American arms, Indian skies

I think the hallmark of the tenure of the United Regressive Alliance at the helm of government in India has been the unprecedented expansion of economic, political and military ties with the United States. Oh, did I say United Regressive Alliance? I am sorry, I meant United Progressive Alliance.

President Bush has visited the country, so has President Barry, and Prime Minister Singh has been there a few times. All in all, a very fledgling and promising relationship. The hallmark of this relationship, at least for the UPeeA government, would have been the nuclear deal, which has gained so much attention in the media and the general public. A major issue was the compensation structure in the deal, which earlier, more or less allowed the operator to get away without paying any major damages should a disaster occur. Due to active civil involvement, the government backtracked on this clause. As I've already written earlier, the nuclear lobby of the world has gone to great lengths to convince everyone that nuclear energy is the way forward, its very safe, and does not harm the environment as much as, if at all, say energy obtained from coal. Of course, the Japanese who are battling the nuclear reactor in Fukushima will tell you exactly how much control humankind has over the technology.

Then comes Jaitapur. The fairly well updated wikipedia page on the proposed nuclear power plant site there is a good source of information on the controversy, and if I may say, the eagerness with which the various governments and corporations want to go ahead with it. The plant will cost over Rs. 100,000 crores! If it ever gets built, I hope that whoever gets that electricity will savour it to its fullest! Jaitapur is supposed to be the big landmark in Indian and French relations, given that the deal was signed in the presence of Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Singh.

Everybody says its one of the best things to happen to India's energy security and independence. A lot of people say otherwise, but somehow their voice gets muffled out when it faces the power of big government and money of big corporation. Among the many issues such as loss of livelihood, destruction of nature and fear of radiation, a big question mark remains on the technology itself. The technology that Areva proposed for the plant hasn't been implemented in any nuclear plant anywhere in the world! So with this untested technology, they aim to build the largest nuclear power plant complex in the world! Yep, lets pick a third world country with money to pay for it, of course.

Okay, I am quoting Economic and Political Weekly here, which some might point out as a rabid left leaning publication, but surely the big stakeholders in this episode can't get away from the real questions by simply blaming petty NGO's, vested interests or anything of that sort. Even in my previous post on nuclear energy, I had mentioned this statistic that nuclear energy production in the world is actually falling annually. Now with falling production, rising unpopularity, and now Fukushima, it makes sense for developing nations to stop, take a pause and look more closely at this nuclear energy hardsell by the developed nations and their big corporations!

This post was supposed to be on India's MMRCA deal, but I meandered into nuclear energy! I actually wanted to use this example of Jaitapur and push for nuclear energy in India to lead to my point that it is not easy being a friend to the United States government. With that, there comes the cajoling, hardselling of goods (in this case nuclear energy), acceptance of previously unacceptable policies (WTO is one area where India regularly stands up against the US) and reversal of stances (Iran) that previously went against your American friend. All this I can see around me. This report was recently published in Live Mint saying that its quite possible Air India was forced to buy the Boeing jets that it ordered a few years ago. Even then, it didn't make economic sense for a carrier saddled with debt and busting at the seams with people to order over a hundred brand new jets!

In addition, India purchased C-130J tactical transport aircraft from Lockheed Martin, C-17 Globemaster strategic heavy lift aircraft from Boeing, a Landing craft, now named INS Jalashwa for the Navy, and a lot more heavy purchases could be in the pipeline. But the big daddy of all purchases was indeed going to the over USD 10 billion Multi-role Medium Combat Aircraft deal which has been in the works for over a decade now, with its usual share of shady behind the scene shenanigans, accusations and possibly lots of kickbacks. Hmm, it seems kickbacks and the Congress party have this deep relationship that just refuses to die.

So there were six aircrafts in the fray - American F-16 Super Viper from Lockheed Martin,  F/A-18 Super Hornet from Boeing, French Rafale from Dassault, Swedish Gripen from Saab, Eurofighter Typhoon from the European consortium EADS, and the Russian Mig-35. 

This prolonged process, which at one time was on the verge of being cancelled for the second time a few years ago when some important documents disappeared only to be found later on the side of a south Delhi road (conspiracies at the highest levels!), finally saw some sort of closure when it became clear that India has selected the French Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon as the only two planes left in the competition.

So that leaves the American firms out, and boy are they pissed! How dare does their newest friend not give them the tender? Well, that seems to be kinds of sounds coming from various corners lately. Such was the apparent importance of this deal that the US Ambassador to India resigned! I am already unhappy to see India fly and use American weapons, but had this deal gone to the Americans, it would probably make a part of me sad eternally. It would have been an eternal reminder of the way the Congress government bent over backwards to appease the US Government. And I will not be surprised if there will be objections and spanners are put in the works in the next few months. Somehow, I am quite surprised that the Government of India actually let this happen, because my first intuition would be to think that surely the UPeeA would try to ensure, on its own accord, or under pressure, to have at least one from Lockheed or Boeing remain in the race.

