scrapped the collegium. Like all dissents, his judgment is an appeal to the future and the powerful brooding spirit of the law. He ended his dissent quoting Macaulay’s dictum, “Reform that you may preserve.”

The Court has now opted to take the path to reform, rather than change to an altogether new road created by Parliament. It is to be hoped that the court’s choice leads not to the dreary desert sands of dead habit, but into ever widening thought and action.

(Sanjay Hedge is a Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court)

Source: thehindu

A gentle reply to the Honourable FM

When the humble dal is Rs 200 a kilo, the poor do cry Tell me, at such times, should the writer tell a lie

Written by Ramu Ramanathan | Published:October 16, 2015 9:24 am

 Finance Minister Arun Jaitley (Source: PTI photo)

Friends, Indians, countrymen, lend me your likes;
I come to defend a few writers, not to praise them.
The evil that politics does would not have lived
If not for these wretched writers who are so naive

FM Sir! He is so right –
Why should we talk about Mr D or Comrade P
When India has such a high single digit GDP
Plus everybody knows what happened to Mr K
He was shot dead, for having a tinge of red
It is the fault of the writer, the FM tells us
These writers, behaving like pest
Constantly, manufacturing protest
Being ideologically intolerant
And yet, not paying their rents
Now
The FM, he is an honourable man;
The Culture Minister, too, is also a honourable man–
In fact all of them are very honourable
So I must not speak aloud and in public
Even if a writer is my friend, just and brave
Our national motto is: Bhayamev Jayatev
But
The FM says, writers are propagandists
And the FM and his boss are honourable men.
His boss hath brought many a selfie, home to Dilli
But have the RBI coffers with black money been filled?
Alas no! If a writer points this out
Then he is worse than a lout
When the humble dal is Rs 200 a kilo, the poor do cry
Tell me, at such times, should the writer tell a lie
Yet
The FM says writers lack national conscience
And the FM is a very honourable-learned lawyer.
You see everything he says, has a precedence …
Nayantra is a Nehru
Rushdie is a pagan
Devy is an academic
Amitav wrote only one book about the Delhi riots
Ghulam Nabi Khayal is an intellectual
Srinath is a secularist
Pragnya and Urmilla are feminists; also Ambedkarites
Sambhaji is worse, a Marxist-Ambedkarite
Rajeev is an extinct species, a playwright
The above have fought many an ideological battle
Against all kinds of tyrannical talk and tattle
They been whipped, they been jailed
With their verse, the mighty have been nailed
Yet the FM says they are villains;
And,​ ​he has to be right, since he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what the FM spoke
But
Rajeev did distribute pamphlets in the public loos
During the Emergency when he decided to do
Sambhaji still sings those people’s songs
Perhaps the FM feels, the tune is wrong
So some are labelled, green and budhi-heen
Others ain’t Right, cause they are Left
Words are classified as Kannada, Gujarati, Punjabi, Konkani
If you don’t toe the line, then you become a Pakistani

It is this which causes me to mourn for my friend: the writer
O Art! Are you being fed to brutish beasts
O FM! Just bear with me;
I reserve my right to disagree with you
No doubt, your North Block is very powerful
Beware: The people of this land are no fools

Source: indianexpress

Religion can’t be the basis of state, Pranab tells Israel

Jerusalem, October 14, 2015 | Updated: October 14, 2015 19:38 IST

Stanly Johny

President Pranab Mukherjee, with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, looks at pictures of Jews killed during the Holocaust in the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

Modi told me India wants Israel, says Prime Minister Netanyahu in Knesset.

President Pranab Mukherjee, who’s on a historic two-day visit to Israel, on Wednesday told Israel’s political leadership that religion can’t be the basis of State.

“Violence is not a solution to any crisis. Violence achieves nothing but more violence. We in India believe in a principle of live and let live,” the President told Isaac Herzog of the Zionist Union, the Israeli Leader of Opposition.

The President’s comments come at a time when violence is escalating in Jerusalem in Gaza between Palestinians and Israel. Over the last few weeks, a number of Palestinians and Israelis were killed in East Jerusalem and Gaza. On Tuesday, three Israelis were killed in two separate incidents in East Jerusalem.

