Just Plain Obvious

aid for the sake of aid

2012-02-08T12:31:00.000+05:30

January 31, 2012 was a big day for people watching the MMRCA competition of the Government of India, for that day, the Government of India announced to the world that Dassault Aviation had emerged as the lowest bidder among six, and between two after the down-selection. The Rafale, a highly capable plane, had beat the Eurofighter on a number of technical specifications and was, which was apparently the deal maker, the cheaper of the two.

That is all over and done with and hopefully the deal will be officially signed on paper and India and France can get on with whatever wonderful technological things they have planned over the next many years.

The reaction to the news that Eurofighter has not won the bid has really not gone down well with the British public and political class, and its actually very surprising to see the intensity of reaction from their press. While most of the reaction of linking the over GBP 200 million in aid to India to the MMRCA deal is that of "ingratitude" by India, there are at least a few media outlets that ask the question - is it fair to connect this aid to expectations of winning a major defense contract?

The truth is that aid for trade is nothing new, and history is replete with examples where the rich seller goes to a third world nation with an agenda in mind. In Africa, examples of China building schools and infrastructure in return for the former's natural resources are a good example of this "quid pro quo" set-up that many sellers, backed by their powerful governments, favour.

For the developed economy giving the aid, the aid industry is a huge multi-billion dollar enterprise that has many, many vested interests who benefit directly from it. I have already written a few times about it. In Britain's case, as some news items point out, its also about 'feeling good about themselves.'

Aid For Trade is an official policy of the World Trade Organization, and perhaps can be a very effective way of transferring the expertise and good business practices of developed nations to the third world by channeling the aid provided to build institutions that will allow that nation to be more financially independent. Of course, as pointed out by many, that is never the case. There is a precedent set that aid for trade is illegal. It was in Britain, in fact, in 1994, when the British aid to fund the Pergau dam in Malaysia by the then British secretary was found to be linked directly to the arms sales to that country.

When it comes to giving aid to India, I think all the nations in the world who still keep the practice going should stop immediately. It is for all to see that India has turned into a highly unequal and socially and economically divided nation with an unprecedented level of governmental incompetence and an alarming inability to implement policies and procedures. If India can't take care of itself, then nobody can take care of it. As Rahul Bedi writing in The Mail points out - it only enriches a corrupt elite.

There are still many who argue that India does need aid still, and point to the shamefully high number of extremely poor in our population. Indian apologists write that India needs aid because we're not a poor country but poor people but nobody really questions our own incapability, or should I say, unwillingness, to actually invest in improving the lives of the poor.

A good article in the British tabloid, The Sun, asks why is all this aid going to a country that has more billionaires than India, that huge money making venture called IPL, and a multi-billion dollar space program? Good questions for them to ask themselves, and good questions to once again look at India and wonder why are we such a rich country with such poor people?

So when everybody knows that the money rarely reaches the intended beneficiary, why keep it up? That is where the many vested interests start showing their head. Keeping third world dictators well fed and happy has been a state policy of the US for many decades. Similarly, keeping people in governments in these poor nations have allowed many corporations to do business there smoothly and exclusively.

So if you think about it, aid fits well into the kleptocracies that many third world nations have transformed themselves into. Now they are simply not poor, now they are poor and thoroughly incapable of getting out it. I wonder why rich nations simply shut their eyes and give aid, when they should be raising their voices most vehemently and forcing the third world nations to manage their resources better and cut graft and increase efficiency of welfare schemes. But doing that is much more difficult that doing business, and since the mantra of globalization and capitalism is that trade is the real antidote to poverty, it is thus the most effective way to reduce poverty. For chunks of the third world which have nothing to produce or sell, then the only way remains is lots of aid and arms sales.

Meet the IAF's latest bird

2012-02-03T17:05:00.000+05:30

I had written about India's MMRCA deal many moons ago on this blog, and about the six beautiful aircraft that were vying to be a part of the Indian Air Force's inventory in the coming decades. Considering the defense deal of the decade by many, this deal was touted as a completely fair and transparent deal in which the winner would be decided solely on the IAF's checklist of what it was looking for in the winning aircraft. Of course, the argument goes that to make it a completely technical decision was a completely political decision.

Given that there was so much global attention paid to this deal, in which India was looking to get 126 fighter aircraft and a possible 80 added on for a price that could stretch beyond USD 15 billion, or INR 75,000 Crore, I think India's policy makers thought it best to not screw it up completely. Thus, in a land beset by defense scandals, this was supposed to be a rare case of a defense deal in which proper procedure was followed and the Armed Forces' best interest kept in mind. Of course, it is not to say that politicians haven't made money off it - I'm sure they have, but as was the supposed case in Bofors, despite the Gandhi family and the Government making money off it, the gun was actually very good and well liked by the Army. The same, many online observers and commentators are saying, may be true here.

The deal did take over a decade to materialize, and was not fraught without its moments of uncertainty and possible scandal. This link by the Asian Age gives a good idea of the time line of this deal.

2000: Indian Air Force (IAF) conveys to defence ministry its interest in acquiring medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) to replace its ageing fleet of Soviet-era MiG-21s and because of delays in developing the indigenous light combat aircraft (LCA).
2001: IAF issues request for information (RFI) for 126 combat jets.
2003: IAF seeks defence ministry's permission to buy 50 more French Mirage-2000s to shore up the only MMRCAs in its fleet as a stop-gap arrangement. The aircraft had been acquired in the mid-1980s.
2004: Defence ministry asks IAF to instead issue a larger MMRCA tender.
2005: Defence ministry issues initial MMRCA tender but withdraws it quickly even as it starts receiving responses from vendors.
2006: The then IAF chief, Air Chief Marshal S.P. Tyagi, flags the dwindling squadron strength of the force. From a sanctioned strength of 39.5 combat squadrons, the IAF is down to 33 squadrons.
August 2007: India issues the tender for 126 MMRCAs at an estimated cost of $10.4 billion.
February 2008: US majors Boeing and Lockheed Martin, Russia's United Aircraft Corporation, France's Dassault, European consortium EADS and Sweden's SAAB submit their bids.
April 2009: Reports that Dassault and SAAB are out of the race.
May 2009: Defence ministry says Dassault and SAAB still in contention.
April 2010: IAF completes its flight and weapons evaluation of the six contenders on the basis of 643 parameters.
December 2010: Offset proposals of contenders goes missing; later found on the roadside in south Delhi. The incident threatens to derail the tendering process.
April 2011: India down-selects EADS and Dassault for the final leg of the contest, rejecting the other four contenders.
November 2011: The commercial offers from European consortium Eurofighter and France's Dassault Aviation opened.
January 31, 2012: Dassault informed that it has emerged as the lowest bidder.

As a caveat, the deal is not a done deal yet. In fact, what has happened is that now Dassault will enter into exclusive negotiations with the Air Force and the Ministry of Defense to hammer out the nitty gritty of the deal, such as the final price per aircraft, the weaponry, the modifications, the transfer of technology, and other aspects. According to the media, a firm agreement will only be signed not before 9 months from now, at least.

I will come back to the whining and hand wringing that is going on around the world currently with many people unhappy that their product was not chosen, but right now, I want to write more about the beautiful and deadly aircraft that the Indian Government has selected to negotiate exclusively with and possibly induct into the Armed Forces, provided there are no major scandals and allegations and obstacles thrown in the way by interested parties.

Both Eurofighter and the Rafale are excellent 4.5 generation fighter jets, but India has had a great experience with French fighters, most recently with the Mirage 2000 during the Kargil War. Both planes look beautiful, are twin engined, have canards, and offer the AESA radar, a new age radar that allows a plane to track and engage multiple aggressors at once.