But no matter, India has to think for India, and given the past with the sanctions, the denial of technology, espionage, bugging of devices, and numerous codes and agreements perhaps only helped worsen the US Government's cause. All good I say, because the IAF loves its Mirages, and the Rafale has many similarities, and the Eurofighter, well, comes loaded with technology transfer and probably lots of other goodies. Beautiful planes too!

Syrian thoughts

When I wrote (ranted) about the third world yesterday, my motive had been something entirely different. I have been wanting to write about Syria all the while because while Libya is in the news mainly because the western nations are fighting there, to bring about freedom and democracy, of course(!), Syria is still a country where its leader, or should I say dictator, Bashar Al-Assad, is using all his might to crush the growing discontent against him and his government. 

Using the secret police, and the not-so-secret other political tools, Assad's government has killed hundreds of Syrians, many of who were protesting peacefully. Accurate news is hard to come by, but since last month, when the fires of protests first flared up, hundreds have been murdered, and even in the past weekend, over 90 have been killed, according to some sources. According to Sawasiah, a Syrian human rights group, the toll this past Friday was 70. According to them, the total deaths caused by the Syrian security forces is over 400.

Now it may be questioned that if the US led NATO got into Libya to 'assist' the rebellion over there, what is stopping them from lending a helping hand in Syria? The most straightforward argument in this regard would be that NATO's resources are already stretched in Libya, and perhaps they would need a greater support from the rest of the world to do anything militarily in Syria. That is what Mr. Sarkozy says too. He says that any intervention in Syria must be pushed for by the UN Security Council. One must note that the current Security Council is actually the most powerful one I think I have ever come across. The non-veto members in the current council include India, South Africa, Brazil, Germany, Nigeria and Portugal, all of them fairly powerful countries in their own right. Syria's neighbor, Lebanon, is a member too. It seems unclear what their stance is as the rest of the members are trying to come together and condemn Al Assad's actions.

I've often wondered what really happens when this said condemnation will be issued. I mean, will it make Bashar Al Assad stop and think twice? Will it lay the groundwork for greater and stronger action in the future? Does it lay the path for sanctions upon Syria? I don't know really, but I think its worth finding out. Actually, sanctions seem to be looming against Assad as more and more news sources reporting the same.  

When news from Syria started blowing up, its only then that I actually tried to look up the history of Syrian politics. Earlier I was under the impression that Bashar Al Assad was a democratically elected leader who just happened to stay at his post for far too long. Unfortunately, my knowledge of Syrian history in the past 50 years is zilch, and I realize that Al Assad actually gained leadership from the previous head, his father Hafez Al Assad.

I doubt if anybody ever looks up whats happening in most of the nations in this world on their own accord. Most of the news in the world today revolves around 10-15 nations of the world at max, something which I had mentioned on my blog earlier, and the rest of the nations only appear when something bad happens. As it happens, the world's concern with the middle east probably does not exist beyond its oil, because of which leadership in middle eastern states have been able to get away with many undemocratic and subversive activities. Being in the same neighborhood, Al Assad too got to exercise all this options without many serious protests from the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a united Arab world. This region has allowed itself to be ruled by special interests and money before anything else, and even now, it is probable that the future will be shaped by what the Americans and Europeans think is right. However, Syria is too big for its neighbors and other Arab states to simply ignore what is going on there, as perhaps they all did in Bahrain. 

I had been waiting for change to occur in the Middle East for a long time now. When I began to understand the kind of society they live in, the backwardness of thought, the blindness towards anything else except their perceived rules for life as mentioned in the holy Quran, and especially the way they treat their women and other races, really made me wish for something drastic to happen in that region. Syria is one, Libya is one, but I am aching to see some real quest for rights and freedom enter places like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and  all those little dictators ruling their little realms.

History and globalization rant

I am a strong believer in the premise that human history is replete with examples of eras, cities, cultures and peoples who are in some stage of their karmic life cycle. This life cycle actually is quite similar to any of the life cycles developed by modern day marketers and scientists to apply to their products.

I think I can best explain what I am trying to say by a few examples. Bihar in India, was a seat of human achievement many, many centuries ago. If one delves into its history, which itself dates back to over 2500 years ago, it has given this world so much, in terms of Buddhism, Nalanda, the golden age of India, the Guptas, the Mauryas, Kalidas, and many other historical milestones. Without delving further into its history in the past few hundred years, its status today is that of one of the most backward states in the country, where crime, unemployment and poverty rule. The history of Bihar spans hundreds and hundreds of years.

