Posting without comment.This article appeared in the Economic Times today.
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Narendra Modi led rescue efforts in Uttarakhand are not publicity gimmicks
When on Saturday evening, TV channels brought the news that Narendra Modi's visit to Uttarakhand to oversee relief operations had kicked off a major political storm, I decided to go and check for myself whether this was indeed a cheap publicity gimmick as alleged by the Congress or a serious response to a tragedy.
Here's my take, one that I know will find many disagreeing: those who call Modi a Rambo or a publicity-hungry politician have no clue what they are dealing with. Consider the following. Gujarat today has a fighting-fit bureaucracy because it was enabled to develop expertise, team spirit and deliver results under the most adverse circumstances.
The Gujarat Disaster Management Authority ( GDMA) has become a thoroughly professional institution capable of responding to natural or man-made disasters. It has a 24x7 monitoring system and well-publicised helpline numbers well known to Gujaratis - both in the country and abroad. Modi has succeeded in conveying to the citizens of Gujarat that the government is always there to serve them. That is why the first response of Gujaratis anywhere in the world is to contact the chief minister's office if they are caught in a calamity.
Also, consider this. Modi arrived in Delhi late 17th night for a meeting with the Planning Commission on 18th when news of cloudburst and landslides was telecast on TV. He held an emergency meeting to take stock of the situation since he knew that thousands of Gujaratis are likely to be among the Chardham pilgrims . Right away, a camp office was opened at Gujarat Bhavan and the Resident Commissioner's team in Delhi was made responsible for coordinating with Gujarati pilgrims.
Early-Mover Advantage
On the 18th morning, Modi called Dr Pranav Pandya of the All World Gayatri Parivar to provide space and infrastructure in his Shanti Kunj campus for the relief centre proposed to be set up by the Gujarat government . He chose this campus because of his close knowledge of, and rapport with, this Gandhian institution that can house and feed thousands of people at a short notice.
It has a 2,000-strong community of swayamsevaks on the campus, plus 3,000-odd students of the Dev Sanskriti University. The campus also has a well-run hospital.
On the 18th evening itself, a set of computers with internet connections , telephone lines, television sets and all other paraphernalia required for Gujarat government's relief operation were set up. Therefore, when a team of Gujarat government IAS, IPS and IFS officers came, they could get going within minutes of reaching Shanti Kunj.
Team Gujarat had two officers from Uttarakhand - Assistant Director General of Police Bisht and Forest Service officer SC Pant - who had close knowledge of the terrain to guide both the stranded pilgrims as well as rescue teams on the safest possible routes to take. ADG Bisht went straight to Gupta Kashi from where the rescue operations are being launched.
A team of seven doctors trained in handling such emergencies, led by an orthopaedic surgeon, not only put in place an efficient first-aid service but are also attending to those severely injured.
I saw them go around to other relief camps and railway stations to attend to non-Gujaratis as well. The mandate of Team Gujarat in Uttarakhand is: take good care of rescued pilgrims as they arrive but send them home at the earliest possible in the most comfortable manner . Don't worry about expenditure or numbers.
Smooth Operators
As always, officers on the ground have been empowered to take onthe-spot decisions, to decide how many buses or taxis they need, how many pilgrims need to be sent by air and what kind of aircraft to order. I saw senior IAS officers working 24x7 alongside very junior staff in one single room as a close-knit team.
When Modi landed in Dehradun, Team Gujarat was already in control . Far from attacking the state government , he offered all possible help.
Upset Congress
In addition, he synergised resources , energised BJP workers to get going, not just for immediate relief but also long-term reconstruction work. All his officers were provided phone numbers of BJP functionaries of all 190 blocks in Uttarakhand and vice versa. As usual, he worked to guide and streamline the operations . There was genuine spirit of cooperation and teamwork.
The Congress party is understandably upset because its chief minister has proved a disaster, its party machinery is in disarray, Congress Sewa Dal workers are nowhere in sight, Rahul Gandhi's Youth Brigade is clueless even in routine situations , leave alone know how to face a crisis like the Uttarakhand deluge.
That is the reality of the Uttarakhand relief operation led by Narendra Modi.