Photo Copyright held by online source

India has been good for France and Sarkozy in particular, who goes to polls in three months and this can be seen as a major victory for him and a lifeline to the French industry. Of course, that is not to say that despite French military hardware to Pakistan, France has not been a good military partner to India, albeit expensive, but much more reliable than even the Russians in many cases, and definitely more than the Americans. As India announced that the Rafale had been selected as the lowest bidder, beating the Eurofighter by about USD 5-6 million per aircraft, the stock price of Dassault on the Paris Stock Exchange rose 22%!

The French already work with India on a number of big ticket projects, the most important being the construction of the 6 Scorpene submarines, 4 of which are under construction/to be built in India. Then India is working closely with SNECMA, a French engine manufacturer, on our own Kaveri engine. In addition, India is looking for major support from France on nuclear know-how, and this is where France has often gone against the rest of the nuclear suppliers group in their attempt to block transfer of critical technology and knowhow to India.

It has been very amusing to read the reaction of the UK and the USA on finding out that Dassault's the L1. Particularly laughable has been the British insistence that the ungrateful Indians should have gone for the Eurofighter given the billions provided by the UK to India as aid. Another laughable article in the Guardian was that the reason Eurofighter, and in effect UK, failed to get the contract was because of the current Government's poor relations with the Gandhi Dynasty!

Of course, the fact that it is France is not lost on the British, and perhaps even the Americans. The colonial hang-up has refused to leave many of the politicians there, and Sarkozy and David Cameron in the past have openly made fun of each other's industrial economy. I think many Brits can't over the fact that the UK has provided India over a Billion GBP in aid and yet the Indians did this to them. France, as it turns out, gave less than a tenth of that aid amount in the same period! So the article above from the Daily Mail goes to great lengths to again resort to the kind of condescension that one can expect from a white colonialist. Yes, we're corrupt, yes we're poor, and yes our entire system is a kleptocracy. There's no doubt about any of these and sure the Brits are angry, but linking relations with Gandhi's (who are they anyway?), giving of aid, to a defense deal shows the hypocrisy that is prevalent in the west when it comes to doing business with the third world.

The angst is on all shores of the Atlantic, not just the Eastern shores. The US has not been to bullying or forceful since the Super Hornet and Fighting Falcon were not downselected from the original six contenders. An article in the American site, The Agonist, says that the US lost out to India because of its unwillingness to share technology with India at the level that France is proposing to do. Also, as some online commentators pointed out, did President Obama really think India would go for an American product even though they know its a watered down version of their best, with some critical technologies withheld, only because of this new India-US partnership and camaraderie?

Of course, it would have been the best situation if India had been manufacturing such cutting edge fighter jets on its own, but we're far from that state, though not as far now as say 20 years ago, but till then, India needs to maintain a minimum deterrence because it is becoming increasingly clear that the Chinese are becoming cockier by the day. The whole of South East Asia hates them, and since financial bullying can't win you land, i suppose it will have to be the good old military bullying. Of course, the bottom line is that China is in a hurry to be a super power, and since it has none of the institutions that constitute a modern society, it can only influence others by money and by force. Defense Aerospace magazine has a very good article on the political analysis of the deal. The article cites a mix of geo-political compulsions, a lot of historical precedents, and what is the best deal from the Indians' point of view.

I love the Armed Forces, still have that little boy's adoration for their cool weaponry, and am eager to see them expand and become better. Of course, these go against my visions of peace and stability at the highest level of human society, but I have always been a utopian, and have always been shown that it simply does not, and cannot exist. So let us hope to welcome the sexy beast to the fold, our poverty, illiteracy, health care and homelessness notwithstanding! :-)

Proud to be from Dehradun

2012-01-24T11:00:00.000+05:30

For the first time ever, a shoe has been thrown at the man, or a big boy rather, who is supposed to be future Prime Minister of this country. Yes, a shoe thrown at our very own Rahul Gandhi, and that too in Vikas nagar in our own Uttarakhand!

Shoe thrown at Rahul Gandhi in Uttarakhand rally

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi was at the receiving end of a flying shoe at a rally in Vikasnagar in Uttarakhand on Monday afternoon while addressing a poll rally. The shoe flew past him and the offender was seen taken away by security officers. Gandhi was heard requesting the security not to beat up the man.

Shoes seem to be flying thick and fast in Uttarakhand this poll season with one thrown last Saturday at Team Anna in Dehra Dun. Arvind Kejriwal was addressing the gathering at Lord Venkateshwara Hall when a shoe was aimed at him. But it missed him, as well as social activists Kiran Bedi and Manish Sisodia who were also on the dais.

Apparently there was an ink attack on Baba Ramdev as well recently when he was addressing a press conference on black money. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a retaliatory attack, not organized but most likely by a follower of truth and justice taking on the dirty CONgress, but nevertheless, I sincerely believe that CONgress is adept at playing dirty games, and if anybody else has to take them on, they have to play their dirty game.

Ramdev is of course a persona non grata for the Gandhi party, since he is one of the few eminent people in the country willing to take on the fight against them. Hence begins the well run smear campaign that labels him a non-Indian, a corrupt person himself, a rabid right wing Hindu nationalist, and a few other nice direct accusations.

According to the link above,

Ramdev had earlier announced that he would campaign against corruption and black money while targeting the Congress in the five states where Assembly elections are being held.

Congress spokesperson condemned the attack and said the Government was trying to tackle the black money menace.

"Whatever happened is unfortunate. If anybody has done wrong, we condemn it. Ramdev has a right to oppose Congress. It doesn't make any difference at all. As far as black money is concerned, we have done our best. It's a serious issue," said Alvi.

Congress leader Digvijaya Singh denied his party's hand in the incident. "I see a conspiracy behind this to incite communal tension. Identity of this person should be investigated," said Singh.

So there you have it. Pick a Muslim guy to throw ink at Baba Ramdev for talking about black money. If one has to look at conspiracy theories, one can portray that the Muslims of India are thoroughly behind the CON party and this act will further spur the Muslims of India to stand up for the grand party that has helped them out so many times over the past decades.

Also notice how Doggy Singh's comments are ALWAYS asked for when something happens. This is definitely a ploy by the Gandhi's and their henchmen to divert public attention from the real question, I feel. When one is unable to face the message, one diverts from the topic, or one attacks the messenger. So something happens that will show the Gandhi's in poor light, and in comes their faithful, and immediately the public is talking about the asinine comments he made.

Congress is of course demanding a thorough inquiry as to how a shoe could reach so close to their beloved prince.

"I condemn it. It is unfortunate. For some time, BJP has been saying that people will come on streets and a civil war could take place. Such kind of irresponsible statements encourage such acts. I do not know exactly who is behind it but political parties and political leaders should be very careful before giving such statements," party spokesperson Rashid Alvi told PTI.

Party general secretary Digvijay Singh said those hurling shoes or showing black flags have the same intention and motive.

In an oblique reference to Baba Ramdev, he said, "They all have same intentions that somehow we would scare them and the cases, which are registered against them, will be stopped.

Singh said Rahul Gandhi belongs to a brave family "but who is Ramdev. He is a criminal."

So after 60 years since being crowned the world's largest democracy, it has come to this. :-)

Intolerance among people, utter lack of conviction and scruples among the rulers, and a thorough disarray and chaos that permeates throughout the length of breadth of whatever is left of governance in this country.

Elections seems to bring out the worst in our democracy, each time and every time.

India is not China

2012-01-17T12:30:00.002+05:30

While China today stands for nothing that defines a modern society - freedom of the individual, freedom of speech and freedom of expression, the Government of India and the upper judiciary of India have realized that with their browbeating and bullying, at least they get the job done.

In such a politically important time as this when the millions of poor and the needy in this country continue to live in poverty and malnutrition but are enraged at the kind of muck that is being hosted on facebook or google, the people in power are at least doing something about one of the above two problems.