Speaking to the media on Wednesday morning after receiving a ceremonial reception at the presidential palace here, President Mukherjee condemned the recent spate of violence. “We are distressed at the recent violence. India condemns all forms of terrorism. We have always advocated a peaceful resolution of all disputes,” he said.

But Mr. Mukherjee remained silent on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his address at the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked radicalism and the “enemies” who want to destroy Israel.

The local press here was critical of Mr. Mukherjee’s visit to Palestine. The Jerusalem Post ran a story Wednesday saying the Indian President remained silent on terror in his visit to Palestine.

Mr. Mukherjee, who arrived in Jerusalem on Tuesday after visiting Jordan and Palestine, called for enhanced cooperation between India and Israel in the fields of agriculture, defence and technology. This is the first time an Indian President is visiting Israel. India and Israel established full diplomatic relations only in 1992. Former Israeli President Ezer Weizman had visited India in 1997, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon came to New Delhi in 2003 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister.

“My state visit to Israel is taking place at a time when relations between our two governments are taking a very positive trajectory,” said Mr. Mukherjee in the Israeli Parliament. He said Israel’s technological advances could help India increase its industrial production, and create jobs in both countries.

Mr. Mukherjee had actually reasserted India’s position in Ramallah that New Delhi supported a peaceful solution of the Israeli Palestinian crisis. In Abu Dis he said the “entire political leadership of India” remained committed to the Palestinian cause.

Mr. Netanyahu, who spoke after President Mukherjee’s speech, said Israel wants peace, but before talks to be started, terror should be stopped. “Israel wants peace, I want peace. I am interested in launching negotiations immediately, without preconditions. In order for this to happen, the terror incidents will have to stop and the Palestinians will have to recognise the State of Israel.”

The Israeli Prime Minister also said that he speaks to ‘My dear friend (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi quite often. When we met once, he told me ‘India wants Israel” and that “I see a paragon of fraternity between our two countries”.

Mr. Netanyahu and the Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein have recalled that both India and Israel are victims of “Islamist terrorism”, and urged for standing together against extremism.

President Mukherjee will meet Prime Minister Netanyahu on Thursday before wrapping up his six-day tri-nation tour.

Source: thehindu

Indigenous production: Self-reliance, the best defence

To ensure the all round success of ‘Make in India’, the Centre has to actively support the creation of a private defence industrial base.

Written by Sushant Singh | Updated: October 13, 2015 8:03 am

Defence manufacturing has been identified as a priority sector in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship ‘Make in India’ scheme. While the nomenclature has come into vogue last year, indigenous defence manufacturing has been a rather unsuccessful quest for decades.

Notwithstanding some initial steps by the NDA government — such as increasing the FDI limit to 49 per cent — a lack of clarity on policies from the defence ministry has constrained the progress on ‘Make in India’. Defence minister Manohar Parrikar had promised the revised Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) by April but it is now expected to be released in December. A new DPP will be the starting point for any meaningful action on ‘Make in India’ in defence.

In the last five years, India has been the world’s top arms importer with a 15 per cent global share of imports. Nearly 50 per cent of the capital acquisition budget is spent on imports. This excludes many “indigenous” items assembled by Ordnance Factories (OFs) and Defence Public Sector Units (DPSUs) where a high percentage of raw materials and sub-systems are imported.

In 1995, a committee under APJ Abdul Kalam, the then scientific advisor to the defence minister, had recommended that India should improve its indigenisation content from 30 per cent to 70 per cent by 2005. Although no official data exists, the self-reliance in defence production is still estimated to be less than 35 per cent.

About 90 per cent of domestic defence manufacturing is currently done in the public sector, by the 9 DPSUs and 39 OFs. Since 2001, when private participation was allowed in defence sector, 222 letters of intents and industrial licences have been issued to around 150 firms. Of these, only 46 firms have commenced production so far.

Globally, 80 per cent of components, aggregates and assemblies of complex weapon systems and aircraft are made by MSMEs. In India, more than 6,000 MSMEs are currently supplying components and sub-assemblies to the DPSUs, OFs, DRDO and private firms. The defence manufacturing sector currently employs more than 2 lakh people in India. This size of military industrial workforce is similar to nations like the UK and France, which are the top defence manufacturers.

