Suggestions for implementation in state
 

During my stay in Singapore for five years, I had been exposed to how they teach their children to respect each other irrespective of multiple nationalities (not only religions) being present in the same place. They allowed for each nationality to study their own history and practice/maintain their heritage. This automatically develops communal harmony among the residents of singapore. I am attempting to do something similar by suggesting the following syllabus.

State Syllabus (Suggested)

8 sections

1. Arts ( by sixth grade the child should know the basic ezhu katta and saptha swarangal, so they can play around with what they learnt as they grow old) (higher than 6th grade should be choice of whether dance / musical instrument / vocal training)
2. Tamil or State Culture ( study of tamil language, tamil kaapiyam, tamil kings and their rule periods, tamil astrology -- tamil astrology because it is specific to tamilnadu, astrology is different in every other place of india)
3. National Culture ( study of hindi language, for communal harmony, all the kids should understand why we are hindus, muslims and christians even though we are all tamil indians.. therefore, they should be accurately taught about the medieval kings of india, the mughal invasion and the eventual east india company so they know there are multiple cultural beliefs among indians and these should be respected.. also about national and state freedom fighters to understand the national perspective of our struggle and not just the kodi kaatha kumaran point of view alone.)
4. English (so they can travel across the world and spread knowledge of our culture)
5. Russian or Chinese language by choice ( After the english speaking population, russian and chinese speakers are the highest so its better to learn)
6. Maths and Science as already prescribed in state board.
7. For Hindus (sanskrit language), for Muslims (Urdu Language), for Christians (Latin Language)
8. For Hindus (Ramayana/Mahabharatham, gita, a few select puranas) , For Muslims (their beliefs), For Christians (the bible)

11th and 12th should be purely science/maths, economics/accounts for helping the children pursue modern pursuits.. Hopefully their respective cultures (hindu/muslim/christian) has been imbued into them by this time. Since they all studied together, they will continue to respect each other after they grow up also.

For the wellbeing of our youth

1. Compulsoy 2 year Army training for all male candidates passing XII std

2. All kids finishing XII std to be registered with a state run horoscope bureau

    a. Girls from the age of 21 should be sent suitable matches with preference to their locality
    b. A sincere effort should be made to ensure that no girl is left unmarried above an age of 25.

The age of 21 is selected because this gives ample time for the girl to finish a 4 year degree course before being initiated into marriage. Upper age limit of 25 is so they can also get a Masters degree or work experience before marriage. Knowledge that they will definitely get married will hopefully reduce teenage pregnancies in young girls.

The parents and girls have the right to disregard the matches sent to them. For the girls who are happy to find their own match, this bureau will not force any choice on them.

3. Consider separate boys and girls educational institutions over co-education – state level debate and input to be got from public for this suggestion.

To promote communal harmony among the current generation
 

Singapore has this concept of C,M,I,O.. this is for each nationality to prosper on its own. All allocations from housing board allocations to just about everything else, the aim is to maintain a balance in the ratio of C, M, I, O

we can attempt something like that in our government jobs and such for ensuring participation of all communities in our state activities. We can have H, M, C, O meaning Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Others. Based on the actual population ratios measured through state census, we can establish a ratio of representation in government departments and government jobs for H,M,C,O. Say something like 50,20,20,10 percent based on the ratio percentage of their population. It is important to reallocate unfilled positions to other communities instead of lowering selection criteria to fill reservation quotas. This will ensure a good standard of service in the government sector.

For all government posts and panchayat jobs preference should be given for local people. This will mean the local people know who is present in their offices and it is easier to hold them accountable by the local population itself incase someone misbehaves. Transfers can still be effected with due consideration to nearest locality person.

Modified Reservation System
 

If and when this is decided to be implemented, we will have to also look at our reservation system and update it to represent the new foundations that we are laying for a future of communal harmony.

Our old reservation system was created to account for the harmony of people from various castes. The new reality is to maintain communcal harmony and we are somewhat past the caste fights to some extent. So looking to the future, we need to change our reservation systems based on where the kids or job seekers are from.. namely - A or B or C centres.

Say there are 3 categories or levels of reservation,

i - the lowest in the rung - lets say iii, will be all the people from C Centres.
ii - the next in the rung   - lets say ii, will be all the people from B centres who are employed and self-employed but not farmers. Farmers of B centres will come under iii
iii - the top in the rung    - lets say i, will be all the people from A centres who have tax returns above a certain level (Say 8-10 lakhs and above), all the self-employed in A centres (shop owners, snack/tea centres, vehicle drivers but not large hotels and such) will come under iii, and the people who are above no-tax slab and less than the 8-10 lakhs income should be in ii.
Pictorially, this should look something like..

