In the summer night when wind blows with chirp
I stand alone to watch twinkling stars,
They offer hopes against all odds
Whether u are alone or not, hopes never dies, hopes never dies
In the summer night, I stand alone to watch sea shore near the sea
They offer hopes against all odd
That we will come back to be with you,
Hopes never dies, never dies.
In the summer night ,I stand alone to watch dark nights and moon shining like a diamond cut
They offer hope against all odd that
In the pitch of darkness, when all will be gone,
Beam of light will be still reaching from window
Hopes never dies, never dies.
In the summer night, when silence galore at his best
And suddenly feisty stormy weather threaten to takes things away
The morning always offers dash of fragrance of flowers and life goes with zoom
Hopes never dies, never dies.
I am always standing alone against all odds
The hopes continues to flow from the abode,
I am standing high and just soaking it.
Rajeev
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Disaster Management
Disaster Management is the discipline of dealing with and avoiding risks. It is a discipline that involves preparing for disaster before it occurs, disaster response, and supporting, and rebuilding society after natural or man made disasters have occurred. In general, any Disaster Management is the continuous process by which all individuals, groups, and communities manage hazards in an effort to avoid or ameliorate the impact of disasters resulting from the hazards. Actions taken depend in part on perceptions of risk of those exposed. Effective Disaster emergency management relies on thorough integration of disaster management plans at all levels of government and non-government involvement. Activities at each level individual, group, community affect the other levels.
Recent earthquake in Haiti has again brought the issue of disaster management at the fore front in the development sector. The world communities have started relief and rehabilitation operation sincerely but the immediate losses could not be stopped. As reported the Presidential Palace was collapsed, one could under stand the plight of commoners. AP( Associated Press) reported, that after two months of devastation “Trash and sewage are piling up at the squalid tent camps that hundreds of thousands have called home — and with torrential rains expected any day, authorities are not even close to providing the shelters they promised. Two months since the Jan. 12 quake, the government has yet to relocate a single person, despite a pledge that people would be moving into resettlement areas by early February.” One has to understand that this is the condition after more than a decade when world over Disaster management was taken as a part of developmental process that concluded any major disaster is direct set back to ongoing development work.
In India, few lessons were learnt when major earthquakes in Gujarat and Super cyclone in Orissa had jolted the entire political and bureaucratic class. After the super cyclone it was primarily felt to work on Disaster as a part of developmental process and sensitizing and awareness generation at community level would reduce the risk of disaster when it struck. In another way the cost incurred during prevention of disaster and cost incurred after disaster to initiate the normal socio-economic life has a major fiscal difference. This leads to initiate a major community driven disaster management programme. Against the back drop The developmental arm of UN, UNDP with the help of Ministry of Home Affairs, GoI had started the Disaster Risk Management Programme in India across seventeen states and 169 districts covering substantial part of the country .The prg itself has completed its five years terms and second phase has also started but can we say that the prg has achieved its primary objective? Nature of work done and change in the people’s perception on disaster management has changed a bit or not? This may happen that the prg itself has given birth to hundreds of development professionals who have started making the living and livelihood on these activites and few more people who got self motivated by this cause are working tirelessly.
Further one can argue that it is always easier to criticize than start working to filter on those deficiencies for the prg or person who has been accused. This may also be described as a fad of Indian middle class drawing room talks but issues; like Disaster Management has been making a great impact on most of the common people of our country. It may have less affect on citizens of developed countries but they also cdnt save them selves from Katrina or recent spate of urban floods being faced by them. Back to the issue, I would like to highlight few aspects of the prg being implemented by the UNDP along with the government departments in most of the district of various states .As a UN volunteer, I was posted at Begusarai one of the semi -urban district of Bihar. One of the major aspect of prg was to plan and prepare a disaster management plan for villages, tehsil, block, sub division and district and states against the natural disaster that particular place may face in coming days. But most of the plans prepared were of very poor quality and has no takers. Nor the implementing agencies neither the government who has mandate to adopt it could work accordingly. To make the matter worst, the plan was one-dimensional, apart from few socio economic basic data’s and name of few officials from district or village level there is hardly important information one can find. This is a story of most of the plans prepared at village, block and district level. At present I am not sure how many Indian states can claim that they have robust, tested disaster management plan.Mahatashtra was one of the early states who proclaimed state level disaster management plan but during Mumbai flood its utility was found to be zero. One of the glaring reason was they had not thought of that flood can occur in Mumbai so there was no established operational mechanism against it. But contradicting it at the same time some top class development also took place like setting up of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), an agency specially to look mainly after response during any natural disasters and setting some standards in relief and rescue measures with rapid movement and mobilization of their resources with minimum lapses of time. This is my firm belief that establishing an institution may be an arduous task but can be done, compare it with community mobilisation process that appears simple but complex to achieve. NDMA’s work during disaster struck due to change of course by river Koshi was remarkable.