The writer is founder, Manushi, and professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
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My 2 cents:I am one of the most harshest critics of Modi and my tweets are testimony to that. I'm also one of the first employees that APCO hired in Mumbai to service the Gujarat business they had just won in 2007.I can say with confidence (though I don't work with APCO any longer) that what the media projects is far from the truth. Most of the time fabricated by APCO's detractors because they can't come to terms with the fact that an international firm is associated with a smart government.I think Tushar has stated the facts and I tweeted earlier today about the same. Time to look at all sides of the story rather than nitpick.RegardsAmith@amithprOn Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 12:45 AM, BNK 24x7 <mailbnk@gmail.com> wrote:The so-called Himalayan Miracle done by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has attracted national attention with politicians jumping head over heels to either praise or criticise the Rambo act.
Today's edition of The Times of India has an excellent edit page piece by Abeek Barman who analyses the entire drama which ultimately turns out to be a piece of fiction spinned Modi's PR network.
The act itself, the media reportage and the way the PR machinery functioned raises many points to ponder over for us, PR and media professionals.
- Is it ethical for PR professionals to exaggerate facts into such dramatic stories?
- Does media not have the responsibility to cross check any PR item fed to them?
- Does this episode teach us few lessons?
- Does this impact the credibility of PR and media as well?
- Do we not have collective responsibility to our readers and viewers?
Friends, let us discuss this in a frank and democratic manner so that the future generations will not ask us: Where were you when your professionals were committing Himalayan blunders?
As Abeek says: In every area the Modi narrative is a tale of bluster and bluff. But his Himalayan miracle is a barefaced, cynical lie.
Hope many of you have already read Abeek's piece. I am pasting it here for reference The highlights are mine:
Also, pl check the original story on Modi's Rambo act: Narendra Modi lands in Uttarakhand, flies out with 15,000 Gujaratis
Modi's Himalayan miracle
Abheek Barman | Jun 26, 2013, 12.00 AM IST
Congress attacks Narendra ModiBritish minister to call on Narendra ModiNarendra Modi inaugurates yoga universitySirish Bharadwaj meets Narendra ModiIlliteracy painful, shameful: Narendra Modi
On the evening of Friday, June 21, as India reeled from the shock of the calamity in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi landed up in Dehradun with a handful of officers. By Sunday, it was claimed that he had rescued 15,000 stranded Gujaratis from the wreckage of Uttarakhand and sent these grateful folks back home.
This miracle was played up in media. But how was this feat achieved in a day or so, when India's entire military establishment has struggled to rescue around 40,000 people over 10 days?
Reports say that Modi pulled off this coup with a fleet of 80 Innovas. How did these cars manage to reach places like Kedarnath, across roads that have been washed away, over landslides that have wrecked most access routes?
But let us assume Modi's Innovas had wings as well as helicopter rotors. Including the driver, an Innova is designed to carry seven people. In a tough situation, assume you could pack nine passengers into each car. In that case, a convoy of 80 Innovas could ferry 720 people down the mountains to Dehradun at one go. To get 15,000 people down, the convoy would need to make 21 round trips.
The distance between Dehradun and Kedarnath is 221 km. So 21 trips up and down would mean that each Innova would have to travel nearly 9,300 km.
It takes longer to travel in the hills than in the plains. So, assuming an average speed of 40 km per hour, it would take 233 hours of driving to pull off the feat.
This assumes non-stop driving, without a second's rest to identify the Gujaratis to be rescued and keeping the rest of the distressed folk at bay, or any time to load and unload the vehicles. And forget about any downtime for the gallant rescuers.
That is nearly 10 days of miraculous work. And Modi pulled it off in a day.
Actually, in less than a day: a breathless media reported that by Saturday, 25 luxury buses had brought a group of Gujaratis back to Delhi. For some reason, four Boeing aircraft also idled in some undisclosed place nearby.
Modi, ever modest, himself did not make the claim of rescuing 15,000 Gujaratis from Himalayan disaster in a day. It was likely dumped on a gullible media by his public relations agency, an American outfit called Apco Worldwide. In 2007, Apco was hired, ostensibly to boost the Vibrant Gujarat summits, but to actually burnish Modi's image, for $25,000 a month.
He is in good company. Apco has worked for the dictator of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbaev, the governments of Malaysia and Israel and the American tobacco lobby.
For the latter, it set up front organisations to rubbish evidence which proved that tobacco causes cancer. Apco has also worked for pariah regimes like Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan and Nigerian strongman Sani Abacha.
