Yes, the Wild West Law enforcement was effective as well as merciless.
All were volunteers and a few are legends. But they were tough and
devoted to the job they were supposed to do, a rare trait in present
day NGOs.
Prasenjit
On 5/4/05, umesh sharma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> The sherrif and deputies system of law enforcement in the Wild West days was
> an NGO system? Invovling the local public in catching criminals?
>
> Umesh
>
>
> Rajen Barua <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >But it cannot be a replacement for effective governance.
>
> And who says that? Nobody. So the statement is irrelevant.
> Rajen
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Chan Mahanta
> To: Dilip/Dil Deka ; Anjan K. Nath ; ASSAMNETCOLORADO
> Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 8:14 AM
> Subject: Re: [Assam] Oh, What A Racket!
>
> Citizen participation, NGOs, are good for democracy. Even essential to make
> govt. responsive. But it cannot be a replacement for effective governance.
>
> You can have the best NGOs in the world, but with a govt. like Indian govt.
> things will still not change. Because the Indian govt. controls the powers,
> the resources and holds the legitimate authority. NGO's don't. All they can
> do is cry and scream. It helps, but is NOT a SUBSTITUTE.
>
> The absurdity involved in these arguments is that we are proposing to resort
> to NGOs because the govt. is dysfunctional.
>
> If NGOs are all we need, why do we need government?
>
> Thought about that?
>
>
>
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>
> At 5:50 AM -0700 5/4/05, Dilip/Dil Deka wrote:
> Never know. That idea may be in incubation already.
>
> "Anjan K. Nath" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> BLOCKQUOTE { PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px } DL {
> PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px } UL { PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px;
> PADDING-TOP: 0px } OL { PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px } LI {
> PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px }
> Tsk again tsk!
> Why not send a few GOOD NRAs back home on retirement and set a good example.
>
> AKN
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Chan Mahanta
> To: Dilip/Dil Deka ; ASSAMNETCOLORADO
> Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 10:31 PM
> Subject: Re: [Assam] Oh, What A Racket!
>
> Tsk!
>
> But we are talking about GOOD NGOs. Not all these corrupt garbage. Why can't
> you understand that? All we need are a few GOOD ones.
>
> Let us look for a few good folks and maybe we NRAs can incubate them :-).
>
> It would be a riot if not for the fact that our best are driven to act so
> clueless.
>
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>
> At 6:57 AM -0700 5/3/05, Dilip/Dil Deka wrote:
> Want to know how NGO's function in India? Below is an article written by
> Anupreeta Das, who was a journalist with Outlook India and who happens to be
> my niece. Many NGO's in India thrive on government grants and serve as
> employment or source of income to the founder/s.
>
> Dilip
>
>
> P.S. If you liked Anupreeta's writing, type in "Anupreeta Das" in Google
> search and you will find many other articles written by her.
> ===============================================================
> Oh, What A Racket!
> Author: Anupreeta Das
> Publication: Outlook
> Date: September 22, 2003
> Introduction: The hills are alive with the buzz of self-seeking NGOs, many
> existing only in name
> Lush forests are not the only bounty that Uttaranchal got in its kitty after
> it became a state in November 2000. It also got close to 45,000 NGOs�
> mind-boggling for a state so tiny, with a population of only 84.7 lakh.
> Records from the offices of the chief commissioner of income tax and the
> registrar of societies confirm this huge NGO presence. What has also come as
> a surprise to the authorities is the unusually high density of NGOs in a
> state with 13 districts. That's nearly 4,000 NGOs per district!
> When Uttaranchal's IT commissioner Ashwini Luthra initiated a survey of NGOs
> in May, he did not expect to chance upon a fraud that runs into crores of
> rupees. "When the IT department started collecting data, we found that many
> NGOs did not actually exist or were non-functional," says Luthra. "Yet,
> money is being pumped into trusts, educational societies, NGOs and ashrams
> all over Uttaranchal."
> While the IT office lists a total 44,824 groups, the office of the registrar
> puts the figure at 41,826.
> No wonder then that Uttaranchal's NGO community is rife with allegations of
> corruption and diversion of funds. Amidst the profusion, one can find
> registered NGOs such as the Mahila Vikas Sansthan and Priyadarshini
> Himalayan Seva Institute that don't exist at their addresses, educational
> societies that have run up huge accounting discrepancies, and blacklisted
> NGOs that are ostensibly unaware of their disrepute.
> Take, for instance, the Bal Evam Mahila Kalyan Sansthan in Dehradun's Nehru
> Nagar. This NGO has been blacklisted by the Central Social Welfare Board
> (CSWB) for "non-refund of loans and non-submission of accounts", but its
> founder-director Parmanand Agarwal denies it outright. "In the past, we have
> run a tailoring centre, training sessions for making incense sticks and
> health relief camps with funds from CAPART. Who says we have been
> blacklisted?" asks Agarwal. He took voluntary retirement from the army to
> pursue his "mission", which is to provide "literacy, health and employment
> for the people of Uttaranchal". His tiny one-room office, which sits atop
> his residence, houses the meagre tools of his mission: a computer, a
> typewriter, two desks, government pamphlets and a telephone.
