The Leaky Cauldron

 

In my service universe, leaks were a strategic weapon, a Brahmastra when all else failed. In one of my assignments, I organised a large-scale recruitment after a lot of perseverance. The main source of corruption in government being recruitment, I had arranged the recruitment rules and methodology in such a way that there was very little scope for discretion. My proposal was received politely and I was asked extremely politely to bring in a few “minor” changes, mainly that the marks allotted for the interview should be hiked from 10 % to 50 %. That would’ve led to complete political control over who would get recruited and killed any possibility of transparency so I refused. I was hauled up before the Minister who was ballistic. He asked me why “deserving” candidates should not be given a leg-up and so on. “Deserving,” in his universe meant party-affiliated. When I countered, he asked could I face my service chief, Could I face the One-Who-Was-Above-All-Ministers, could I face such-and-such with my outrageous ideas? To all of which I said yes and walked out. The minister then directed some compliant authorities to modify my scheme. I thought and thought. Then I found a Supreme Court order that the interview component in that category of recruitment couldn’t exceed 15 %. I put that in writing but my letter was ignored. Somehow, my letter regarding the Supreme Court directive got published in some newspapers. The Minister went ballistic again and arranged for counter-leaks. In the middle of all this, I was again hauled up for a severe dressing down over how dare I leak to the press. I denied the allegation, pointed to the leaks from the minister’s own office and said I was leaked against rather than leaking. The minister lost that battle because he hadn’t followed the Right Honourable Jim Hacker’s dictum of indiscretion – “Always have a drink before you leak.” 

Ever since the new government has come to power, India has resembled a leaky cauldron, of a different kind. 

This year, 23 lakh students sat for NEET-UG examination on May 5 for around 1 lakh medical seats. A day before the exam, the exam paper got leaked in Bihar. Candidates are supposed to have paid Rs. 30 – 50 lacs for the paper. 67 students received a perfect score which astounded people as it was much higher than the earlier years (only two students had aced it in the previous exam). Eight of the toppers came from one single exam centre in Jhajjar, Haryana. Some students scored 718 or 719. This is technically not possible because there are 180 answers evaluated. Each correct answer fetches 4 marks and each incorrect answer leads to docking of 1 mark. So, if a student answers all questions correctly, he would get 720. If he leaves out one question, he’ll get 716. If he answers one question wrong, his marks will be 715. 

National Testing Agency (NTA) conducting the examination gave explanation after explanation but tied itself in knots progressively. First it said that there was a mistake in the NCERT book regarding one Physics question so students were given full marks. This accounted for 44 of the 67 toppers. Even so, 67 ace scores vis-à-vis 2 in the previous exam? Plus, the wrong information was apparently in an NCERT book of 2018. 

Then NTA said that 1563 students were given grace marks because of loss of time in some exam centres due to delayed distribution of question papers, etc. Apparently, this followed a Supreme Court judgement of 2018. Later, it turned out that the Supreme Court judgement pertained to Law entrance exam and it had specifically prohibited applying the judgement to Medical entrance examination. The formula or methodology adopted for the grace marks was not revealed by NTA. 

A case of a teacher aiding examinees in a school in Gujarat is being investigated. However, despite requests by the Investigating officer, NTA was not providing the OMR sheets of the concerned students. 

A frenzied media and a compliant government machinery would have it that the Ram Mandir consecration in Ayodhya on January 22 was the biggest event since never. After the election results, there was not much mention about the temple until June 24 when its Chief Priest Acharya Satyendra Das alleged that the roof of the sanctum sanctorum was leaking heavily. The explanation has been that when construction of the temple is completed by December, the leaking problem will be solved. So was there basis to the Sankaracharyas’ objection to the consecration in an incompletely constructed temple as on January 22? Is it true that an earlier structure at the site had a roof without a leaky problem for 400 years? 

Explanations about the temple don’t wish away the several cave-ins in the newly-built Ram Path road leading to the temple. 

On June 28, in the heavy rains in Delhi, the roof of Terminal 1 of Delhi airport collapsed.

A 45-year old cab driver in his parked vehicle died and six others were injured.

Instead of sensitivity, what we saw was death-eater trolls quibbling about when that roof was constructed. Well, it was constructed in 2009. So, was the UPA government responsible for the above cab driver’s death? But then, the person who was civil aviation minister then, Praful Patel, is part of the current ruling dispensation. What exactly is the role of Director General of Civil Aviation, if not ensuring civil aviation safety whether an airport was constructed 15 years or 150 years back?

Jabalpur airport was inaugurated three months back. On June 27, a section of its tensile roof canopy collapsed following heavy rains. On June 29, a canopy collapsed at the passenger pick-up and drop area at Rajkot airport amid heavy rainfall. Looks like there's been a tearing hurry to inaugurate some infra projects without diligent completion and safety/security audits. Inaugurate rhymes with but doesn't equal to GREAT! 

Meanwhile, there is the very urgent matter of the 1975 Emergency.