Many more developmental agencies have also come in the filed of Disaster Management with grand agenda to serve the poor and vulnerable during an emergency. But whatever their vision and mission , most of them have started disaster management wing not because of their love and empathy for the common masses, but because the fund flow which has increased in this sector and that may make happy living of few disaster management experts ,directors and so called domain experts. They are never tired to boast about the importance of community participation in all the seminars and forums if given chance to speak up invited or uninvited. But again there are some good aspects also. European Commission have been sincerely sanctioning projects of relief, rehabilitation and preparation after every disaster in India and around the world. I had a personal experience of working in two of the project of relief and rehabilitation in Muzaffarpur on behalf of Care India and some good work was completed that really helped the affected community. Whether it was Koshi in Bihar or Tsunami, and recent Aila in West Bengal they have responded during every disaster. One can raise a question about the length of project that is small in nature with shorter time period. But this is one agency or organization becoming a ray of hope for many international agencies wishes to show their presence in the affected area but due to lack of fund for immediate resource mobilization they may not do much.
Thematically speaking because of the evolving nature of the subject itself quite a number of persons / organizations are not sure what and how they want to work in this area. One of the biggest concerns is that most of the organizational wings of Disaster Management takes a back seat during normal time where there is less work to do. It is the demand of the time that these issues should not be only taken at national level but must also be linked up with most of the ongoing developmental prg of public and private sectors. In India within a couple of years number of national level social development prg have been introduced by the government be it NREGS, NRHM, HIV- AIDS, SARVA SIKSHA ABHIYAN etc but none of them have addressed the issue of disaster. For them it is still being perceived as a one of the event that comes and goes. Where as now it has been clearly established that process of development and disasters are directly linked to each other and both can’t go into opposite direction..
What I meant to say from entire argument is that the discipline of disaster management should not be taken as a one of the subject to read and understand to produce few experts that may provide some tangible benefits to the society, rather it should be taken as subject in-built in most of issues. It can also be termed as “Hub and Spoke concept” where all the developmental subjects will be acting as spoke, executing some or other form of Disaster Management activities finally converging at pinnacle of development. In continuation the million dollar question that creeps in most of the development practioners that how much it relates with poverty?. Well if we view poverty alleviation as a matter of income generation it may or may not address it but if we can view poverty as a diverse and dynamic, social inferiority, isolation, physical weakness and vulnerability then certainly it has major role to play in all form of socio economic development (Poverty and Livelihoods: Whose Reality Counts Robert Chambers, ISD Papers). The complex relationship with poverty and disaster management is also well argued by Mr. S.Yodamani in his chapter “Disaster Preparedness and Management”
Further one can argue that it is always easier to criticize than start working to filter on those deficiencies for the prg or person who has been accused. This may also be described as a fad of Indian middle class drawing room talks but issues; like Disaster Management has been making a great impact on most of the common people of our country. It may have less affect on citizens of developed countries but they also cdnt save them selves from Katrina or recent spate of urban floods being faced by them. Back to the issue, I would like to highlight few aspects of the prg being implemented by the UNDP along with the government departments in most of the district of various states .As a UN volunteer, I was posted at Begusarai one of the semi -urban district of Bihar. One of the major aspect of prg was to plan and prepare a disaster management plan for villages, tehsil, block, sub division and district and states against the natural disaster that particular place may face in coming days. But most of the plans prepared were of very poor quality and has no takers. Nor the implementing agencies neither the government who has mandate to adopt it could work accordingly. To make the matter worst, the plan was one-dimensional, apart from few socio economic basic data’s and name of few officials from district or village level there is hardly important information one can find. This is a story of most of the plans prepared at village, block and district level. At present I am not sure how many Indian states can claim that they have robust, tested disaster management plan.Mahatashtra was one of the early states who proclaimed state level disaster management plan but during Mumbai flood its utility was found to be zero. One of the glaring reason was they had not thought of that flood can occur in Mumbai so there was no established operational mechanism against it. But contradicting it at the same time some top class development also took place like setting up of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), an agency specially to look mainly after response during any natural disasters and setting some standards in relief and rescue measures with rapid movement and mobilization of their resources with minimum lapses of time. This is my firm belief that establishing an institution may be an arduous task but can be done, compare it with community mobilisation process that appears simple but complex to achieve. NDMA’s work during disaster struck due to change of course by river Koshi was remarkable.