>
> Since 2001, Agarwal's NGO has been running a tele- counselling centre for
> HIV/AIDS under a Rs 2.74 lakh grant from the National AIDS Control
> Organisation. "People call every few minutes asking about HIV/ AIDS," he
> informs us and opens a register to show calls recorded at two-minute and
> three- minute intervals. However, in the one hour we sat in his office,
> there was not a single call. Agarwal insists it is because it's "lunch
> break", presumably for callers too. Neither he nor his colleague Dinesh
> Chand seem to know much about HIV/ AIDS. "Hum pamphlet se padh ke batate
> hain (We read out answers to queries from the pamphlets)," explains Chand.
> Faced with reports and allegations of such misconduct, Dehradun's district
> magistrate ordered a survey of registered NGOs and societies in June last
> year. Dehradun district is home to 7,469 NGOs, the largest concentration in
> the state. The initial results of the survey show that of 223 organisations
> checked so far, 139 NGOs and societies are fraudulent or registered only on
> paper. "It is quite evident that barely 10 per cent of the NGOs in Dehradun
> district are functional. The rest just sit there, waiting for funds to come
> by," says chief development officer P.S. Jangpangi. He says the situation in
> the rest of Uttaranchal is "even worse".
>
> Examination of bank accounts has yielded irregularities in the funds of many
> NGOs. The Van Karamchari Welfare Society, for instance, could not identify
> the source of Rs 4.6 lakh in its bank account when questioned by officials
> of the District Programmes Office (DPO).Setting up schools appears to be
> another racket. In October last year, a survey of educational societies by
> the IT department showed unaccounted funds to the "tune of several crores",
> says an IT official. However, Devender Mann, chairman of the Doon
> International School Education Society (not to be confused with the renowned
> Doon School), which is one of the schools surveyed, dismisses it as
> "baseless". "We are a no profit, no loss society. All the money we earn from
> students is spent on improving school facilities," he says.
> Furthermore, a rough estimate by the registrar's office shows that nearly
> 10,000 NGOs and societies have been registered since Uttaranchal was
> created. "After schools, NGOs are the sunrise industry," says Geetanjali, a
> social worker with the development NGO Rural Litigation and Entitlement
> Kendra (RLEK).
> "Many paratroopers, lured by the funds on offer for a newborn state, have
> come in and set up NGOs," alleges RLEK chairman Avdhesh Kaushal. Uttaranchal
> is one of the few states that enjoys special status with regard to central
> government development funds. Besides, several international aid agencies
> too have pitched their tents here. "There is money to be had, respect to be
> earned and very little work to be done. No wonder, starting an NGO is a very
> attractive option," says Kadambari Gosain, who helps her husband S.S. Gosain
> run the Kunwari Human Development Institute in Dehradun.
> The Gosains, however, have run into financial difficulties and now run
> private vocational training courses even though their institute is
> registered as a 'no profit, no loss' one. "We are poor and honest. Why don't
> you talk to all those relatives of government officials who have also
> started their own NGOs?" asks Gosain.
> There is much speculation among the NGO community about the wives of
> Uttaranchal's bureaucrats running NGOs to line their pockets. But in the
> absence of any proof, the suspicion is mostly based on observation and
> hearsay. "These NGOs never participate in workshops and meetings, so we
> don't know what they do. They say they have no sources of funds but they
> bring out glossy calendars and stationery every year," says J.M. Singh of
> NGO Mamta Samajik Kendra, which works on health- related issues in the
> Chakrata region.
> The government policy itself may be a reason for the mushrooming of NGOs.
> Says Sushil Sharma of Aarohi, which has been working in the Nainital-Almora
> region for 15 years, "Top government officials have been mindlessly
> promoting development through the creation of women's self-help groups,
> which are registered as societies." At present, registered mahila and yuva
> mandals, which are intended as grassroots empowerment groups for women and
> the youth under a CSWB scheme, number 20,401. Meanwhile, Singh argues that
> development NGOs should be registered separately from religious, cultural
> and educational societies in order to bring the number down to "manageable"
> levels.
>
> Uttaranchal is not the only state in the country with such a large number of
> registered NGOs and societies�Maharashtra has approximately 50,000.But the
> number is suspect because of the state's size. According to Sanjay Bapat of
> the website www.indianngos.com, which maintains a database of NGOs in India,
> of the 20 lakh registered NGOs and societies in the country, only 30,000 or
> so are actually doing developmental work. How many of these are in
> Uttaranchal is anybody's guess.
>
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Atlanta, GA
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