Next is Calcutta, who's modern history spans the past few hundred years, and yet, this once glorious city, known by its occupiers as the empire's second greatest city, is now but a shell of its former past. Its once bustling streets filled with business persons, intellectuals and poets are now devoid of commerce and its intellectual capacity today, I feel, is a mockery of its label as the "cultural capital of the country".

My point is that most of the ancient worlds that exist today are in a state of poverty, intellectual bankruptcy and perennial members of the Third World. India, China, the Middle East, Africa, all these regions were where one could argue that the ascent of man began, and yet today the world is ruled by the newer nations who have written a new history for themselves, and for the others. Thus any society, in my opinion, is somewhere on that life cycle, and that could mean its past its glory days, or is just entering its glory days, or is yet to begin its glory days. Look at Latin America. It does not figure anywhere in our psyche now, except when we talk about the Incas and the Aztecs. One could argue that many of those societies were almost wiped out by the colonial invasion. Heck, they all speak Spanish and Portuguese now.

Look at Africa and how the rest of the world thinks of it today. Man originated from Africa and yet we are taught in our western dominated history that it was the British people who discovered this continent. Discovered! Children in India are taught that Vasco Da Gama "discovered" India!

Again, societies like India (now a joint society comprising hundreds of smaller societies) and China are determined to regain their glory in the world, thus showing that their life cycle is not just one rise and fall, but a wave spanning hundreds of years. Glorious many hundreds of years ago, impoverished in the colonial era, and now rising again as free nations.

I think the issue with history is that it is written by the victors, and I will again have to tie it to my call for the third world to rise and create a new world for itself and basically get rid of this Eurocentrism that has existed in our intellectual discourse and learning for so many years. I wish I knew more in depth about these concepts, but from my basic understanding of history, what eurocentrism does is it makes you believe that history begins, for example, not from Africa itself, but how the Europeans viewed Africa. Thus words such as "natives", "locals", "aliens" abound, and the concept of modernity is the lifestyle of the white western nations.

A "poor" African can have a nice comfortable home, a field which grows aplenty, be able to feed his family aplenty, have plenty of free time to roam about with kids, spend time with wife, and yet if there is no television or a motor car in his home, or if he earns less than 2 American dollars in one day, he automatically becomes an impoverished person of the world. I've often wondered how they, which i'm assuming are the World Bank or IMF etc, came up with this criteria of 2 dollars, and how its applicable to every country in the world, with its own conditions and variables and sensitivities.

In the past 200-300 years, in humankind's own opinion, we have achieved much more than the past two millenium together, in terms of tools, technology, materials created for our own comfort and pleasure etc. Now the world is getting smaller, but even this 'smaller' world is not getting any better for millions of impoverished and disenfranchised individuals residing in regions where they have no food, no healthcare, or even no right to free speech.

These past few centuries were always divided on racial lines, when the first mingling, and thence colonization of the third world began. Then it turned into an issue of economies and global trade, and this world still seems divided upon those lines. A third world nation should always be open for a first world corporation's products and services, but a person from that third world nation will not have the right to visit that very same first world. If it is indeed the economy, stupid, then the next few decades should be interesting as the third world grows stronger and makes the WASP world less relevant to its own future. I've already written about how imperative it is for the third world nations to rewrite the rules of global trade and finally make it the fair and enriching process that it was tom tommed to be.

Our way of life?

The Khap Panchayats of Haryana and adjoining regions have been quiet lately, which perhaps could be attributed to the criticism they have received in the media and among the general public for proving time and again about how socially backward our society still is.

The Supreme Court of India, in the wake of numerous deaths of young boys and girls killed because they dared to marry (or try to) beyond their caste in a still one of the most caste-sensitive regions of the country, declared them illegal and said that this practice needs to be stamped out. I am still unclear as to what the Honourable Supreme Court said exactly, whether the Khaps need to be stamped out or this practice of theirs needs to be stamped out. In any case, these panchayats are illegal, and need to go the way of the yesteryear princely states of India.

If one throws a cursory glance at the Khap Panchayat page of Wikipedia, one will realize that this institution, if and when it ever was one, was an important political and social group that functioned in most parts of Northern and North-Western India. They have apparently played an important role in the political history of the region and the tiny mention of their criticism in the modern era is aptly added by the line that all these allegations have been unsubstantiated.

The Honourable Supreme Court was not just talking about the dark, socially primitive practices still adapted by these Panchayats in the North, but it made a reference to the extreme caste divisions that still prevail in Tamil Nadu and other parts of South India. In this case, I have received a lot of anecdotal reference that I believe surely has truth in it. Only a few days ago, a friend who has travelled and worked in the region talked about the interiors of the state divided on such strong lines that tea-houses have difference tumblers for tea for different castes! I had sincerely believed that all parts of the country had moved beyond that by now! The fact that the Supreme Court talks about this practice removes any speck of doubt from the existence of this practice. One can read about their observations in the same Hindu link I gave above for SC's "stamping out" comment.

