In previous posts, I've bemoaned the state of the Indian judicial system. Bribery is widespread, cases languish for decades, and the backlog of cases is so huge that it would take 350 years to clear the backlog at the current rate, even if no new cases entered the system. While there are many problems with the system itself, I can't help feeling that the quality of the judicial system depends primarily on the quality of judges.
And the quality of judges, especially in the lower judiciary, leaves much to be desired.
The problem is in the selection process for Indian judges. The selection of all judges is overseen by the state government bureaucracies (as opposed to bureaucrats in India who are selected through a tough, unbiased process that is overseen by the federal government). This is also in contrast to the US federal judicial system, where every judge must be approved by the legislative branch of the federal government.
There are two ways of becoming a judge in India - neither very fair. Any practicing lawyer in a state can become a judge if he or she is selected by a committee of the state's supreme court justices. That, needless to say, is rife with favoritism.
The other process is to clear an examination overseen by the state government bureaucracy. The examination process looks rigorous - candidates must first clear a preliminary written examination, followed by a more thorough written examination (called the "mains") followed by an in-person interview with a panel of interviewers. This is similar to the process used to select bureaucrats in India. The difference is that the examination for bureacrats is administered by the federal government, and is widely considered unbiased. The examination for judges, on the other hand, is administered by the state government, and is very corrupt.
It is not uncommon for the interview-panel to ask for money in the interview stage (In the northern state of Punjab, such a bribery scandal was unmasked in 2002 and judicial appointments for the preceding two years were annulled). The candidate's score on the interview is often based on the amount of the bribe, or the amount of influence the candidate has. It is not unheard of for children of judges to obtain a law degree from a third-rate law-school and then clear the judicial examination with ease.
The quality of judges has a ripple effect on the legal system. Meritoriously selected judges would hold themselves and those around themselves to a higher standard. For example, the success of attorneys in India is largely dependent on their personal relationship with judges - a practice that flourishes because incompetent and unprofessional judges promote it. Meritoriously selected judges would discourage such practices.
India needs to raise the quality of judges entering the judiciary - Indians deserve a better deal than the bribery, corruption and delay the current judicial system dishes out.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Public school systems and Local communities
In some parts of rural India, there's apparently a saying that goes: "Send a boy to school for five years, and he'll leave farming - send a boy to school for ten years, and he'll leave the village". Some communities actually feel that schools and education alienate young people from their communities.
In a country like India, where there are numerous local languages, myriad cultures and customs - the idea of one rigid educational curriculum does not fly. Teachers and educational curriculums must be sensitive to local communities and their needs. In India, there are actually grassroot movements looking to address this tension - Vikramshila is one such effort in eastern India.
This may seem obvious in the context of India, but I think many of the same themes play out in the US too. The struggle to have religious prayer in US schools is an aspect of exactly this theme. Local communities want to have a say in how schools educate their children. When the public school system refuses to acknowledge this - there is a conflict.
The only way to resolve this tension is to give schools more autonomy in certain dimensions, and also provide them with the tools and training to allow them to adapt correctly to local communities.
In a country like India, where there are numerous local languages, myriad cultures and customs - the idea of one rigid educational curriculum does not fly. Teachers and educational curriculums must be sensitive to local communities and their needs. In India, there are actually grassroot movements looking to address this tension - Vikramshila is one such effort in eastern India.
This may seem obvious in the context of India, but I think many of the same themes play out in the US too. The struggle to have religious prayer in US schools is an aspect of exactly this theme. Local communities want to have a say in how schools educate their children. When the public school system refuses to acknowledge this - there is a conflict.
The only way to resolve this tension is to give schools more autonomy in certain dimensions, and also provide them with the tools and training to allow them to adapt correctly to local communities.
In Defense of a Public School System
I attended a fund-raiser for an Indian charity organization today, and heard two shocking statistics:
In India, children are preferred as domestic help. Since domestic help often lives in the employer's household around the clock, children are preferred because they are less likely to commit crime, and it's safer to employ them. I know many people in India who employ children as domestic help - and they indeed treat them well. They argue that they're giving a child a better life - the child would have possibly starved otherwise, or turned towards more dangerous ways of earning a living. Even the parents of the children would agree with this assessment.