So while I am critical of all the western media groups and websites and businesses that preach freedom of speech everywhere but bend over backwards on those principles in order to do business in India, I agree with what the counsel for Google India told the Honourable Delhi High Court - India is not China.

Google India, which along with 20 websites is facing criminal case for allegedly hosting objectionable material, on Monday told the Delhi High Court that blocking them was not an option as a democratic India does not have a “totalitarian” regime like China.

“The issue relates to a constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression and suppressing it was not possible as the right to freedom of speech in democratic India separates us from a totalitarian regime like China,” advocate N.K. Kaul, appearing for Google India, told Justice Suresh Kait.

The biggest strengths of Google or Facebook today are its ability to connect people from all across the globe into one community. Freedom of the internet is a forgone conclusion for most of us, but then like so many other occasions, we must realize that there are absolute idiots roaming our streets or sitting in the highest offices of power who may never have opened a site and looked at the 'objectionable content', nor the 'objectionable content' will make any difference to their sorry little lives, but will take it upon themselves to free the society of the scourge of hate speech.

When I use the term hate speech, I am doing them a favour, because as far as I know, the Government of India is pissed only because now finally people have the guts to call out Sonia Gandhi for the dirty, greedy, secretive politician she is.

According to the New York Times, in October 2011, HRD minister Kapil Sibal called internet service providers to protest a Facebook page maligning Sonia Gandhi. Following another meeting in November, on December 5, 2011, Sibal called Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft and others to proclaim that "the Indian government doesn't believe in censorship. It believes in self-regulation". But his request from the service providers was Herculean. They were to create a mechanism to identify and, perforce, excise "inflammatory" and "defamatory" material. The service providers were to be simultaneously regulators and spies.

All "objectionable" and "controversial" matter was to be reported to the government. In full form at a press conference on December 6, 2011, Sibal expressed a responsibility "to take care of the sensibilities of the people... (because) cultural ethos is very important to us". The IT ministry was now the cultural ministry. This expanded universe of threatened censorship was clear. Sibal's broad concerns were about defamation, obscenity and offending religious sensitivities, or were they? The websites took the view that they would not prescreen material. Sibal was positively threatening: "If you do not co-operate, we will have to take action".

In January 2012, the Delhi High Court was asked to stay criminal proceedings against Facebook India and Google India. The case itself was astonishing. A complaint was filed by Vinay Rai under the obscenity and other provisions of the Indian Penal Code. What the trial court did next was to summon representatives from 21 sites including Google, Yahoo, Facebook, YouTube. This was an extraordinary summons on an ambiguous complaint, about allegedly derogatory articles, asking these providers to submit to censorship in respect of free speech exercised by others through a pipeline they provided, but over the contents of which the providers had no control. The summons took place after the Metropolitan Magistrate had examined four witnesses and the Delhi Police affirmed the authenticity of the information. This was clearly enough to conquer the cyber world.

India represents a great conundrum in this regard. Indians have fanned out in the entire world as honest, hard working and well qualified Information technology professionals while the governance systems of this country are still far far away from even understanding how the same IT can change the entire way we work and live for the better. This is another great example of the grandiose image that politicians of power have of themselves.

The pendulum swings both ways, and with millions and millions of individuals of all genders, races, languages and genes access the same sites, there will be billions of thoughts, ideas, images and words that will be exchanged and viewed. While there will be many pages on Facebook, for example, praising India, there will be many that will be spewing bile against it. Those that access the internet probably access only a few percentage points of it, and have learnt to ignore the rest, but as history tells us, particularly so the recent history of India, that there are many idiots out there roaming our streets or sitting in the offices of power who believe that it us up to them to save us from the scourge of opinions that they don't believe in.

In our overly sensitive and touchy modern India, we see such examples all the time. There was a time when Shiv Sena idiots beat up Cyber Cafe owners because somebody had written things online about Shivaji that weren't showing him in a glowing light. Since the internet is not a physical thing, nor can they attack the servers sitting in various parts of the world, they attack the nearest thing connected to the internet to vent their frustration.

If such hate sites, even if against Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, or whatever, had the ability to sway public opinion, I could imagine an ever-devious politician would be pricking his or her ears and listening to what its saying, but as far as I can see, a hate site against India really hasn't rankled me or anybody around me anytime. But the fact remains that with billions of opinions out there on the internet, there will be millions that one find objectionable, and when it comes to the internet, once again, we ignore them, or go to a chat site or a forum and create our own good rebuttal!

But I am talking sense in a situation which makes absolutely no sense at all. The Delhi High Court is warning these sites that they will not hesitate to do a China based on the case filed by a Mr. Vinay Rai, a journalist by profession and now a crusader of internet cleansing.

Acting on a complaint by Vinay Rai, the trial court had earlier summoned the representatives of 21 social networking sites, including those of Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Youtube. It had directed the centre to take "immediate appropriate steps" and file a report on January 13.

The complaint has been filed under Section 292 (sale of obscene books etc), 293 (sale of obscene objects to young person etc) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.

A civil judge had last month ordered the social networking sites to remove all "anti-religious" or "anti-social" contents by February 6, 2012.

So a civil judge ordered these 21 sites with billions of combined users, probably trillions of pages and many trillions of accumulated comments and views, to clear all that they find objectionable within a few weeks. Vinay Rai's interview with the Wall Street Journal sheds some light on what is driving this man to be the great online crusader, and he says that he does not have a facebook account but it's his readers who keep him informed of objectionable material. Considering its an Urdu newspaper he edits, I am assuming a lot of objections then will have to do with sites and pages that are critical of Islam, and considering that this is such a politically important time, it is in the government's immediate interest to show the Muslim community that is stands by them. They may not be able to build schools for them or try harder to integrate them into the national, secular society, but like I said, at least it is taking care of one of their biggest problems - that of objectionable internet content.

As a Supreme Court lawyer writes in the India Today article I quoted in the beginning,

The Congress has a long history of muzzling the press as in the cases of Sakal (1962) and Bennett and Coleman (1973), the Emergency (1975-77), the Indian Express case (1986), and the Defamation Bill 1988 among others. It seems to get paranoid when its leaders are portrayed in bad light or lampooned. The Congress should play big brother for the poor and not be so obsessed about attacks on its leaders in the name of cultural ethos. Ominously on Friday, the 13th of this month, the government sanctioned a pervasive criminal proceeding because the content of websites was against national interest. Have they been taking lessons from China?

Its disappointing, to say the least, to see the courts of this country stand up for the shenanigans of the nation's shameless government. The internet entered India's mainstream over a decade ago, and millions of Indians are online in various forms and capacities, and the timing of the Government's zealous fox-hunt tells me that it is nothing but a case of voter appeasement. Over the past years, the Government of India has behaved not like the government of a nation that aims to be a power, but as a unit that is shameless and brazen in its rape of the national treasury, but at the same time highly insecure about its image, bristling at even a hint of criticism and thoroughly incapable and unwilling to lead this nation.

Patralekha Chatterjee in The Asian Age makes a very valid point that this is a hogwash because the government, and the society in general, has always shied away from going after the real causes of our social division and collective rage. Who regulates the matrimonial sites who promote caste based marriages? why aren't Khaps told to change their ways and move out of the centuries old feudal mindset? Why are we not enraged as a society at crimes against women and children?

Unfortunately, like I have said many times before, tough problems need tough responses, and I simply do not believe if our society has the strength, but more importantly the inclination, to come together and work towards a better social structure. Its money and affluence that drives today's India, and since our government is an outcome of the same society, it can't be expected to, and won't, do what the society doesn't want it to do.

2012-01-09T11:50:00.001+05:30

Happy New Year!