Many more developmental agencies have also come in the filed of Disaster Management with grand agenda to serve the poor and vulnerable during an emergency. But whatever their vision and mission , most of them have started disaster management wing not because of their love and empathy for the common masses, but because the fund flow which has increased in this sector and that may make happy living of few disaster management experts ,directors and so called domain experts. They are never tired to boast about the importance of community participation in all the seminars and forums if given chance to speak up invited or uninvited. But again there are some good aspects also. European Commission have been sincerely sanctioning projects of relief, rehabilitation and preparation after every disaster in India and around the world. I had a personal experience of working in two of the project of relief and rehabilitation in Muzaffarpur on behalf of Care India and some good work was completed that really helped the affected community. Whether it was Koshi in Bihar or Tsunami, and recent Aila in West Bengal they have responded during every disaster. One can raise a question about the length of project that is small in nature with shorter time period. But this is one agency or organization becoming a ray of hope for many international agencies wishes to show their presence in the affected area but due to lack of fund for immediate resource mobilization they may not do much.
Thematically speaking because of the evolving nature of the subject itself quite a number of persons / organizations are not sure what and how they want to work in this area. One of the biggest concerns is that most of the organizational wings of Disaster Management takes a back seat during normal time where there is less work to do. It is the demand of the time that these issues should not be only taken at national level but must also be linked up with most of the ongoing developmental prg of public and private sectors. In India within a couple of years number of national level social development prg have been introduced by the government be it NREGS, NRHM, HIV- AIDS, SARVA SIKSHA ABHIYAN etc but none of them have addressed the issue of disaster. For them it is still being perceived as a one of the event that comes and goes. Where as now it has been clearly established that process of development and disasters are directly linked to each other and both can’t go into opposite direction..
What I meant to say from entire argument is that the discipline of disaster management should not be taken as a one of the subject to read and understand to produce few experts that may provide some tangible benefits to the society, rather it should be taken as subject in-built in most of issues. It can also be termed as “Hub and Spoke concept” where all the developmental subjects will be acting as spoke, executing some or other form of Disaster Management activities finally converging at pinnacle of development. In continuation the million dollar question that creeps in most of the development practioners that how much it relates with poverty?. Well if we view poverty alleviation as a matter of income generation it may or may not address it but if we can view poverty as a diverse and dynamic, social inferiority, isolation, physical weakness and vulnerability then certainly it has major role to play in all form of socio economic development (Poverty and Livelihoods: Whose Reality Counts Robert Chambers, ISD Papers). The complex relationship with poverty and disaster management is also well argued by Mr. S.Yodamani in his chapter “Disaster Preparedness and Management”
Friday, February 12, 2010
tells from developmental sector
One can argue, that the crux of development sector mainly works on the premise of twin pillars, (1) To work for the poor and marginalized in order to alleviate the level of poverty and other vulnerabilities of rural and urban poor (2) To generate and mobilize the resources for that purpose and use it in with specific objective. The concept appears simple and easy to execute but when a some one will be willing to contribute and work for the sector, this come as zero- sum game. In modern developmental sector, the rule of the game has changed totally.