But there's a vicious circle at work here. By denying that child an education, this child will grow up with limited earning potential, at the bottom rung of society. When that child ends up having children of his own - he will be faced with the same cruel choice - to force his children to work so that they can survive.
I see this as a failure of the state to provide a low-cost, high-quality education system. This was not always so. India had a decent government school system a few decades back. But then, there was an explosion of private schools (possibly because the government did not expand the number of public schools fast enough to cope with increased demand). Students from middle-class and affluent families who could afford these schools moved to the private schools. Since these were also the students who did well - the pool of students in government schools detiorated - and that led to a flight of good teachers from government schools.
India still has a government-run school system - but no one cares about it anymore. The middle-class sends its children to the private schools. The poor cannot afford these private schools - and yet, the government schools do not prepare their children to move up in the world. The government in turn, does not have the will to fix the crumbling infrastructure and lack of resources in public schools - after all, a significant portion of the voting public doesn't even care about these schools.
And that's one reason why the poor are stuck in a vicious circle, generation after generation.
The US public school system seems to be a better model. There are many problems with it, and I'll address them in subsequent blog entries - but completely deregulating the education sector is not the answer.
- 19% of all children in India work as domestic help.
- Somewhere between 17 million and 100 million children in India work for a living (depending on whose statistics you believe)
In India, children are preferred as domestic help. Since domestic help often lives in the employer's household around the clock, children are preferred because they are less likely to commit crime, and it's safer to employ them. I know many people in India who employ children as domestic help - and they indeed treat them well. They argue that they're giving a child a better life - the child would have possibly starved otherwise, or turned towards more dangerous ways of earning a living. Even the parents of the children would agree with this assessment.
But there's a vicious circle at work here. By denying that child an education, this child will grow up with limited earning potential, at the bottom rung of society. When that child ends up having children of his own - he will be faced with the same cruel choice - to force his children to work so that they can survive.
I see this as a failure of the state to provide a low-cost, high-quality education system. This was not always so. India had a decent government school system a few decades back. But then, there was an explosion of private schools (possibly because the government did not expand the number of public schools fast enough to cope with increased demand). Students from middle-class and affluent families who could afford these schools moved to the private schools. Since these were also the students who did well - the pool of students in government schools detiorated - and that led to a flight of good teachers from government schools.
India still has a government-run school system - but no one cares about it anymore. The middle-class sends its children to the private schools. The poor cannot afford these private schools - and yet, the government schools do not prepare their children to move up in the world. The government in turn, does not have the will to fix the crumbling infrastructure and lack of resources in public schools - after all, a significant portion of the voting public doesn't even care about these schools.
And that's one reason why the poor are stuck in a vicious circle, generation after generation.
The US public school system seems to be a better model. There are many problems with it, and I'll address them in subsequent blog entries - but completely deregulating the education sector is not the answer.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Darfur, Sierra Leone, Conflict in Africa
I watched the movie "Blood Diamond" today. The movie is set against the backdrop of the conflict in Sierra Leone where the rebel army (RUF) drafted chidren as soldiers in the war. And as I saw scene after scene of how mere boys were drafted as soldiers into a mindless war - I thought the same thing that I think everytime I read about the crisis in Darfur - why doesn't anyone blame the corporations who supply the weapons?
Every society has conflict. Pick any large enough society, and there will exist groups in conflict. But without modern weapons, what's the worst they'd do to each other? They might fight - even kill - each other, but there will not be able to cause carnage on such a large scale. The fight might be bloody, but one man will not wield the power to kill hundreds of his enemies. The fight will likely require physical strength, and will be fought by men, not boys.
But introduce missile launchers, automatic weapons and helicopter gunships - and the imbalance of power shifts drastically. In Darfur, these modern weapons have been a force multiplier that have allowed well-equipped troops to ruthlessly decimate defenseless populations. Yes, the conflict would still have existed in the absence of these weapons - but it would not have had such a lopsided result.
The diamond industry has taken steps to identify and block the flow of "blood diamonds" out of conflict-torn areas - because the trade of such diamonds funds atrocities in places like Sierra Leone. So why hasn't the weapons industry done the same? Why don't we hear the weapons industry agreeing to track and block the flow of weapons into Darfur? The New York Times commentator Nicholas Kristof has done wonders to raise awareness about Darfur - but I'm baffled why he hasn't tried to identify the corporations supplying the weapons?