2012-01-04T14:04:00.002+05:30

Africa's aid industry

2011-12-23T11:17:00.001+05:30

A long time ago I had started writing an article on how foreign aid in Africa had done absolutely nothing to bring the people out of their poverty and instead given birth to this huge self-serving industry in the developed nations which involved expensive fund raisers for the rich and vacations in the third world for their 'volunteers'.

I have in fact written about this earlier, but a very nice and detailed article again introduced me to this issue. Written by Yash Tandon on the news site http://www.allafrica.com/, the article follows the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, held at Busan, South Korea from 29 November to 1 December.

Titled "It is Official - Busan Heralds the Dismantling of the Aid Industry", the article says that all the donors at the Forum finally came around to accept that what is required is not "aid effectiveness", which has been the focus all along, but "development cooperation", which should have been the focus on the entire aid industry in the first place. Everybody got this but the Western aid industry itself, and perhaps for very obvious and self-serving reasons.

According to The Guardian, the biggest outcome of the Forum at Busan was the emergence of the BRIC nations as one of the key players in providing aid and assistance in future. Apart from that, the article says, there was no serious commitment or targets set at the Forum, but only a promise to do so in the future.

If you care about evidence-based policy making, this conference has been mixed. While there was not enough explicit referencing, sifting and collation of the plethora of evidence available on what has worked and what hasn't over the five years since the Paris declaration, it has, nevertheless, filtered into the outcome document, with less important Paris commitments being dropped and the vital ones being reaffirmed.

The issue of ownership, as I understand, is that the third world nation that is the recipient of the aid must have a great control on the aid and a greater say in where to spend the aid. This has been lacking because, I feel, the donor does not believe the recipient has the ability to spend it wisely, or perhaps the fear of corruption, or simply because they think they can do a better job. In India's case, corruption was and remains a huge issue as large amounts pilfered through the numerous aid schemes, both funded within and without the country.

After last minute negotiations (in which Brazil played a key role) and the insertion of a paragraph distancing non-DAC (the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) donors from concrete commitments, China, India and Brazil all endorsed the idea of working together more closely in what is being described, even by usually critical civil society representatives, as a "new global partnership". This matters to African countries that want to apply principles to all international partners, without diminishing the distinctiveness of Chinese support for their development.

The inclusion of civil society in negotiations was also an important procedural innovation, in contrast to the reduced political space it is experiencing in many countries.

If Paris was a triumph of technocratic organisation, Busan has been an expression of shifting geopolitical realities, with the role of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) proving more critical than ever before.

African nations too, are beginning to demand greater ownership of aid, and its a good step forward in asserting to the donors that the former probably knows best whats best for itself.

The Business Daily Africa article linked above says it best that while aid is a noble thing, all effort must be made by African nations to replace it with homegrown aids to development.

In the aid industry, since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 there have been significant structural changes to make aid more effective. In recent years, this re-engineering process has come to be known as ‘the new aid architecture’.” Before 1989 aid transfers to poor countries were largely driven by geopolitical and commercial reasons. Consequently, some of the most inhuman regimes in Zaire, Philippines, Haiti, Bangladesh and Nigeria received aid regardless of atrocities committed on citizens.

With the Cold War long gone today aid delivery is being informed by a number of factors. These include: failures of previous economic management approaches such as the Washington Consensus; emergence of new global economic players (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Venezuela and South Korea) from among recent developing countries; reinvigorated roles of the international philanthropic foundations; emerging development challenges such as climate change and global terrorism; and recurrence of financial crises around the world since the 1970s.

Much as aid has been useful in preventing destitution and in catalysing economic growth, on its own it is not a panacea to development in poor countries. There is need therefore to radically implement local non- aid means to development.

But to finish out on this post where I can see that the global consensus is firmly headed towards the realization that the aid industry, the way it has functioned, has achieved very little, and rather, has emasculated the societies it proposes to help by making them dependent on that aid and doing nothing to enable them to be independent. China has built a lot of infrastructure in the continent of Africa in recent years, but as more and more media publications find out, it is mainly on a quid pro quo basis as the Chinese ask for the country's natural resources in return. A Professor in the American University in the United States follows Chinese aid in Africa and seems to be a decent source (biased in the way I like it) of information.

Coming to the paper written by Mr.Tandon, there are some choice lines I could pick up.

Professional politicians and diplomats have a particular way of making public speeches. They send important and often critical messages encrypted in coded language. One has to be able to interpret the code, to read between the lines, in order to get to their hidden messages. At Busan, when the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said 'Beware of those who want to take your resources with quick fixes', you can be reasonably sure that the warning was levelled at African countries and the pointer was at China. (I was once a politician and a diplomat; I have learnt to read between the lines).

One, the ODA (Overseas Development Aid) is no longer the main source of development financing. 'It used to be 70% of total financial flows in the 1960s; now it is only 13% -- even as aid quantity has increased'. So, then, what is the purpose of aid? It should be, she said, 'to facilitate private sector investment'.

Two, 'donor aid is driven by donor agenda...We should follow partner lead'. By 'partner' she meant the recipients of aid. There should be, she added, 'genuine mutual accountability'. She gave the example of recipients' insistence that donor aid should be 'untied' to donor procurement sources.

Three, and this is a telling statistic that put to question the whole issue of aid effectiveness. Clinton said that an independent study undertaken just before the Busan meeting revealed that out of 13 objectives set out by the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, only one was met.

The principles of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness do not address the underlying dynamics of 'aid'. The PDAE takes 'aid' for granted as a 'virtue', and gets on to the 'technical' task of making it 'effective'. Deeper thinking (not a forte of 'normal' professional politicians and diplomats) would show that the PDAE principles obscure, obfuscate, reality of life; they encourage muddled thinking on aid.

The President of Rwanda made a cool, dispassionate, speech covering the following issues.

One, 'massive aid transfers have been ineffective'.

Two, there is a contradiction in the growth statistics of Africa. On the one hand, African economies have grown 7 to 8 per cent over the last several years; on the other hand, the per capita income has fallen.

Three, many African countries are unlikely to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. This is the hard reality.

Four, there is a 'huge aid industry' that has now become 'a permanent feature' of north-south relations. This 'industry' is undermining the essential linkages between aid, trade and investment.

Five, the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness states 'mutual accountability' as one of its principles. 'In reality there is no mutual accountability'. Kagame pointedly added: 'When a country is not managing its resources how can it be held accountable?'

Six, Donors only talk about channelling aid through country systems; 'in practice they refuse to use national systems'. There is a 'need for greater mutual trust'.

QUEEN RANIA AL ABDULLAH OF JORDAN - THE MOST ENLIGHTENED AND FUTURIST SPEECH OF THE WHOLE BUSAN CONFERENCE

Busan, she said, is different from Paris or Accra. 'We live in a different world; it is a world of Tahrir Square, and Wall Street occupation'. The world, despite all talk about globalisation, is 'growing apart, not coming close'. In some countries such as Argentina and Malaysia they have narrowed income gap. But global inequality is increasing. We need 'a new development paradigm'. Development has to be based on equity; growth itself does not bring equity. We must give everyone an opportunity to develop his or her potential. 'Sixty percent of our people are youth and a quarter of them are unemployed. They want jobs not aid'.
ANGEL GURRIA, MYUNG-BAK LEE AND BAN KI MOON TREAD OLD, OBSOLETE, PATHS

Angel Gurria, the Secretary General of the OECD, President Lee Myung-bak of Korea, and Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary-General were treading old, worn out, paths in their presentations. Interestingly, they had the same message, as if they had sat together and planned what to say. Their arguments can be briefly summarised as follows:

One, Korea is a shining example of a country that has 'moved from being a recipient of aid to a donor'. (This message was played up, insensitively, almost nauseatingly, in speeches and in large poster displays at the Bexco Convention Centre).