But no matter the level of modernity - not the materialistic one but the modernity of the mind - freedom of thought, the equality of all humans, the respect for all races, etc, these concepts are still, most unfortunately, far from the norm for the Indian society. Even such a society as ours, with its unique and vastly diverse ethos, still has some social norms that are common across the land - lack of respect for individual liberties and a narrow mind are two of them. There is an inherent belief among most Indian societies that one knows what is right for the others. How must one live one's life, how one must treat their women, their children, other caste members, and anything else. The Khap Panchayats are just one of the many institutions that regularly demonstrate this behavior.

Of course, for the yellow journalists in Indian media, of which it seems choc-a-bloc now, it becomes more interesting if they add the word "Dalit" to it, seeming to imply that its only the scheduled castes that are hurt by their primitive world view. While I do believe that certain castes indeed have bore a greater brunt of this social bullying, fighting this social bane will take this entire society forward. The media too, needs to realize that this issue is not just one of their many juicy tabloid issues, but a social churn that can have a long and permanent, and hopefully positive effect on the fabric of our society. With any social churn comes the opposition against that change, and the Khaps have begun to prepare for their long fight ahead for legitimacy and perhaps, relevance. Its not that they do not have sympathy among the political and bureaucratic class, if simply for the massive chunk of the electorate that they represent, or the fact that it wouldn't take long for them to resort to attempts to violently have their demands met.

However, in my opinion, for once, the voice of the nation appears to be stronger than the louder voice of a few. The Government of India is planning to bring an amendment to the Indian Penal Code and a few other Acts to directly hold such "Kangaroo courts" responsible. In fact, the Honour Killing Bill is to be introduced as well, with the crime being at par with murder. Now that the Supreme Court has made it amply clear what it thinks, let us prepare for the fight ahead against the Khaps who have every intention to fight it out. In fact, the Supreme Court has made it clear for a while now about what it thinks, when it awarded life sentences to 5 people for leading a young couple to their deaths for marrying.

One idiot Congress neta says that it is impossible to fully understand all the reasons behind an honour killing "sitting in their rooms". Other Congress netas from those regions fully support the Panchayats. I am surprised that nobody is pointing to them the most obvious point - the lives of these young men and women are not their's to decide upon. As an editorial in Indian Express points out (the link is the same as the Honour Killing Bill link), individuals have every right to marry whoever they choose, and if the families, the society has a problem, talk to them, be angry, shout, maybe ask them to leave, but under no circumstance do they have a right to kill them, and/or mentally torture their families. 

As the recent census has pointed out, material affluence is in no way a guarantee that any society becomes progressive socially. Haryana, Punjab, and regions adjoining them lead the nation in gender imbalance. Even this "dishonour killing", comes from this same old Indian male chauvinist mentality, that the male society knows whats best for its women. We have still such a long way to go!

India's industrial complex

Infrastructure. The word itself is quite heavy, and for the economies developing world, its the most repeated word in their vocabulary. I was thinking about it yesterday while on the train from Mumbai to Surat and back. I started from Mumbai in the morning, reached Surat in about 3 hours, traveled in a car to Hazira, attended meetings and returned to Mumbai on another Rajdhani Express in the evening. My first business trip actually, and I realized a lot of business persons must be doing the same trip quite regularly.

I had first visited Hazira as a part of the induction program at my company. The place is about 30 kilometers from the city of Surat, which in itself is a big commercial hub, particularly known for its textiles and the famous Surat diamond trade. Here is a study in PDF format, done in 2000, about entrepreneurship in the Surat diamond trade. Surat is actually a very capable town, with lots of construction on at all times and in all localities.

Then comes Hazira. I fell in love with Hazira the moment the first sight of the spires of the complexes of Kribhco and NTPC appeared before me. Hazira is a industrial complex that could very well be the poster child of India's growth as an industrial nation. That region, set on the banks of the river Tapti, on the river's mouth as it enters the Arabian Sea, has ports of multiple companies, manufacturing facilities, petrochemical complex, steel mill and allied mills, fertilizer unit, thermal power generation plant, oil facilities, gas facilities and many more! When I was driving by the place, I couldn't believe the mammoth size of the factories and complexes on either side of the road. Truly an industrial behemoth.

Reliance Industries has a huge petrochemicals complex there. Essar's steel mill is located in Hazira and a host of allied mills such as plate mill, pipe mill etc around it. Similarly, Larsen & Toubro's huge manufacturing complex is located on the Tapti banks. In fact, right across the street from there, they built another huge complex in a joint venture with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to manufacture turbines and other stuff. The complex is huge, and functioning. The last time I was there, in August last, they were only beginning to put the structures up, and now in record time, they have got the facility running.