U.N sanctions, more international aid for refugees - these are all band-aids; we need to staunch the flow of weapons into conflict-torn areas.
Every society has conflict. Pick any large enough society, and there will exist groups in conflict. But without modern weapons, what's the worst they'd do to each other? They might fight - even kill - each other, but there will not be able to cause carnage on such a large scale. The fight might be bloody, but one man will not wield the power to kill hundreds of his enemies. The fight will likely require physical strength, and will be fought by men, not boys.
But introduce missile launchers, automatic weapons and helicopter gunships - and the imbalance of power shifts drastically. In Darfur, these modern weapons have been a force multiplier that have allowed well-equipped troops to ruthlessly decimate defenseless populations. Yes, the conflict would still have existed in the absence of these weapons - but it would not have had such a lopsided result.
The diamond industry has taken steps to identify and block the flow of "blood diamonds" out of conflict-torn areas - because the trade of such diamonds funds atrocities in places like Sierra Leone. So why hasn't the weapons industry done the same? Why don't we hear the weapons industry agreeing to track and block the flow of weapons into Darfur? The New York Times commentator Nicholas Kristof has done wonders to raise awareness about Darfur - but I'm baffled why he hasn't tried to identify the corporations supplying the weapons?
U.N sanctions, more international aid for refugees - these are all band-aids; we need to staunch the flow of weapons into conflict-torn areas.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
The Sad State of the Indian Judicial System
Transparency International has reported that Indians paid US $584 million in bribes to the lower judiciary last year, and 36% of Indians admit to having bribed the judiciary. Civil cases take decades to be heard, and the case backlog is enormous - there are 25 million cases pending in about 13,000 subordinate courts. In 1999, it was estimated that even if no new cases entered the system, at the current rate of disposal of cases, it would take 350 years to clear the backlog. I read recently of a murder case in India where the father of the victim was still waiting for the killer to be convicted 24 years after the crime, and wondered if he'd see justice in his lifetime. No doubt, there are many systemic problems - perhaps there are too few judges and the judges are underpaid - yet, I believe that the quality of a judicial system is determined primarily by the quality of the judges (just as the quality of a school being determined primarily by the quality of its teachers). And the quality of judges is going downhill.
The process of selecting judges has been waylaid by the rich and the influential. Especially the lower judiciary contains many judges who were either the children of judges, or had enough money to bribe their way in. It is not uncommon for the interview-panel that selects judges to ask for money during the interview (In the northern state of Punjab, such a bribery scandal was unmasked in 2002 and judicial appointments for the preceding two years were annulled). The candidate's score on the interview is often based on the amount of the bribe, or the amount of influence the candidate has. Children of judges with law degrees from third-rate law-school often clear the judicial examination with ease.
The quality of judges has a ripple effect on the legal system. Meritoriously selected judges would hold themselves and those around themselves to a higher standard. For example, the success of attorneys in India is largely dependent on their personal relationship with judges - a practice that flourishes because incompetent and unprofessional judges promote it. Meritoriously selected judges would discourage such practices.India needs to raise the quality of judges entering the judiciary - Indians deserve a better deal than the bribery, corruption and delay the current judicial system dishes out.
The process of selecting judges has been waylaid by the rich and the influential. Especially the lower judiciary contains many judges who were either the children of judges, or had enough money to bribe their way in. It is not uncommon for the interview-panel that selects judges to ask for money during the interview (In the northern state of Punjab, such a bribery scandal was unmasked in 2002 and judicial appointments for the preceding two years were annulled). The candidate's score on the interview is often based on the amount of the bribe, or the amount of influence the candidate has. Children of judges with law degrees from third-rate law-school often clear the judicial examination with ease.