The third factor has also came out, is not mentioned above. The factor is the interest of many powerful organizations, their human resource personnel, government role and responsibilities and community at large who understand the nuisance of development sector now. As during one of my field visit on behalf of my organization, we went for base line survey to find out the level of intervention required from organizational point of view were planning to do. Before when we reach, naively we spoke to the local mukhiya about our planned visit. After visiting the place we were astonished to find out villagers were more interested to know about how much money organization would be bringing in and what are other prospects of being associated with forthcoming project. It is inspite of that we have been telling them that team is here only to assess the situation and final decision will take place after consulting the seniors and other stake holders.
There is another growing concern which few of my friends would be happy to disagree. The sense of helplessness among the committed professionals who spends lot of time to in balancing the point of view of donor, implementing agency and the community at large. He may not be understood by the organization for he works because of the difference in perception. For an organization spending money within a stipulated time may be a top priority but for an individual project design and deliverables may comes first rather then exhausting the resources. Because we all know that “always love your work not the organization because you never know when organization will stop loving you’. I mean to say difference in the perspective is always important. How an individual approach a programme and project or vise- versa.
The process of resources mobilization has and its linkages has also gone sea changes in coming years. While seeing in the context of India it can said that there is always a mis- match between demand of community, response from the government and national and international NGO’s. I am without being prejudice to my country men and women the fund flow for relief and rehabilitation during TSUNAMI was much greater than in comparison to resources generated for the river koshi flood in Bihar. I am not sure about the factuality of statement but it was said that devastation at Koshi was larger than TSUNAMI. The whole argument is that how international and national community responds to the crisis is matter of serious debate. The role of government in-terms resource mobilization during these periods is also an issue to ponder on. Thanks to growing economic liberlisation and increasing business of number of Indian companies is in a better position to contribute for the development sector. But most of them prefer to play different ball game. In a view to appease the prospective state governments they heavily fund in the Chief Minister Fund and sum up their responsibility. While doing so they can rightly claim that they have done their duty but they have ignored the organizations that have got the specilisation in relief and rehabilitation works for which they have established themselves. The point of matter is not to oppose the funding to the concern government but look at the larger picture. These funding to local and national NGO will not generate jobs at their level but also develop the capacity of local organization starving for resource crunch. The aspect of monitoring and evaluation also goes out of purview from the donor.
The advent of globalization and its impact has also its pro and cons. It had a wider ramification on most of developmental international organization. Because of their own institutional arrangements and poor liasoning and networking capacity within the country where they implement the prg, most of them are depended on resources from abroad but the due to current economic recession where profits have dwindled and number of jobs are axed heavily contribution to the developmental sector would be the last thing in the mind of CEO’s and board members. This makes task of resource mobilization arduous. In a current scenario there is growing concern to recognition and pursue pro-poor agenda for development. While doing so most of the developmental organization missed or ignored the market intervention that directly linked with growth. What matters is the degree to which economic growth provides opportunities for the poor, and the extent to which poor men and women can take advantage of those opportunities. In this area lot can be done by the developmental sector community. Instead of running and completing the projects in specific time period and leaving the area of intervention in huff, the emerging agenda should be more holistic and broader, focused on supporting enterprises and entrepreneurship considered important for the poor. Expanding market access to all and improving how markets function can lead to more satisfactory level of intervention. This influence the rate and pattern of economic growth. For growth to be “pro-poor”, the rate has to be high and sustainable and the pattern broad and inclusive. Institutions and policies shape market outcomes and so determine the degree to which they are pro-poor. The role of developmental sector in shaping the plan and policies for market reform is also unclear. But there are some areas where , developmental sector is working in tandem joining hand to hand with many and may be able to provide an alternative point of view , eg India based network on Disaster Management and UNDP supported solution exchange network is gaining wide access to number of policy makers, leading to more democratic development of policies and planning. The development and implementation of RTI act in India can be termed as classic example of government and development sector contribution.