India allocated 1.74 per cent of its GDP towards defence spending in FY16 and is among the top 10 countries in the world in terms of military expenditure. Approximately 40 per cent of the defence budget is allocated for capital acquisitions, which mainly goes towards imports from foreign suppliers. Between 2007-08 and 2014-15, defence budget more-than-doubled from Rs 92,000 crore to Rs 2,22,370 crore, growing at an average rate of 12 per cent per annum. The capital budget also more-than-doubled from Rs 37,461 crore in 2007-08 to Rs 81,965 crore in 2014-15.

Despite the sustained expenditure over the last decade, the equipment profile of the armed forces is in an alarming state. While the desirable equipment profile, as per the defence secretary’s testimony to Parliamentary Standing Committee, early this year is 30:40:30 (30 per cent state-of-the-art, 40 per cent current and 30 per cent nearing obsolescence), experts estimate the current profile to be 15:45:40. The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), chaired by the defence minister, has approved procurement of equipment for more than Rs 1,17,830 crore during the UPA-II regime. Another Rs 1,50,000 crore worth of approvals have been given by DAC under the NDA government.

A modelling of 35 selected projects cleared by DAC, along with their likely dates of induction — from 2012 to 2023 — has been done by a foreign manufacturer. It shows that defence ministry will need $40 billion for just these 35 purchases. This translates into a 7 per cent rise in capital budget in real terms. While the capital acquisition budget has risen in absolute terms in the last few years, it has hardly seen any increase in real terms.

The government policy now aims to achieve 70 per cent indigenisation in defence products by 2027. This translates into an Indian defence market of Rs 87,000 crore by 2022 and Rs 1,65,000 crore by 2027. It presents a huge opportunity to the DPSUs, foreign manufacturers, Indian private players and MSMEs. But the question is of resources. Defence production needs heavy investment over a long period, so as to bring in modern technologies with low economies of scale. Unlike other sectors, defence industry is a monopsony in which the single buyer, the government, is also the authority laying down procurement policies. This makes active government support essential for private defence manufacturers, a fact borne out by the experience of countries — the US, Israel, Brazil and France — where private defence industry has flourished.

Under ‘Make in India’, the government has to actively support the creation of a private defence industrial base. The government will have to fund research and development, provide a low-interest regime to reduce capital costs, provision specific tax benefits, assure consistent sectoral policies, place firm orders and encourage exports to achieve economies of scale.

For policies to create synergies rather than controls, it is essential that the government creates internal capacity for defence acquisition and manufacturing. While the Pentagon has 12,000 cost engineers on its rolls, the defence ministry has none. The structure and the organisation of the ministry, particularly the department of defence production, which is responsible for DPSUs and OFs, puts private sector at a disadvantage. If form has to follow function, the ministry will have to be restructured to promote private players.

Most of these suggestions form part of the deliberations of experts committee chaired by Dhirendra Singh, which submitted its report on amendments to DPP-2013 to the defence minister in August. Of the 43 recommendations made, 15 directly pertain to ‘Make in India’ while the rest concern the DPP. These recommendations on the DPP also have a direct impact on indigenous defence production. The future trajectory of Make in India in defence will be determined, to a great extent, by the action taken by the Centre on the Dhirendra Singh committee.

Source: indianexpress

Don’t shoot the messenger

October 9, 2015

ZIYA US SALAM

 Nayantara Sahgal. Photo: Virender Singh Negi

It is easier to be the Prime Minister of India and keep quiet than to be an author and speak your heart out.

Authors can never be winners. We have one yardstick for us, quite another for our authors. Somehow, we expect them to be the wisest, the most caring, sensitive souls on earth. Morally upright, removed from politics, selfless, accessible and illuminating. And, I dare say, shining examples of unimpeachable excellence. So when authors keep to themselves at the time of a natural calamity or a man-made one, it is concluded that they live in their Ivory Tower. The more generous commoners argue that they would say their thing through their novels or poetry – art and literature is a reflection of life, isn’t it? And when the novelists or poets do speak out at the perceived danger to our norms and values, they are still questioned; about their intention, their timing, their previous silence. Denied the right to rectify the past mistakes, if any, they are damned if they speak, damned when they don’t.