Its powerful advisory council includes former Israeli diplomats Itamar Rabinovich and Shimon Stein, as well as Doron Bergerbest-Eilon, who was the highest ranked officer in the Israel security agency.
Apco is credited with Modi's makeover and his holographic campaigns. Before Apco, Vibrant Gujarat was a tame affair: the first three summits generated investment promi-ses between $14 billion and $150 billion. After Apco, in 2009 and 2011, these jumped to $253 billion and $450 billion.
Apco worked tirelessly to rope in investor interest from America. It also lobbied with politicians in Washington to remove the ban on Modi travelling to the US. The ban was imposed after the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat as Modi presided over the state in 2002. So far, Apco hasn't succeeded in getting Modi a US visa.
And the Vibrant Gujarat numbers are all hot air. An analysis by my colleague Kingshuk Nag in his biography of Modi shows that only 3.2% of the 2009 number has materialised on the ground. Of the 2011 figure, a mere 0.5% is for real.
But Modi does not need Apco to lie. In 2005 he announced that state-owned company GSPC had made India's biggest gas discovery: 20 trillion cubic feet (tcf) valued at more than $50 billion, off Andhra Pradesh. This was 40% more than what Reliance had found in the same area. Modi then egged on GSPC to grab projects in Egypt, Yemen and Australia.
Many suspected that Modi's gas claim was hot air, but in the absence of evidence few could say so. But by 2012, the Centre's directorate general of hydrocarbons (DGH), which analyses and certifies all energy finds, said that it could vouch for only a tenth of Modi's claim: there was only 2 tcf of gas. And that too in areas tough to exploit.
Meanwhile, under Modi's rousing leadership, GSPC had poured in nearly $2 billion into exploration, much of it raised as debt based on its supposed 20 tcf gas find. When the gas vanished, GSPC went bust.
To rescue it, Modi asked the company to venture out into more areas, like city gas distribution. There have been problems with these businesses as well, including a very dubious transaction with a company in Barbados.
In every area the Modi narrative is a tale of bluster and bluff. But his Himalayan miracle is a barefaced, cynical lie.
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Narendra Modi lands in Uttarakhand, flies out with 15,000 Gujaratis
Anand Soondas, TNN Jun 23, 2013, 02.06AM IST
DEHRADUN: In the two days that NarendraModi has been in Uttarakhand, he has managed to completely rile not just the Congress government of Vijay Bahuguna but also the administrative staff involved in rescue operations at Kedarnath, Badrinath and Uttarkashi. But above all, he has also managed to bring home some 15,000 stranded Gujarati pilgrims.
The Gujarat CM, who flew in on Friday evening, held a meeting till 1am with his crack rescue team of five IAS, one IPS, one IFS and two GAS (Gujarat Administrative Service) officers. Two DSPs and five police inspectors were also part of his delegation. They sat again with the nitty-gritty of evacuation in a huddle that a senior BJP leader said lasted till 1am on Sunday.
Around 80 Toyota Innovas have been requisitioned to ferry Gujaratis to safer places in Dehradun as have four Boeings. On Saturday, 25 luxury buses transported a bunch of grateful people to Delhi. The efforts are being coordinated by two of the senior-most IAS officers of Gujarat, one currently stationed in Delhi and another in Uttarakhand.
As if that was not enough to thumb his nose at a government accused of large-scale mismanagement in handling the crisis, Modi later in the day even offered to "completely rebuild" the temple at Kedarnath using "the latest technology available" in such a way that no natural calamity would ever shake it again. The Uttarakhand CM is believed to have dismissed the statement.
What cannot be dismissed, though, is Modi's now trademark style of micro-management, something his supporters say is the need of the hour for India. "It's amazing what he has done here," said Anil Baluni, a BJP leader. "If someone doesn't like it, what can we do?'
Modi's men have not only para-dropped a complete medical team in Hardwar, they have also set up camps across th flood-hit regions. Prominent BJP workers in villages across the state are dealing directly with members of the rescue committee, telling them where food is to be sent, people given shelter and medicines administered. That seems to have helped. When a car owned by a Gujarati was stuck in a road-block by angry residents demanding aid in Badkot, Uttarkashi, an urgent message was immediately sent out by an IAS officer and the vehicle taken to safety.
Asked about the "new model" of rescue and relief operation by Modi that has helped 15,000 Gujaratis get out of Uttarakhand, an angry Congress legislator said, "See, that's what we mean. His model works only for Gujaratis."
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