The third factor has also came out, is not mentioned above. The factor is the interest of many powerful organizations, their human resource personnel, government role and responsibilities and community at large who understand the nuisance of development sector now. As during one of my field visit on behalf of my organization, we went for base line survey to find out the level of intervention required from organizational point of view were planning to do. Before when we reach, naively we spoke to the local mukhiya about our planned visit. After visiting the place we were astonished to find out villagers were more interested to know about how much money organization would be bringing in and what are other prospects of being associated with forthcoming project. It is inspite of that we have been telling them that team is here only to assess the situation and final decision will take place after consulting the seniors and other stake holders.
There is another growing concern which few of my friends would be happy to disagree. The sense of helplessness among the committed professionals who spends lot of time to in balancing the point of view of donor, implementing agency and the community at large. He may not be understood by the organization for he works because of the difference in perception. For an organization spending money within a stipulated time may be a top priority but for an individual project design and deliverables may comes first rather then exhausting the resources. Because we all know that “always love your work not the organization because you never know when organization will stop loving you’. I mean to say difference in the perspective is always important. How an individual approach a programme and project or vise- versa.
The process of resources mobilization has and its linkages has also gone sea changes in coming years. While seeing in the context of India it can said that there is always a mis- match between demand of community, response from the government and national and international NGO’s. I am without being prejudice to my country men and women the fund flow for relief and rehabilitation during TSUNAMI was much greater than in comparison to resources generated for the river koshi flood in Bihar. I am not sure about the factuality of statement but it was said that devastation at Koshi was larger than TSUNAMI. The whole argument is that how international and national community responds to the crisis is matter of serious debate. The role of government in-terms resource mobilization during these periods is also an issue to ponder on. Thanks to growing economic liberlisation and increasing business of number of Indian companies is in a better position to contribute for the development sector. But most of them prefer to play different ball game. In a view to appease the prospective state governments they heavily fund in the Chief Minister Fund and sum up their responsibility. While doing so they can rightly claim that they have done their duty but they have ignored the organizations that have got the specilisation in relief and rehabilitation works for which they have established themselves. The point of matter is not to oppose the funding to the concern government but look at the larger picture. These funding to local and national NGO will not generate jobs at their level but also develop the capacity of local organization starving for resource crunch. The aspect of monitoring and evaluation also goes out of purview from the donor.
The advent of globalization and its impact has also its pro and cons. It had a wider ramification on most of developmental international organization. Because of their own institutional arrangements and poor liasoning and networking capacity within the country where they implement the prg, most of them are depended on resources from abroad but the due to current economic recession where profits have dwindled and number of jobs are axed heavily contribution to the developmental sector would be the last thing in the mind of CEO’s and board members. This makes task of resource mobilization arduous. In a current scenario there is growing concern to recognition and pursue pro-poor agenda for development. While doing so most of the developmental organization missed or ignored the market intervention that directly linked with growth. What matters is the degree to which economic growth provides opportunities for the poor, and the extent to which poor men and women can take advantage of those opportunities. In this area lot can be done by the developmental sector community. Instead of running and completing the projects in specific time period and leaving the area of intervention in huff, the emerging agenda should be more holistic and broader, focused on supporting enterprises and entrepreneurship considered important for the poor. Expanding market access to all and improving how markets function can lead to more satisfactory level of intervention. This influence the rate and pattern of economic growth. For growth to be “pro-poor”, the rate has to be high and sustainable and the pattern broad and inclusive. Institutions and policies shape market outcomes and so determine the degree to which they are pro-poor. The role of developmental sector in shaping the plan and policies for market reform is also unclear. But there are some areas where , developmental sector is working in tandem joining hand to hand with many and may be able to provide an alternative point of view , eg India based network on Disaster Management and UNDP supported solution exchange network is gaining wide access to number of policy makers, leading to more democratic development of policies and planning. The development and implementation of RTI act in India can be termed as classic example of government and development sector contribution.
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