Then of course, Hazira is home to Shell's LNG complex and port, that company's biggest investment in India. In addition, the Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) a pipeline running from Hazira to within the country, and is in the process of setting up another pipeline. NTPC has a thermal power plant operating there as well. KRIBHCO, the state run fertilizer manufacturer, has a huge complex there as well.

After having been thoroughly impressed with the might of these industrial complexes, I realized that the highway leading to, say Essar Steel, is still a congested four lane highway, where vehicular traffic jostles with big tractor trailers ferrying equipment, products and such. The road from Surat to Hazira, in many places, is the ubiquitous two lane road where industrial traffic mixes with urban traffic. However, I did come across news that the highways leading to Hazira will be upgraded, which again is good news.

The reason I wanted to write this post in the first place was not really about Hazira, but about the Delhi Mumbai Infrastructure Corridor. On my way back to Mumbai on the train, I came across countless rivers, rivulets and ravines where rail bridges were under construction. I can only assume that they will be for the DMIC, and having 4 tracks instead of 2 tracks between all the important cities in that corridor, including Surat and Ahmedabad, will at once double or triple the cargo and passenger carrying capacity between the routes.

new BRICkS on the block

I simply can't stop being fascinated at the amount of news that we encounter every day from so many different sources. My fascination invariably finds its way in almost every blog post of mine, but the fact is that there is truth in what I say.

I again begin with this thought because while most of this society, and the world society at large, hooks onto yellow journalism, a lot of other big, political news simply pass by our radars. I think i've written a blog post about this phenomena of yellow journalism and tabloidism, and the reasons why I think this modern society laps up every second of it. Of course, let me quickly get to the point before I wander off. While we are talking about the 2G scam, Sharad Pawar, Anna Hazare, IPL, and maybe a little about Libya and Japan, I think most of us missed this recent event which one would think would create a lot more ripples in this country. I too am guilty of not paying enough attention to it once I got to know of it.

Brazil, Russia, India and China (and South Africa) recently met in China to discuss the future of what is slated to be one of the most powerful poles in the world of the future, the BRICS! Of course, the fact that it is Goldman Sachs, of all capitalist things, that formed this term makes me hate myself for taking this term and group seriously, because I am a firm believer in the concept of self-fulfilling prophecies, and a part of me believes that this group is important because some worldly force wants it to be important. Otherwise all these countries have strong bilateral ties among other other, but never as a group. Russia's a big trading partner with both India and China, Brazil and China have a huge trade in minerals, and Russia's a big oil supplier to the world now. Economically, well, at least in hindsight, one would think its quite easy to form a BRIC. You take out all the developed countries, or the OECD countries, then you take 4 of the next most economically strong (and largest) countries, and you call them the next big thing. Quite a predictable chain of thought i would suppose!

But the fact remains that ever since I have started making sense of the world economics around me, I have been wishing for this strong financial grip of the developed North American and western European nations on the global economy to break. There is no doubt in my mind that for the third world to develop, it is imperative that it does so on its own accord, and not because the American owned IMF and World Bank tell it so. For that, it is important to try to grow out of their shadow, most notably in global trade.

The west has been ruling the world when it comes to global trade, which is a very factual claim I am making, be it in terms of manufacturing, arms, financial services and anything else. In fact, I have a very strong belief that one of the biggest catalysts for the development of financial markets in these developing countries were cash rich companies from the west themselves, so their money could find a market with higher returns. Of course, these developed nations have for long pushed for more open markets, only to enable their companies to flood them with short-term, arbitrage seeking money, and when things begin to look even slightly iffy in that host country, they'll pull it out, thus sending that country into an economic tailspin. I'm not the only one saying this! One of my favorite economic commentators of today, who's views I widely subscribe to, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz says so too!

Coming back to my original point, I think its imperative that for the third world to prosper in this competitive and close-knit environment, they need to get out of the predatory shadows of the developed economies. This means a great third-world to third-world trade done more on their terms. I have a very minute awareness of global trade, the terms and conditions that go with it, and other facts, but I do know that for long, global trade has been going on the terms set by the developed world, with they being the manufacturers and the third world being the recipient of finished goods and the supplier of raw materials. It seems like I am writing this line 200 years ago when the industrial revolution brought British manufactured goods to its very same third world colonies which provided the raw materials for them. India's history books are replete with examples of this systematic impoverishment of the country.

To tie it all together, the coming together of the new economic forces on the block is a welcome change in the world economic order. These nations are increasingly trading with each other, and rising as formidable trade partners for the rest of the world. Already China has surpassed the US as the world's largest good manufacturer, and I must say I felt this news went largely unreported in the media.