Two, aid will end poverty, improve gender equality, bring education to girl children, and so on and so forth.
Three, the world has fallen behind achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). 'Therefore' (sic!), rich countries need to 'give more aid'.

Four, the 2008 financial crisis has shown that when countries work together they can prevent contagion. Etc, etc.

Korea was presented as a 'success story'; that may be the case. But the period when Korea was able to carry out land reform under American occupation; pursue state-aided and bank-rolled programs for encouraging Daihatsus; industrialise without having to pay massive intellectual property rents for technology; and export to the US almost duty-free at a time when the latter needed a dependable ally in Asia to contain communism - this period and its circumstances are not the same as today. Korea cannot be repeated by, for example, African countries. Korea is no 'model'. Furthermore, the two Koreans (Lee Myung-bak and Ban Ki-Moon) conveniently ignored the fact that their country's development owes itself largely to their hard-working working classes rather than 'aid'.

Here is a brief analysis of the outcome document.

To start with its title, 'Busan Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation'. 'Effective aid' is now replaced with 'effective development'. This is a more telling indictment of 'aid' than is realised at first glance.

HLF4 was largely an affair between the 'poor' countries of the so-called 'third world' and the so-called 'traditional donors' of the OECD countries. Conspicuously absent were the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China).

This was reflected in the telling opening of paragraph two of the 'Outcome Document' with the words 'The nature, modalities and responsibilities that apply to South-South cooperation differ from those that apply to North-South cooperation.'

There is no question that the bigger countries of the south (India, Brazil and China) as well as Russia have distanced themselves from the 'aid effectiveness' agenda of HLF4. Their agreement to refer to the principles of North-South relations on a 'voluntary basis' can only be interpreted as a political rejection of those principles.

Aid to the Third World is a self-important feel good activity of the developed world, and Mr. Tandon makes a very valid point that it will not go away easily. The likes of Oxfam and Bono will forever call for aid to help the third world, but I believe it will be better if they channel their energies in getting the third world to be more self reliant and thus more confident in its abilities to take care of itself.

One big point made is the greater south-south cooperation, which is something I have always stood for and believed in in my blog. The third world, including the fast industrializing and fast developing nations, must come together and get out of the WASP shadow on their own future. I had written in a post some time ago about how countries like India and Brazil help the rest of the third world by introducing them to better agriculture practices, or China can come in (without its greed for resources) and genuinely usher in infrastructure development and redevelopment of cities and urban spaces.

An important point is that if global trade is still the way forward, notwithstanding the protectionist attitude of the first world now that globalization is finally becoming the two way street they advertised, the third world is an important market in itself. There are big markets in developing nations across the globe where fledgling industries in other third world countries can sell their goods and services.

I think a big factor in achieving this greater south-south cooperation is getting rid of the developed west centrality. A brown man must learn to trust a black man or a yellow man, to give a very crude example! Considering the last two centuries were ruled the WASPs, unfortunately our thinking is centered around their thinking. Global media and flow of arts and culture is controlled by North America and Western Europe, and a greater exchange of people and ideas among the third world is absolutely essential for this shift to take place. I can see it happening and I hope it only goes stronger.

another fire tragedy in Kolkata

2011-12-12T13:36:00.000+05:30

Kolkata is a city that is crumbling apart. Littered with old, unmaintained British architecture and bustling streets with people living in every nook and cranny, tragedies should be inevitable, and when they do happen, there is a lot of talk of change, of rules being followed, and people being punished, and then things go back to the usual till the next tragedy occurs. What is true of Kolkata is true for the rest of the country - safety of buildings and the people inside is just not a concern for the society at large.

After the tragedy at Stephen Court on Park Street where an old heritage building caught fire and it was found out that almost every construction rule was violated such as illegal construction of additional floors, no fire exits, and the doors to the roof-top locked by the owners, this tragedy that occurred at AMRI Hospital took place in a modern super-speciality hospital which, ideally, should have been at the forefront of building safety.

The tragedy with Indian society is that we just don't value life as much as we should. No rules are followed by individuals who live in the cities, who man the buildings, who construct the buildings and those who control the buildings. Once the details become clearer, nobody has any doubt that there will be a long list of rules that the building flouted and hence the tragedy. BusinessWeek calls it India's worst fire tragedy in 7 years, and with 93 lives lost at last count, I still doubt if anybody will wake up. We will blame everybody, like I am, but there is no doubt that things will be back to regular programming sooner than we know it. I suppose it is impossible to enforce rules over a billion people!

The big news was that as soon as the fire broke out, many of the doctors fled the building. Another big news is that many of the fire alarms were turned off so hospital staff could smoke indoors.

The police told HT that several smoke alarms, which were connected to fire-sprinkler devices, had been installed at AMRI hospital.

“But they did not go off on Friday as some doctors and hospital staffers, during their night duty on Thursday, turned off the main switch connecting all smoke alarms so that they could light up indoors,” said an investigating officer on condition of anonymity. The police are now trying to identify the doctors and staffers who habitually deactivated the alarms before smoking.

I don't suppose any of those individuals would have ever thought their seemingly harmless action could lead to such a tragedy, but it did, and I don't think this will be the last time either when fire alarms in modern buildings across the country are turned off because they are either a pain, not deemed necessary, or they get in the way of the people in the building.

Meanwhile, the amazing regularity with which the government gets "wake-up calls" from tragedies would make one believe that governments in India must never be sleeping anymore, but always awake. Unfortunately, that's not true either. There is a system that has to run, and I suppose when apparently the basic premise of this society (I mean the Indian society at large) is still to make money, make ends meet, or get through the day, a lot of the rules and regulations simply take a back seat. I've made this point earlier, and in relation to other regulations as well, such as the environment.

Its like letting the beggar be on the street because at least he is able to get some money. Letting people live in dangerous settings because at least they have a roof. Letting people travel in dangerously overcrowded buses, trains or other public transportation modes because at least they are traveling and adding to the economic output of the country. Let factories burn pollutants in the air because the cost of controlling effluents is high and that will cause undue economic stress on the many who rely on such a factory. So this thought seems to permeate each and every justification of this country to not follow rules. We simply have not been able to get out of the "we are a poor country only hence can't follow rules" mentality.

It is amazing how regularly the same scenarios cause the maximum damage in a fire tragedy. In Uphaar Cinema, the emergency exits were locked shut. The doors to the roof top were locked shut in Stephen Court, and in AMRI Hospital, the basement intended for parking was turned into office space and storage space for flammable material. According the article linked above from Live Mint,

Within 24 hours of the hospital disaster, the fire and emergency department, the state health department and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), which were responsible for checking and monitoring fire safety, again formed fresh committees for carrying out inspections and pledged to bring the errant to book.

The accident in Amri hospital in Dhakuria area has shown that promises made in the past have not been kept. Amri caught the attention of the fire department for flouting guidelines as early as 29 August.

“A routine inspection showed glaring deviations from norms,” according to a retired fire service official. A basement car park had been converted into a two-tier structure—one accommodating the radiotherapy unit and cubicles for doctors, and the other serving as a godown, crammed with inflammable materials such as chemicals, jerry cans of spirits, oxygen cylinders and wooden furniture.

Moreover, firefighting equipment such as fire extinguishers, smoke alarms and sprinklers were not functioning in the basement.
Despite this, the fire department did not slap a closure notice on the hospital. Instead, it allowed the authorities three months to set their house in order. This deadline expired at the end of November, but no team returned for a follow-up, said the fire service official quoted earlier.

A team from the city’s municipality, which has independent infrastructure and staff to conduct inspections of buildings before renewing trade licences, also looked the other way when they found serious irregularities in the basement, said an official from the building department of KMC who did not want to be identified.