A Centre | B Centre | C Centre
------------------------------------------
       i       |        ii      |      iii
------------------------------------------
      ii       |        ii      |      iii
------------------------------------------
      iii      |       iii      |      iii

I would suggest a reservation of 10%, 12% and 14% for each of i,ii and iii categories of people which totals to 36% reservation. The national reservation policy need not be bothered with, its the national party's prerogative. We only look at what we can do in the state. The remaining 50% is for open competition.

I humbly believe that the above reservation policy would ensure good social mobility where people from the rural areas and lower walks of life have an equal opportunity to make it up the social ladder based on their own hard work and not based on how they were born.

Minimum Wage :

Assuming its going to be my funeral.. I would like the following to be my last contributions towards my country.

we badly need many things.. we will discuss that one by one. But the most important thing in my opinion is "Minimum Wage standards" This will ensure minimum quality of life even for the lowest wage earner if he gets minimum wage.

The minimum wage rules cannot be introduced across sectors immediately, it will only fail and no on will follow it. The best place to start is the organised sector. Once we have 80-90 percent compliance in the minimum wage criteria in the organised sector, then we can proceed to the unorganised sector like daily wage earners and others. Or if the government is strong enough (state or centre who ever implements it first) they can do the unorganised sector too..

The minimum wage criteria for the unorganised sector -- to avoid Below Poverty Line (BPL) families is to ensure that Minimum wage per hour should be sufficient to make an yearly amount which is equal to the no tax threshold in the income tax ladder. Some jackass had once said one can live on 27 rs per day in delhi.. pleassseeeee... let us be realistic and really make life comfortable for all.

i.e.

I believe the current no tax threshold is 2.5 lakhs this means that if a daily wage earner works around 40 hours per week for one year, he should make a minimum of 2.5 Lakhs..

Let us do some back calculations.. let x be the minimum wage for a daily labourer.

this means that x * 40 (hours per week) * 52 (weeks per year) = 2,50,000

i

mplies minimum wage x = 250000/(40*52)

implies minimum wage x = 62500/52
               = 1560/13
               approx equal to 100 Rs per hour
               
This is unimaginable amount for a daily labourer to be paid 100..

but I hope the person who is reading this gets the idea.. maybe we can adjust the minimum yearly earnings to be above poverty line and clear of BPL to be somewhere around 1.5Lakhs per year instead of 2.5 lakhs..

this would mean a minimum wage of around 50 rs per hour..

what will happen if we fix minimum wage is that people will stop working long hours and sweat blood just to make a living. People will start to know that they can live comfortably if they can work only 8 hours per day. the rest of the day is for living our life.. for spending what we worked for... for leading a family life. this is the real smile of the poor.

But implementing minimum wage takes a lot of grit from the state or central governments because unorganised sector is mostly managed by political lackeys who want to make quick money. so they will be against this min. wage criteria and continue to abuse the labourers.

For the implementation of the above we have to work with the central goverments digital india and ensure that all salaries are deposited in the banks with payslips generated for all work. This will track how much everyone is paid easily and find discrepancies in pay so that employers who do not pay minimum wage can be acted on by the government.

A nicer but slower way..

This would be to establish minimum wage for the organised sector and establish wage increases and a wage document like Australia provides for their workers.. Implement this in the organised sector which will be comparitively easier than having to fight your own people. Once the tax registers start to ring from the established minimum wages and the state starts getting money as calculated instead of random tax collections based on market sentiments, it is easier to calculate the financial budget for the year since you know how much in taxes you are getting this year.. or atleast a good estimate of it in my humble opinion.  

The above is a rough patch work calculation.. but what calculation needs to happen is the finance minister has to sit down and calculate the cost of food, clothing, average medical insurance and other insurance, and minimum rent. Add all the above to estimate the yearly requirements.. This must not be done for namesake.. someone has to sit down and calculate what is the average rent in A, B and C centres. Do we have a government health insurance scheme.. add the yearly premium in the calculations, what does a family get in the ration store, does it suffice, how much extra grains and oil they have to purchase, add these together for a year and estimate what the minimum wage should be.

I honestly believe the minimum wage for the unorganised sector should be set by the state government and the centre should set it for the organised sector. this is because, the state then gains control over the BPL of its state, thereby gaining control over how much more developed it is compared to other states. The min wage can be adjusted to also try and control prices to a small extent thereby necessitating it to be in the hands of the state in a large country like india.