Regret seems a luxury best not allowed to our authors. Aren’t our authors the moral guardian of society? Nah! They are not always allowed to be. Looks like it is easier to be the Prime Minister of India and keep quiet when the nation is crying for a word from you than to be an author and speak your heart out.

Look at the sad case of poor Nayantara Sahgal. All these years she has written with a certain freedom, certain fearlessness. Thus when the veteran spoke out after the Dadri lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq and Modi’s studied silence, it should have surprised none. Her tone had a ring of anguish, her words did nothing to hide her sense of pain and despair at the growing threat to life and limb from the Hindutva elements.

  (Ashok Vajpeyi. Photo: The Hindu)

Even as she returned the Sahitya Akademi award that she won for her work “Rich Like Us” in 1986, she pleaded for a statement from the Prime Minister on the subject. “Justice drags its feet. The Prime Minister remains silent about this reign of terror. We must assume he dare not alienate evil-doers who support his ideology,” she wrote, arguing to protect the right to dissent. “India’s culture of diversity and debate is now under vicious assault. Rationalists who question superstition, anyone who questions any aspect of the ugly and dangerous distortion of Hinduism known as Hindutva – whether in the intellectual or artistic sphere, or whether in terms of food habits and lifestyle – are being marginalized, persecuted, or murdered.”

We, as a society, ought to have stood up and applauded her, and indeed others like Hindi luminaries like Uday Prakash and Ashok Vajpeyi and noted Urdu poet Rahman Abbas. Instead, quite the opposite happened. Playing right into the hands of the Hindutva brigade, many questioned her timing, some even read into it a pathological hatred for the ruling party. “She said not a word after the 1984 Sikh riots and accepted the Sahitya Akademi award in 1986. She did not speak out after the destruction of the Babri Masjid and the Gujarat violence,” they argued. Seems a reasonable argument from outside. Now for a minute put yourself in Sahgal’s shoes.

Would she not have been worse off not defending the right to speech, indeed, the right to life? Wasn’t she critical of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency and the excesses of the moment? True, she may not have been as vociferous in 1984 or 1992, but does that deny her the right to rectify her mistake, if any? Would not we, while analysing her works and life a few years down the line, have said that she confined herself to the life of a recluse living in Dehradun, only emerging occasionally for a book launch or a lit fest?

Would not have there been an unstated lament that she did not speak even once against the Hindutva brigade? Reminds me of the plight of Rabindranath Tagore who renounced knighthood after the Jallianwalan Bagh tragedy but many wondered what happened to the Nobel. That argument was both facetious and mischievous. Much like the present criticism of Sahgal and company.

  (Uday Prakash. Photo: PTI)

Pray, if she had not said what she did, would many of us have been as alive to the danger that faces the nation these days? And what she wrote had more meaning than just anger. “The right to dissent is an integral part of this Constitutional guarantee….A distinguished Kannada writer and Sahitya Akademi Award winner, M.M. Kalburgi, and two Maharashtrians, Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare, both anti-superstition activists, have all been killed by gun-toting motor-cyclists. Other dissenters have been warned they are next in line. Most recently, a village blacksmith, Mohammed Akhlaq, was dragged out of his home in Bisara village outside Delhi, and brutally lynched, on the supposed suspicion that beef was cooked in his home….It is a matter of sorrow that the Sahitya Akademi remains silent. The Akademis were set up as guardians of the creative imagination, and promoters of its finest products in art and literature, music and theatre. In protest against Kalburgi’s murder, a Hindi writer, Uday Prakash, has returned his Sahitya Akademi Award. Six Kannada writers have returned their Awards to the Kannada Sahitya Parishat.

In memory of the Indians who have been murdered, in support of all Indians who uphold the right to dissent, and of all dissenters who now live in fear and uncertainty, I am returning my Sahitya Akademi Award.”