These nations are also presenting a more powerful voice in the America-controlled IMF, World Bank and other institutions, and their demand for greater rights and a louder say will probably be met by these bodies. A bigger political battle is the breaking of one of the world's most exclusive club, the United Nations Security Council, where India, Brazil, and Germany, bearer of the Axis legacy of the World Wars, fight to gain entry. China and Russia are already members. Of course, Russia carries the legacy of the USSR, and China, from what some pages of history suggest, were given membership upon the insistence of Nehru, who had the choice of taking it for India.

However, if global trade is where the major fight is, then I am happy to see these relatively third world countries finally taking the fight to the western global trade model. Its actually quite sad that I use the word 'fight', because global trade was supposed to be anything but! It is quite joyful actually, to see the American industry squirm and talk of protectionism these days, considering the fact that having lost most of its low to mid end manufacturing to mainly China, there seems to be a visible trend of its service industry shifting its locus towards the third world as well. I single out the US because it has been the flag bearer of global trade in the past century.

Finally, it is not that I do not have my misgivings about the rise of China, particularly because of what they represent and what they want to achieve. I have written many times on this blog that China simply can't be a leader of the world because that would require not just economic leadership, but leadership of the mind. How can it change the way the world thinks when its own citizens are not allowed to think freely?

But coming back to the theme of my current post, BRIC nations, and adding South Africa to the list now, are not just traders now, but important investors, lapping up companies across the world, particularly mineral and manufacturing companies. From my understanding of the announcements made at the summit, most were still nothing concrete, but only reiterated past good intentions. As commented on by many writers, the BRICS are still not one single economic block, but many combinations of bilateral ties, but then this world is not short of issues where these nations can come together and change the face of global economics and politics forever.

corruption? Here?

I had been so busy with work the last few days that I think I completely missed out the entire Anna Hazare campaign, and only woke up when the Government had accepted his demands on the Lok Pal Bill. My loss, definitely, that I could not read and listen to this campaign as it happened, but I was aware of the wave of support that Anna had generated across this entire country, most of which was online. This is not to say that the people who stood by him in this campaign, as he sat at the Jantar Mantar in a fast unto death - Dr. Kiran Bedi, noted RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal, and Swami Agnivesh, among many others, had any less contribution, especially Dr. Bedi and Kejriwal, who addressed the media on numerous occasions.

If I simply delved into the facts of the case, they are there for all to see, but I just want to write about the factors that I thought about as I watched the whole thing unfold. First, the fact is that the government, any government for that matter, no matter at what level of sycophancy or anarchy, still fears the people. I think it has been a long time since the people of this country got behind an issue, and an issue so specific as this. Perhaps its the aura of the people who led from the front. Anna Hazare is well known in the country, so is Dr. Kiran Bedi, Swami Agnivesh and Arvind Kejriwal as well.

The biggest support, in my eyes, came from the young, educated of this country. Within days, there were numerous sites supporting Hazare, numerous Facebook pages and groups declaring support, and of course the media, sniffing great public interest, went to town with the story. After all, one old man brought the mighty Government of India to its knees!

With so much online support for Hazare, of course there were numerous philosophers amongst them who rued that all we can do is show our online support and write one or two lines about it. We need to do more. Unfortunately, and its been happening for a long time, the line goes quiet after that. We need to do more is the usual refrain, but what we need to do is usually a very broad and vague something. I used to be in this category earlier, but I've been trying hard to get out of it. I love to rant, don't get me wrong, that's the very reason I started this blog, but I realize simple ranting does nothing to lessen my anger, and just makes me very repetitive. Well, my point is that even if there was "only" online support from majority of the people of the country, whats amazing is that it was big enough for the government to notice.

I feel very stupid when I type this, but I still do not know exactly what Anna Hazare asked for, and what the government granted. Oh, but I do remember the biggest news from the past few days, that Anna Hazare made Sharad Pawar quit from the Group of Ministers Committee on Corruption! That was quite entertaining actually. Sharad Pawar is allegedly one of the most corrupt politicians in the country, and yes, even if it does nothing to his ego or the power he wields, I suppose it is symbolic that he decided not to fight but leave altogether. Of course, Mr. Pawar tried to make light of the demand by trying to be at his wittiest by saying that wants to be removed from all the committees of the government. Ha ha, oh Mr. Pawar, you're cracking me up! 

Of course, now that it is all over, at least the high drama of fast unto death and the consequent government response, a lot of issues are being discussed, such as whether it was right of Mr. Hazare to arm twist/blackmail the government this way. Some say he was being undemocratic, some say he's a messiah who's brought the young of this country together against corruption.