Nobody should be surprised that rules are flouted because the people in charge of ensuring those rules aren't flouted are almost always hand in glove with the perpetrators. However, we know how the system works, and how the government works at all levels, so an aspect that should be shocking to everybody is that when such seemingly professional organizations such as this modern super-speciality hospital flout safety rules, it hints at the general apathy that is deeply set even in the most modern of India's private sector. When such an organization does not want to follow norms on its own accord, then perhaps even the best of governance can't make them, because as its often repeated, its not possible to rule a billion people and keep an eye on each and every regulation by the government. Most times, the people have to step up to regulate themselves, and unfortunately, the Indian society is incapable of doing so.

This editorial in the Hindustan Times raises the same valid points.

The AMRI incident has proved that money alone can’t buy safety in India. The second-floor cabins that were affected by the fire there did not come cheap for patients: they have a hefty tag of Rs9,000 a day. Moreover, unlike in government hospitals, there was no funds crunch at AMRI. Then why was there no emergency staff on duty or any evacuation plan? It is now clear that there was no chain-of-command that could have taken quick decisions during the emergency. So while the patients suffocated and choked to death, there was no one to give out the basic order of calling the fire brigade. Now that the tragedy has happened, the law will take its course and the case will go on for a while.

So while the laws of the land will follow the slow path to justice, the basic problems of cracking urban housing, poor and unscientific construction and a general attitude among the population of cutting corners and getting more bang for the buck will remain. So like we say after a terrorist attack - lets wait for the next tragedy. Statistically, we're still doing well per thousand Indians, so bring on the tragedies! Bah, even sarcasm doesn't feel nice at this point.

2011-12-09T17:59:00.000+05:30

I don't think the Hindi cinema that was made in the 1950's, the 1960's and some of the 70's can be matched anytime, if ever. I am a very old fashioned individual when it comes to Hindi cinema I suppose. I simply refuse to believe that there can be a better gamut of actors, singers, directors and musicians than from that era. I just think that much of the things made in those years made a lot more sense than most of the things made today. The inane acting, the cacophony of music and putting in models instead of proper actresses tells me that today's Bollywood isn't really about substance, at least not as much as it was way back in the day.

Everybody's talking about the spate of deaths to some of India's best musical and thespian treasures within a span of a few months. We lost Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Bhupen Hazarika, Shammi Kapoor, M.F. Hussein and now Dev Anand. That's a lot of talent!

So while Dev sahab had drifted into making independent films with unknown faces and daring themes in the later half of his film career, nobody can deny the quality of stuff he made way back in the day. They say that when he would venture out wearing black, girls would literally swoon over him from every corner. Of course, the great music that accompanied him in so many of his great movies just adds to the perfection.

One of my most favorite movies is the movie Guide. Based on a Sahitya Kala Academy Award winning "The Guide" written by another of India's great literary sons, R.K. Narayan, directed by Chetan Anand and starring Dev Anand and Waheeda ji as the protagonists, this movie hit the entire spectrum of human emotion. And the music this movie had was heavenly. I think the scenes in the end of the movie (yes they have taken some theatrical liberties with the story line but all for a good cause) such as the Swami asking Ram to take him and his Muslim friend Gafoor in the background praying "No, Ram", or the people singing the Lord Ram bhajans and then the Swami finally passing on are etched permanently in this mind of mine.

The music sung by Mohammad Rafi sahab, Kishore da and Lata ji and music by S.D. Burman all in all created one of Bollywood's masterpieces.

Then there is Haqeeqat, about the India-China War, and all the buggers who talk about how India should be China's best friend because they are oh so nice and oh so progressive should watch this movie. The Chinese of today have only one demonic aim in mind, to rule the world, and since they can't rule the world on the basic principles of human freedom, they can only do so by force. Sorry for bringing it in but this is just to talk about the relevance of this movie even today.

My respects to all these great people who've passed away. There is something about being an artist, at least their creations will stay long after they're gone. Unfortunately those of us in the corporate grind will probably never be remembered for any achievement at work. The position of Manager - Finance will stay, but maybe 2 years down the line people will forget who was in it on Friday, 9th December 2011.

But I must not be cynical now. I want to remember the great movies and songs of that era of which Dev sahab was an integral part, and hope that humanity for all its shortcomings and failures continue to inspire itself and keep unlocking its artistic potential.

Fraud Gandhis' sycophancy

2011-12-08T10:31:00.000+05:30

At airports all across the country, Indians are greeted to a rare sight where an individual, not elected to power by the people, not leading soldiers and not having served this country in any sort of way is exempt from security check-in because he happens to be the son-in-law of the fraud Gandhi family that is raping this country today along with its very very dangerous posse of criminals and thieves. I suppose he needs the protection considering how his entire family was wiped out in freak accidents.

So retails happened.....

2011-11-25T20:19:00.000+05:30

Have a very Walmart morning, fellow Indians. The great bastion of India's socialist past that has been under assault from western retailers for so many years has finally fallen. India has opened up multi-format retail to foreign players.

Walmarts, Carrefours and Tesco's of the world are smacking their lips at finally getting a chance to sell to the discerning Indian buyer. According to the Head of the India-US Business Forum (the Americans must have felt a great sense of satisfaction considering they've lead the assault for years), d

"The singular act of opening the multi-brand retail sector to foreign direct investment will significantly benefit the Indian consumer by spurring the modernization of India's vast agri-retail marketplace," said Ron Somers, the President of the US India Business Council.

"Investments will now flow into India's farm-to-market supply chain, which will usher in expertise and bring efficiencies to India's supply chain infrastructure. Food price rise and inflation will now effectively be tamed," he said.

"Opening the retail sector will create a larger market opportunity for Indian farmers, increasing quality and choice for India's sophisticated consumers," Somers said.

Unfortunately, this western enthusiasm really makes me uneasy even if FDI in retail may be a good thing for the country, because there is still no consensus on the issue at all. So is it good for the poor Indian farmer or not?

According to Arun Jaitley, and this is probably the official explanation of the BJP as well,

"The services sector accounts for 58% of country's GDP. The retail chains in India, both small and big, account for a major segment of the services sector," Jaitley said. "FDI with deep pockets entering this segment will have an adverse impact on our domestic retail sector…"

Jaitley insisted that "fragmented markets" gave more choice to consumers than "consolidated" ones, adding that once they eliminate competition through predatory pricing, large global retain chains create monopolies.

While it is true that 51% FDI is now allowed in multi-format retail and India will soon see lots of Walmarts and Carrefours and umm, Harrods maybe, and Aldi's, and some other American chains such as Target and maybe even the likes of Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue, I am curious to know how it will de-fragment the market. As far as I know, its up to the Indian consumer how de-fragmented they want their market to be, but at the same time, it is also true that they will go to a place with the cheapest goods, and if that happens to be Evil Walmart (couldn't resist that), then that's where they will go.

According to the big Walmart, this is the "first important step", and just thinking about that makes me shudder. First step to what?!? Its just like the sinister feeling I get when I think of that Coca Cola executive who once said that he wants to replace every traditional drink in India such as lassi, chaachh, coconut milk and sharbat with a Coca Cola product! Very scary indeed, and like I said, even if this is good for the retail scene in this country, the way these companies are smacking their lips should make anybody uneasy.

According to Sitaram Yechury, FDI in retail should be allowed if it follows three criteria - "generating employment, enhancing capacities and bringing new technologies." Each of these three could be a PhD subject, or in other words, are very elaborate and detailed explanations in themselves.