Eloquent? Yes. Did she succeed in moving our people? Yes, some of them. Others sprung to the defence of the powers-that-be. Unfortunately, the resignations and the attendant questions will not get a word from Modi. His speech, delayed and an exercise at deflection, is a stain upon silence. His face betrays no concern. It is but vain to expect him to show sensitivity towards the dead, be it Kalburgi or Akhlaq. After all isn’t he the one who equated the death of the innocent in Gujarat-2002 with a puppy coming under the wheel of the car? Death fails to move him. Moral nihilists feed him and feed off him. The authors, the poets are a breed apart, sensitive, and blessed with tender heart.

Today I am reminded of celebrated journalist Sham Lal’s words. “Time is hard on writers, particularly after the causes they fought for have been won, lost or overtaken by events,” he once wrote. In their loss lies a nation’s tragedy.

(The author is a seasoned literary critic)

Source: thehindu

Cows are white so they're holy? Our case against buffaloes

There is no hope in this land of dark-complexioned people for the animal.

Damayanti Datta @DattaDamayanti

Satish Yadav, 32, belongs to village Latapur near Amethi in Uttar Pradesh. While he works as a gardener in Delhi, his parents still live in the village, looking after their ancestral five bigha land, two cows, two bulls and two buffaloes. What do they call their bovine pets? Yadav says, "Eh?" I can swear by all the Sarat Chandra novels I've read that villagers always name their cows (typically, Shyamoli, in Bengal villages). But Yadav clearly says, "They have no names."

Something is not adding up. "Your family must be very fond of the cows?" Yadav smiles and starts talking about the buffaloes: how they close their eyes when they cross roads ("You have to stop. For, they won't"), how they love to bathe in the river ("We used to ride them as boys in the water"), how much they eat. And the cows? "They're ok." That's all he says. Then he goes into raptures over the thick and plentiful milk the buffaloes give twice every day ("Five-five litres"), which the family sells for Rs 30 a litre. And the cows? "Oh, they give much less. Not that thick, too. Sells for Rs 20 a litre." A buffalo these days sells for Rs 30-40,000, he adds. A cow sells for Rs 7,000, while a bull for Rs 5,000. "People are buying tractors. Bulls have no work. They loiter around happily. Cows don't give much milk. But if you have a buffalo, you don't need to worry." Clearly, Yadav has more feelings for his buffaloes than his cows. "Cows are gentle, no? Buffaloes are more aggressive. Do they fight?" Why should they fight? Yadav sounds surprised. "They have always lived together."

Yadav must be one in a million. While the whole country is singing paeans to the cow, neighbours are bumping off people they have always known on mere suspicion that they may have eaten beef, state after state is bringing in tough laws against cow slaughter - here is this man who is unabashedly favouring his buffaloes over his cows. Doesn't he know that the cow is sacred - gau-mata, kamadhenu - while the buffalo is not? The god of death, Yama, rides a buffalo. Devi Durga kills a buffalo-headed demon, Mahishasur.

Yadav falls silent when I remind him that there are 24 states in the country, where you can't kill a cow without permission (if at all) but you can slaughter buffaloes, eat their flesh and turn their hide into bags. Even in Maharashtra, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal, Rajasthan and Gujarat - where killing a cow (genus) invites greater punishment than, say, drunk driving, molestation, causing grievous hurt or evading income tax, according to the Indian Penal Code - you can kill a buffalo without blinking an eyelid.

Poor Yadav. Or is it poor buffalo? In this land of dark-complexioned people, where white skin is aspired for and venerated as sattva guna (divine virtue), this dark, uncute beast with lumbering gait has no hopes - even if it nurtures more Indian children every day with milk than its scrawny white barn-mate, the cow.

Source: dailyo

LOVE JIHAD

@cobrapost editor on Love Jihad expose: right-wing groups reek of patriarchy

Vishakh Unnikrishnan  @sparksofvishdom | 6 October 2015

Cobrapost has just published a report on the "bogey of Love Jihad". Based on a year-long investigation called Operation Juliet, it lays bare how the Sangh Parivar and its splinter groups "use violence, intimidation, emotional blackmail, duplicity and drugs to split up Hindu-Muslim married couples".