My own opinion on this issue is that our society today is at a very strange and precarious junction. While most of us are sheep, others are wolves, and for the sheep, the priority is the protection of life, while for the wolf, its killing and hoarding meat. Of course, it is all symbolic here. Then there are other different categories of animals, such as the media who seem to be playing only a catalyst in this story, and the political class, which is now a wolf in sheep's clothing. Like I said, it is all symbolic here, because this country today is a strange concoction of morality, materialism and everything else. None of us know that what prompted Mr. Hazare to lead this fight at this juncture, or what transpired behind closed doors in New Delhi, or what will happen in the future, but I suppose Mr. Hazare did stoke the awareness of the people against corruption. It was a fire that was lying dormant, because most of us have come to accept it as a way of life for a while now, and now our society, it seems to me, is adapting itself to live with it as something that is just there and one has to live with it. I suppose the idealist in me could say that Mr. Hazare maybe stepped in to disturb this comfort zone that our society is sinking into with regards to corruption.

I mean, if one just surfs the internet for any news related to Mr. Hazare, anybody and everybody has an opinion on it! The Samajwadi Party now invites him to UP to see for himself the wealth that Sister Mayawati ji has created for herself, the Chief Justice of India says that the youth of this country is bright but arrogant, somebody saying Mr. Hazare should contest polls, somebody else saying that Mr. Hazare shouldn't have talked to Narendra Modi (yes, Mr. Hazare committed the pseudo-secular's gravest sin too!) etc. etc.

A politician is the mirror of the society. When we can't change ourselves, why are we expecting the system to change? Harping about corruption is all good, but we'll still pay bribes, we'll still pay a traffic policeman to get out a ticket, or a TTE to get a railway ticket. I suppose supporting Mr. Hazare, for many people, must be a way to ease some of their guilt. After all, the intentions are good, even if the actions are bad. In that case, lets just move on till the media finds another story to latch onto.

a one way street

I've been so busy with work lately that my strongest of actions have not been able to match my even weakest of intentions. While the hours are long and I put in a lot of effort, getting home at the end of the day leaves me just too tired to write anything substantial and with some solid thought behind it. My only way out now is to try to grab as many free minutes I can get during the day between work, and during the weekends. The weekends themselves are filled with other activities, but more importantly, bring with them the lethargy that prevent one from doing any strenuous mental activity. Unfortunately for me, I am a typical human being suffering from all these maladies.

Two days ago as I was spending a few minutes of my free time at work browsing the internet for the latest news, I realize there's just so much information being passed around by the media these days that its practically impossible for any average human being to take in all of it, or even half of it. There's politics - which can be divided into local politics, national politics and geopolitics, to put it elementarily. Then there is business news, again with its plethora of sub-headings and sub-regions, and you can divide every subgroup of the news today in this manner. No wonder news sources today provide one with dozens of options to sift through this huge information wave and only listen/read/watch the news they are interested in.

In the midst of this whole juggernaut, I too have some very specific interests which I try to write regularly about here. As I grew older and my thought process developed in the way that it did, I was attracted to this concept of information asymmetry. This information asymmetry, though widely talked about in corporate circles and management books, exists in the world in general, in the world of global media as a rule.

As a member of the third world, one must, today, accept the sad truth that one must see/hear/read what the media of the first world wants it to. Invariably, all of us have started to see this world from the eyes of the western media, thus steeped in their own attitudes and most importantly, mostly about them.

I've always maintained that for the developed world, its always about them. In my previous post I pointed out that in the United States Government, for example, the focus is not on what the Americans are doing in Libya, but on whether the American President went by the rules before sending his troops there. The same has been visible in all these "NATO" led campaigns, where the last priority, if at all, is the dignity of the third world they are in, and the lives of the people there.

Thus for most of us, our international news will consist of western politics, immigration issues and of course, pop culture. Your country, if you are in a third world country, will most likely end up in some western agency's report on human rights, or closed economy, or environmental pollution, or some standard of living which the developed world does not have to stand trial for.

There is a news site that I am a regular at - http://www.slate.com/. Its sort of a modern, younger, less serious publication of The Washington Post, the newspaper based in Washington DC, USA. While the site does report serious matters from American politics and the rest of the world, it also includes a lot of other articles, mainly humor and lifestyle. The kind of members who regularly comment there seem to be liberals, who are not afraid to be critical of their government's policies and their politicians. Thats all good, I say, but there are some attitudes that eventually give themselves away. 

One of my biggest peeves with the western-controlled media is the absolute unimportance they attach to lives of people in the rest of the world, especially the poorest of the third world. The American media, for example, was regular in its updates of American casualties, and the numbers would be added up and reported regularly during the height of the American War on Iraq. Till today, I haven't come across a single news source from these media giants which puts a number of the many Iraqi lives that were lost, are are being lost every day. This same attitude was demonstrated by a visitor to the Slate site, when he, criticizing his government's policies, talked of how their policies have cost 4000 lives and so many billions of dollars. 4000 lives? If you consider the lives of the many innocent Iraqis caught in the cross fire, it could be 4 million!