The quality of judges has a ripple effect on the legal system. Meritoriously selected judges would hold themselves and those around themselves to a higher standard. For example, the success of attorneys in India is largely dependent on their personal relationship with judges - a practice that flourishes because incompetent and unprofessional judges promote it. Meritoriously selected judges would discourage such practices.India needs to raise the quality of judges entering the judiciary - Indians deserve a better deal than the bribery, corruption and delay the current judicial system dishes out.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Brash New Indian Banks
I have many uncles who work in the banking sector in India. They work for the "old" public-sector banks, as opposed to the new private-sector banks like ICICI Bank and HSBC Bank. Whereas the new banks have computerized operations, online banking and spiffy infrastructure, most old public-sector banks are still mired in bureaucracy and are only slowly, painfully modernizing their operations. One of my uncles mentioned that it felt like he was on a bullock-cart watching the "new banks" whiz by on motorcycles and cars.
It's hard to imagine why any young professional would choose a public-sector bank over the new banks. ICICI Bank ATMs are ubiquitous - every city has one. In Mumbai, you can ask the cab-driver to take you to the nearest ICICI ATM and he'll do so.
But I'm not sure that the new brash banks are a wholly positive development. The last two times I have been to India, I have been surprised by the numerous advertisements of FM radio for "personal loans". New banks like ICICI Bank have led the expansion of this market-category. While commonplace in the USA, this is a radical development in India. Unlike the USA, India doesn't have a strong enforcement infrastructure for credit-ratings and loan-recovery. It is easier to default on a loan and disappear. India, traditionally has also had a strong savings ethic, which seems to be slowly disappearing - first came consumer-goods on installments, and now we have "personal loans". The result is a flood of easy money that must be partly responsible for the roughly 5% inflation and meteoric asset prices.
I worry that these new banks, in their eagerness to conquer market-share, have recklessly executed unstable monetary stategies. Rumor on the street this time in India was that India's federal bank (RBI) had to raise interest-rate on savings-deposits to prevent ICICI Bank from collapsing because ICICI Bank had too many bad loans.
Tailpiece:
My neighbor's nephew worked for HSBC Bank, another one of the new banks. The nephew was working late one night when the guard's gun accidentally went off and shot him in the stomach. He died shortly thereafter in the hospital. When I mentioned this to one of my aforementioned uncles - he pointed out that this would never happen in his public-sector bank which has safety precautions for exactly such a scenario. Once the bank's money is placed in the vault at the end of business hours, the guard's gun is also placed under lock and key - the rationale being that once the money is in the vault, the guard doesn't really need his gun. This is yet another case of the new banks having lost some of the wisdom of these older, more mature banks. I wonder if HSBC ever instituted an inquiry into this incident and came up with any safety measures?
It's hard to imagine why any young professional would choose a public-sector bank over the new banks. ICICI Bank ATMs are ubiquitous - every city has one. In Mumbai, you can ask the cab-driver to take you to the nearest ICICI ATM and he'll do so.
But I'm not sure that the new brash banks are a wholly positive development. The last two times I have been to India, I have been surprised by the numerous advertisements of FM radio for "personal loans". New banks like ICICI Bank have led the expansion of this market-category. While commonplace in the USA, this is a radical development in India. Unlike the USA, India doesn't have a strong enforcement infrastructure for credit-ratings and loan-recovery. It is easier to default on a loan and disappear. India, traditionally has also had a strong savings ethic, which seems to be slowly disappearing - first came consumer-goods on installments, and now we have "personal loans". The result is a flood of easy money that must be partly responsible for the roughly 5% inflation and meteoric asset prices.
I worry that these new banks, in their eagerness to conquer market-share, have recklessly executed unstable monetary stategies. Rumor on the street this time in India was that India's federal bank (RBI) had to raise interest-rate on savings-deposits to prevent ICICI Bank from collapsing because ICICI Bank had too many bad loans.
Tailpiece:
My neighbor's nephew worked for HSBC Bank, another one of the new banks. The nephew was working late one night when the guard's gun accidentally went off and shot him in the stomach. He died shortly thereafter in the hospital. When I mentioned this to one of my aforementioned uncles - he pointed out that this would never happen in his public-sector bank which has safety precautions for exactly such a scenario. Once the bank's money is placed in the vault at the end of business hours, the guard's gun is also placed under lock and key - the rationale being that once the money is in the vault, the guard doesn't really need his gun. This is yet another case of the new banks having lost some of the wisdom of these older, more mature banks. I wonder if HSBC ever instituted an inquiry into this incident and came up with any safety measures?
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