The report reveals a systematic effort, stretched from Meerut to Ernakulam through Mangalore, to use the "bogey of love jihad" to communally polarise voters during elections.

It describes counselling centres and "Hindu helplines" set up to "rescue" women who marry outside their religion.

Cobrapost even has RSS, VHP and BJP leaders on tape confessing to inciting violence against Muslims. They include Sanjeev Kumar Balyan and Sangeet Som who are accused of instigating Hindu rioters in Muzaffarnagar in 2013.

Catch spoke with Cobrapost Editor Aniruddha Bahal about the report and what impact it might have in these communally-charged times.

VU: For the investigation, your team visited Muzaffarnagar and Meerut in UP, Mangalore in Karnataka, Kasaragod and Ernakulam in Kerala, apart from Delhi. Why did you choose these areas?

AB: We got information about counselling centres for Hindu women being run there. Our reporters were present when the "counselling" was being done. The Indian Express had done a series of stories on this issue. There were also reports from the southern states about this. So we decided to investigate.

VU: Some leaders named in the report are already being investigated for inciting communal riots. Do you think these revelations will help in the probe against them?

AB: Those accused are BJP's Muzaffarnagar MP and Union minister Sanjeev Kumar Balyan and the party's MLA in UP Suresh Rana. There are many others. FIRs have already been filed against them. Now we have got their statements on camera, so I believe it'll help in the investigation and, hopefully, prosecution.

 Photo: Anil Kumar Shakya/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

VU: The report only mentions that these groups also woo Muslim girls into marrying Hindus, but doesn't explain how.

AB: They were admitting to wooing Muslim women, apart from "rescuing" Hindu women from Muslim men. We didn't have any case study to elaborate on that.

VU: The report says Swayamsevaks and other Hindutva activists in police and among lawyers, and even a journalist, help these groups carry out their work. How exactly do they help them?

AB: Whenever a Hindu woman goes to register for a marriage with a Muslim or a Christian man, the lawyers tip off these groups. They also keep an eye on any impending marriage at the registrar's. These groups then get into the act of "rescuing" the woman by trying to stop the marriage or, if the marriage has already taken place, to force her out of it.

There was only this one case where we found a journalist was also complicit, but I wouldn't say this happens across the board. Some also become part of the entire process unwittingly.

VU: In the report, BJP's Suresh Rana speaks of Bajrang Dal's 'Beti Bachao, Bahu Lao' campaign. He explains how "you can mould a girl the way you want". There are several such statements. Does patriarchy play a major role in this enterprise?

AB: I believe the report not only shows the intent of these right-wing groups, but also sheds light on their patriarchal mindset. The report reflects their views on woman's rights and what according to them should be their place and role in our society.

So, apart from the fact that they have a notion about how the minorities in this country should be treated, the report also shows how these groups want the women to be treated.

The very fact that they don't accept a woman has an individual right to seek her own life partner reeks of patriarchy. Those involved in this thing want to impose their consciousness on women and decide whom they should consort with or whom they should spend their lives with.

 Photo: Mujeeb Faruqui/Hindustan Times via Getty Images

VU: A lawyer with the VHP in Mangalore says in the report that it doesn't affect them which party is ruling the state. Why is that?

AB: It doesn't matter which party is in power because these groups evoke the religious sentiments of those in power, putting them in an awkward position. And if you look at the power structure today, it isn't surprising.

Mohandas Gandhi had said that though 'I believe cows should be protected, I should not impose my belief on someone else'. Today's politicians are more inclined to impose their thinking and beliefs on different communities.

VU: A person working at one of these counselling centres in Kerala says that though they have been successful in mobilising various communities against the Muslims, it's difficult to incite a riot in the state. Why do you think that is?

AB: It's a compliment to the state of Kerala. It also sheds light on the law and order situation in other states. If law and order is taken care of, it becomes difficult to incite riots. There are always gullible people out there and these right-wing groups will always try and incite them. It's after all the gullible mindsets of religious fanatics that right-wing groups thrive on.

Vishakh Unnikrishnan

Vishakh Unnikrishnan
@sparksofvishdom

A graduate of the Asian College of Journalism, Vishakh tracks stories on public policy,...

Source: catchnews