As mere recipients of news, we get to hear of Iraq these days only because the west is there. Of the over 200 countries in this world, I am sure if we take the top 20 countries in terms of their economy, will be sharing 95% of the news disseminated in the world. Out of these 20, I am sure the top 10 will probably take a lion's share as well. Of course, I do not have raw data to back this up, but I want to use these numbers merely to illustrate the huge skew in global reporting.

I merely wanted to write a post earlier about the utter lack of reporting on Africa in the global media. In fact, what I wanted to do two days ago was to simply scan the global news sources, mainly Google news, in its various national editions, and try to see how many news items pertain to African nations. Of course, Libya will be on top of the list, now that the "free world" is fighting that dictator who feeds them oil. Then there is the fighting in Cote d'Ivoire, where the incumbent president apparently refuses to move to let in the winner of the latest general elections. Hmm, apart from that I couldn't find any other big political news reported in the global media.

In my opinion, when one is exposed to media sources where you get your news from the point of view of somebody else who is in completely different sphere of thought processes, and maybe working towards completely different ends, you eventually start thinking like them. European and American pop culture for example has made inroads into every corner of the world. Can you imagine the possibilities? Now Indian kids are being taught to dunk their chocolate cookies in milk, and Indian college kids make a bigger deal of their "relationships" than real married people!

In my entire post, i haven't even mentioned the word "propaganda" yet! Maybe i'll talk about that in a few days.

All Fools' Day

We are all fools on this planet. Fools for believing we have any advantage over this planet and fools for believing we can make this work.

Most of all, we are fools in love. Most of us do not get that love story we see on the movie screen, but all of us hope that we do. In fact, our expectations, as human beings living on this planet, for both physical and emotional survival, are very high, and only growing higher. Unfortunately the group I speak of is only a small percentage of the planet, because the majority of the people in this world are too poor, in need, or trodden that they couldn't care less about their more materialistic physical needs and their more philosophical emotional needs.

Its most unfortunate that we have left them all behind. The only people who seem to care, well, everybody seems to care, but very few seem to do anything about it. If I had to self-deprecate right now, I too, love to rant, talk about things, but my action on the ground is miniscule. I need, I want, to be a doer. Coming back to being the fool in love, that I can do easily apparently, but let me keep those thoughts to myself.

There were two thoughts in my mind recently. The first was the prevailing breakdown of governance in India, and the second about this thing called Operation Odyssey Dawn. If you look at the Wikipedia page of the military "intervention" in Libya, named Odyssey Dawn, it is quite similar to a lot of pages on recent battles/skirmishes/lopsided wars etc. There is a huge list of the coalition of the willing, and the intransigent government/dictator/ruler on the other side. Lets take a look at the belligerents, as the wiki page calls them - on one side we have the United States, United Kingdom (the wiki page does not list United Kingdom though, which I think is a serious oversight which strengthens the case against its authenticity), France, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, Italy, Norway, Netherlands, Greece and Denmark from Europe, and Qatar and UAE from the Middle East. On the other side is the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, led by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

You have got to admit though - the list of the coalition is quite impressive. After all, most of these nations are doing whatever they are doing under the flag of the United Nations, unlike the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which were American-led farces to appease their own population. Before I forget this thought, I just want to say one thing - the general American population has always been portrayed as this beacon of freedom and expression and all that, for example, protesting against their government, protesting against their government's decisions or whatever, but when was the last time they actually stopped their country from launching an attack on any other? My thought is not new actually, in fact, ironically, an American show brings out this quality clearly - we say something else and do something else. So while the US government will do whatever it takes to subvert the rest of the world, the American public will staunchly protest against it. And thats it. I suppose that could be a big ingredient in their overall global policy.

Sorry, before I digressed into my rant, the point I wanted to make was that how is it taking this long to dislodge Gaddafi with such an impressive coaltion flying under the flag of the United Nations? From what I know, its not a full out war, and the UN (i'll call them UN and not NATO) planes are trying to bomb Gaddafi's tanks and other ammunition, while allowing the rebels to take a lead in regaining ground. So whats going on? Meanwhile, once again, the Americans demonstrate its always about them.

With the outcome still uncertain in Libya, it remains to be seen if Gaddafi will actually be thrown out. The bigger question arises then is where does Libya head to from here? I have not heard of any leadership in the Libyan rebel camp who could be said to be the face of the revolution. It seems the rest of the world is dictating, or rather, living vicariously, through the rebels right now! Of course, its for their own good, like they always say!