Many years ago, when the debate first started, the unifying thought against foreign retail was that it will kill the mom and pop stores and the neighborhood kirana's. The response was that foreign retail will bring in foreign expertise, best practices, and money to fill the huge, huge void in storage and transportation of perishable goods that results in India losing tens of thousands of crores worth of fruits and vegetables every year because they can't be stored. If the government can ensure that these big companies deliver on their promise to strengthen (or rather build from scratch in many cases) the back-end of the chain, I can only see the rural folk benefiting, apart from the middlemen that is. Actually, even middlemen then most likely will be on their payroll.

As the top Indian Walmartian (sorry, couldn't resist that either) said,

Jain said Walmart is "willing and able" to invest in back-end infrastructure that will help reduce wastage of farm produce, improve the livelihood of farmers, lower prices of products and ease supply-side inflation.

At such a time as this, easing of the supply-side inflation will sound like music to the government's ears, and now that i've said it, I greatly fear that the great CONgress propaganda machine will turn this into their great strategic move to get India out of this stagflation. $hit. As far as the livelihood of farmers is concerned, I think i'll still stand by what I think I had written many moons ago that only a drastic, structural, philosophical, mental change will improve the lives of farmers in the country because while they have had a good meal of lip service for decades, they are starving of real reforms, at least till after the Green Revolution, and that was 4 decades ago. Since then?

If the Government says that India needs open up the retail sector to foreign firms which have been smacking their lips in the most creepy way, then are we to assume that only the western retailers are capable of bringing in the best practices into the country? Are the best practices that we are talking about a protected trade secret and only in the hands of Walmart and Carrefour? Are the western companies the only ones capable of spending the money on setting up the back end logistics in the retail sector?

The BJP raises a very valid point - first, it is true that India in a sense will end up corporatizing a lot of essential food item supply chain control into the hands of the private sector, which most likely will be dominated by the North Atlantic firms. Secondly, this whole talk of strengthening the food chain logistics has been talked about for decades, and yet the government has failed to take the lead in the creation of say cold storage's and encouragement of technology adaptation and utilization in the sector. Now the hope is that these companies will do all that. My question is that companies like P&G, HUL and ITC also sell their wares in the vast rural hinterland, so are they too using primitive and wasteful methods in supply chain logistics?

I also believe that there are some inherent constraints that even the entry of any player can't change. For example, a bad road is a bad road for a foreign player and a domestic player, and for a foreign truck with a 200 HP engine and an old Tata Truck with much less. The super duper supply chain logistics that these companies boast of in Europe or North America are backed by a strong infrastructure that India will probably not see for many many decades, if at all. So to expect those logistics operations being replicated here is naive and ignorance at best.

So let us see if the promise of creating thousands of jobs, inclusive growth, increasing farm productivity etc etc will hold true for a company that pays its employees some of the lowest wages in the US.

2011-11-18T11:50:00.000+05:30

Quite a few things happened in the past ten days since i've written anything here. The two major tasks I was involved in at work - getting the annual report printed and the work related to the listing of the company I work for, both came to fruitation and it felt good to see some results come out of the numerous hours I spent on them.

Work's been keeping me really busy these days and it just becomes impossible to do anything else. For me, anything else is a lot of things these days, including waking up in the morning to go running, learning to play the guitar (which is going very slowly at the present unfortunately), learning more about photography, and well, trying to keep a social life going. When I am surrounded by so many activities and aims and hobbies and interests, I wonder sometimes what I should write about, considering my awareness of all things political has gone down considerably, and has been replaced by one common platform and that is hatred for the CONgress party and the fraud Gandhi cronies.

So as much as I hate them, ranting on and on about them gets repetitive, and when even I don't want to keep on writing similar rants about them, I would understand anybody else would not like to keep on reading the same rants about them. When I use the word rant, I know I am risking taking away some of the seriousness and authenticity of what I write, because a rant, more often than not, is more about displaying ones anger towards something, usually more heightened than normal and thus less factual and logical, but when I rant about how much I hate whats going on in the country, I try to follow it up with some bits of real news.

Nothing seems to be working for India these days. Its government had stopped functioning many years ago, and the global economic scenario mixed with bad economic management at home have been keeping everybody quiet. The only news items today are as usual, corruption and its many related subheadings, the economic scene in Europe, the falling Rupee, and gold. Just this morning, I read that India's gold demand for the last quarter fell 23%. That's a very big number if you look at it - they fell by 1/4th! India for all its love of gold can't be blamed, with falling rupee and inflation that is not looking to go down anytime soon.

Speaking of inflation, it has been said again and again that inflation is due to the supply side constraints, and raising interest rates can only do so much, but the reasons for the inflation will remain. As pointed out by me and many others, Governments in India are loathe to changing the supply side economics for whatever reasons, and India continues to remain a bottleneck country with bottlenecks and constraints in every conceivable sector of the economy, be it transport, housing, power, health care facilities, education, oh, and most importantly, food.

But real work on the ground needs one to pull up their sleeves and get down to work, and the Government of India and most state governments should never be expected to get their hands dirty. So the other option is to get the people to spend less, and thus when you can't affect the fiscal policy (perhaps because you have none), you attack the monetary policy. High interest rates will inflate what families are paying for their loans, the price of food remains high, so that means spending less on everything else. So basically the demand needs to shrink to match the supply.

If I think about it, its always a good idea to cool the consumption juggernaut down and perhaps give the earth some breathing space. On my way to work this morning, I was thinking that India is perhaps of the world's worst utilizers of space. Our cities are in a sprawl without planning, our agricultural lands produce less crop and food then many other nations of the world, our potable water's running out and there is no urgency to save it, and in general, the common Indian is unhappy and only thinking about money. What I have been wishing on the wild west - that perhaps its time they realigned their lifestyle and conspicuous consumption, could be wished upon my own countrymen.

The conundrum here is that the countrymen I am talking about are 1/4th of this country's population. The middle class is too engrossed in making their own lives better through more money to think about anything else, but what kind of a lifestyle adjustment do I talk about with the millions of poor who live under the open skies and have no steady source of income? What kind of a lifestyle adjustment should the hungry and malnourished children of this country bring?

I ask a question and there seem to be a dozen truths that respond to it in a dozen different ways. I think the chaos around is enough for most of us to just shake our heads and hope for the worst. In this "free for all" India of today, the only truth that remains for most people is that you have to fend for yourself. The slums of Mumbai have no proper sanitation and every morning thousands and thousands of people defecate in the open, but their small living holes which they will return to will have cable television which will be beaming a lifestyle of utmost luxury and consumption which they will watch with gusto.

I heard somewhere, either on television or from a friend, that an issue with Indian election process is that it is first past the post, so in a simple example, if there are a hundred people who can vote in a voting zone, and there 3 candidates, and only 60% vote, so that is 60 people voting out of the hundred. Now one candidate gets 25 votes, and other two get the remaining, that is, 35 votes. So the candidate with the 25 votes wins, but she represents only 25% of the population of that voting zone she stood up in. Again, there can be two issues here, first, that the system needs to change so that a candidate must represent if not at least 1/3, but some percentage of the population in that zone, or second, there needs to be something done so that the abysmal 60% voting percentage rises to at least 80%.

We know that the people who vote today are the most economically disadvantaged, and they are the ones who are always short changed by the people they vote in. Quite ironic really. The same with caste politics. Perhaps a poor person belonging to a caste protected by the constitution would rather live on the 'pride' of having an MP from his or her caste than in a better home with food for the family and school for the kids. At least this is what the politics of India today seems to suggest. The politically disinterested middle class, often blamed for so many of the ills that plague today's politics because of their non-participation and focus on wealth and only wealth was said to have stirred epitomized by the rise of Anna Hazare, and it remains to be seen what levels of participation will be seen when India goes to elections for the national government. I am also curious to see what happens in the many state elections that are coming up, including that of Uttar Pradesh. Rahul "Voted in or not, i'll be made PM of this banana republic by mom" Gandhi has started campaigning against the tyranny of Mayawati, who by the way plans to divide UP into 4 new states! I always advocated for the division of UP into two, but wouldn't 4 be pushing it? India's federal structure already leaves so much to be desired with the states rarely seeing eye to eye with the center. The problem with state politics, as I had written long ago, was that most are simply incapable of thinking from a broader point of view. Their narrow interests sometime go against the interest of this country, and more often than not, they win.

