Public participation needed to curb question leakage
Sunday, 25 July 2010
Gopal Sengupta
THIS refers to the news report regarding a section of government employees who had leaked questions using an innovative method to supply question papers to the candidates they had an agreement with. Intelligence warning on this particular leakage plot succeeded to spark police action. While the Intelligence Bureau should be commended for sounding an alarm just five days before the question leakage from the Bangladesh Government Press in Rangpur, it is remarkable that the Bangladesh police was able to take cognizance of the warning and act on it. In view of the fact that such leakage has been running over many years, repeated information from the IB should have been given proper importance and adequate precautions taken.
The report makes disturbing reading. Why should the press bother about the views of only one section of the people? Should the government not be held responsible for the mess, given the fact that so many corrupt employees are responsible? Even though the success of the intelligence and security wings of the police cannot be denied, the entire blame cannot be placed on them every time.
The common people have to play a greater role if such incidents are to be averted in the future. The question leakage and previously employed government employees from police to civil administration highlighted two major lapses: political interference in matters where professionalism should be the chief determinant of action; and, the policy of selective recruitment of personnel on a low-scale to reduce non-plan expenditure.
Both have proved disastrous. No government can afford to be complacent in matters of security and compromise on safety of the government documents leakage and people's sufferings, wittingly or unwittingly. While such leakage strikes have become fairly common, the condemnation and appeals for calm by politicians cum policymakers of all hues seem to be following the same pattern. The problem can only be tackled by strict action, proper awareness among the citizens, and their total cooperation. There is no point in crying hoarse about the menace unless we are ready to deal with it the way it should be dealt with. The public is accustomed to the notion of intelligence failures, but most of them have not been intelligence failures at all.
Intelligence agencies historically have done their utmost to provide intelligence information to decision-makers, who have had the ultimate authority to decide whether or not to act on such information. The record indicates that a vast majority of the so-called intelligence failures were really intelligence successes, in that the intelligence agencies did their jobs of informing and instructing the policymaker. What made them failures was the fact that policymakers, for a variety of reasons, rejected the intelligence information or, while accepting intelligence information, did not act on the information in a timely manner or at all.
e-mail: gopalsengupta@aol.com
THIS refers to the news report regarding a section of government employees who had leaked questions using an innovative method to supply question papers to the candidates they had an agreement with. Intelligence warning on this particular leakage plot succeeded to spark police action. While the Intelligence Bureau should be commended for sounding an alarm just five days before the question leakage from the Bangladesh Government Press in Rangpur, it is remarkable that the Bangladesh police was able to take cognizance of the warning and act on it. In view of the fact that such leakage has been running over many years, repeated information from the IB should have been given proper importance and adequate precautions taken.
The report makes disturbing reading. Why should the press bother about the views of only one section of the people? Should the government not be held responsible for the mess, given the fact that so many corrupt employees are responsible? Even though the success of the intelligence and security wings of the police cannot be denied, the entire blame cannot be placed on them every time.
The common people have to play a greater role if such incidents are to be averted in the future. The question leakage and previously employed government employees from police to civil administration highlighted two major lapses: political interference in matters where professionalism should be the chief determinant of action; and, the policy of selective recruitment of personnel on a low-scale to reduce non-plan expenditure.
Both have proved disastrous. No government can afford to be complacent in matters of security and compromise on safety of the government documents leakage and people's sufferings, wittingly or unwittingly. While such leakage strikes have become fairly common, the condemnation and appeals for calm by politicians cum policymakers of all hues seem to be following the same pattern. The problem can only be tackled by strict action, proper awareness among the citizens, and their total cooperation. There is no point in crying hoarse about the menace unless we are ready to deal with it the way it should be dealt with. The public is accustomed to the notion of intelligence failures, but most of them have not been intelligence failures at all.
Intelligence agencies historically have done their utmost to provide intelligence information to decision-makers, who have had the ultimate authority to decide whether or not to act on such information. The record indicates that a vast majority of the so-called intelligence failures were really intelligence successes, in that the intelligence agencies did their jobs of informing and instructing the policymaker. What made them failures was the fact that policymakers, for a variety of reasons, rejected the intelligence information or, while accepting intelligence information, did not act on the information in a timely manner or at all.
e-mail: gopalsengupta@aol.com