So while I continue to feel worthless and overwhelmed by everything that seems to be going around me, I suppose the only way I can respond is by making my life more meaningful than being just a corporate slave that I am. I'm looking forward to my family visiting me next week and perhaps like millions of others like me, will continue to make my life better, hope for the best and leave the rest to God.

2011-11-09T14:49:00.000+05:30

There is a general sentiment being permeated by the over-zealous and narrow visioned Indian media that the men and women of the armed forces who defend our lands on our borders are the villains who have terrorised the local populations and they do whatever they want on a whim without fear of repercussions.

The materialistic and bohemian Indian urban youth readily buy this glib that the best of the best in the business, the business of media that is, peddle day in and day out on the airwaves and in print. Unfortunately, there are very few who stand up to rebut this dangerous propaganda purveyed by the yellow media. Television news more often than not never allows airtime to opinions that go against the picture that they are trying to draw in the minds of the viewer and the articles written in the print media simply never get the eye balls to open the peoples' eyes to to the truth. Considering that the general population of India is increasingly averse to reading real news and takes its daily dose of information, I should say infotainment, from the likes of the Tabloid of India and its posse, the space for people who actually speak for this country and for the truth shrinks even further.

Just like I find Hinduism bashing to be the past time of choice for most of the media, it is also very prevalent for them to question the integrity of the Armed Forces and other paramilitary. A single crime is enough for the media to club the entire organization in the same light, and the ignorant masses join in. Unfortunately, the Indian media currently simply does not seem to have the wherewithal to delve deeper into issues and actually try to represent some semblance of truth, which in turn is probably because the common population does not look for serious truth, they simply look for infotainment.

When the topic of Kashmir is discussed in the media, I have more often than not seen the media portray the Army there as the villain who victimize the local population in the garb of fighting terror. While Bollywood has showcased the Indian Armed Forces as the brave and honourable institutions that they are, there have been some instances where this liberal bleeding heart, Wagah candle kissing comes to the full fore, with themes such as 'bad' soldiers not wanting the peace loving people of India and Pakistan to be united, or a Hindu nationalist Army Officer posted in Kashmir killing innocents simply out of his hatred for Islam. Yes, such movies have been made too and in the name of intellectual freedom aim to harm the very moral fabric of the Armed Forces that holds them and in turn this supposedly great country together. Irony is that those in the political circles and the media who profess to be the most secular are the most divisive of all.

Irom Sharmila has been on a hunger strike for the past 11 years and was barely a blip on the national media, and has now gained prominence once the Kashmiri politicians raised their pitch to repeal the act. While the "Iron Lady of Manipur" has every right to be heard, and justice be done for the act that was committed by the jawans of the Assam Rifles in Manipur over a decade ago, and I personally do not know the details of the Act, but as a retired Colonel Athale wrote in Rediff.com, this is one of the few pieces of legislation that tries to protect the soldiers themselves without putting them at the mercy of the states' civil administration which needs no proof of its incompetence and lethargy in responding to a call for help of any kind from any citizen.

Kashmir in my opinion is a very strange conundrum in the minds of the Indian media and population. Correct information and news rarely comes out of the state without first being dipped in religious connotations or allegations or rebuttals. Thus, I believe that every Indian knows that there is a problem in Kashmir, but the way the Indian media portrays the situation, everybody is unclear of whether its really Pakistan's pathological hatred for all things Indian that's the problem or whether the problem is somewhere else. Most unfortunately, there are many ignorant youth out there who view their country as the occupier and will voraciously advocate that India should leave Kashmir and make peace with the already suffering Pakistan. Yes, the must sought after India-Pakistan partnership that will beat the rest of the world in everything.

I had written a few weeks ago about how the current Government of J&K is pushing through for the removal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act which they say gives too much power in the hands of the Army. I had written that the Indian media due to some strange affliction view the Army as the largest perpetrator of human rights violations in J&K while the AK-47 toting terrorists remain "alleged" militants/terrorists/rebels in the eyes of the world media. The Indian media does nothing to correct this untruth. What I am simply saying is that with the political class and the media and the watching population only too eager to hold an entire institution responsible for the act of a few, should the safety and security of the greater masses be held to ransom because of denial of justice to the ones that were wronged? I feel a major issue is that justice is denied in India to those who deserve it, and because justice is denied, the tendency is to blame the laws under which the act was committed, and instead of focusing on the specific injustice, a sweeping generalization is made that should change the laws themselves. I think that means most simply miss the target of their ire.

There is a meeting today between Omar Abdullah and the United Command of the Armed Forces in Kashmir where he will raise the issue of removing the Act in certain parts of the state. Let us see how that goes. Its quite easy for politicians to make the people believe what they think is good for them, and I believe for many people, afraid of facing up to the terrorists, find the easy target to vent their frustrations with their situation, and turn towards the group that by law can't respond - the police and the Army. I think it is similar to the sentiment among the many Muslim organizations who focus on preaching that Islam is a religion of peace but shy away from taking a stronger stand against the terrorists themselves.

Col. Athale writes in Rediff.com:

there is a clamour of late about the 2,000 odd graves in Kashmir... mostly of militants who infiltrated but no mention of the 5,000 Indian soldiers who died during the same period!

It appears that the Left-liberal dominated government may well succumb to this concerted campaign and remove the legal protection of soldiers who are engaged in fighting a guerrilla war launched by our neighbour. This is a last ditch attempt inject some sense of realism in the debate by an author who has been studying this form of war in the north-east, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Northern Ireland for the last 25 years.

The first and foremost fact that must be understood is that the armed forces have NO powers to act within the country other than in aid to civil authority. These powers are defined by Sections 129 to 131 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The CrPC sections dealing with riots empowers the local magistrate/police commissioner to call army in 'aid to civil authority'. The local military commander is under legal obligation to obey this demand. However, the quantum of force and methods to be used are at the discretion of the military commander.

The civil authority has to give this requisition in writing. Section 131 that was added in 1973, gives a power to a commissioned officer to act even when a magistrate is not present, but must contact a magistrate at the earliest. This genesis of this section was that in West Bengal the armed forces were came under criticism when in their presence mobs destroyed government property, while the army watched helplessly since a magistrate was not present. These are the only powers available to the armed forces.

The Assam Special Powers Act 1958 was promulgated when the Nagas revolted, civil authority collapsed and armed and organised Naga rebels controlled vast stretches of territory and began a guerrilla war against the state. It is not aid to civic authority but a virtual army rule because of breakdown of state or inability of the state to deal with armed challenge... this is NOT for crowd control but fighting an armed group intent on overthrowing the state.

AFSPA is merely an enabling provision and the forces act at the behest of the government and not on their own. This is meant for use in a 'disturbed area' where the writ of the state has ceased to exist and its existence is challenged by an armed group. The purpose of this act is to fight a guerrilla war.

In this war ambushes, raids, combat patrols are the tactics used by the army. These actions are not covered under the CrPc and IPC. The armed forces have no other police powers so it is not special.

Can a guerrilla war that is supported and even fought by foreign citizens on our soil be faced in any other manner, should the NSG not have been used in Mumbai attack on 26/11? In Kashmir the army faces a 26/11 situation on a daily basis.

Does the Indian Army use excessive force? Funny that countries that preach to us like the US have been using drones, helicopters, artillery, fighter aircraft etc as so also Pakistan! The Indian Army has never used heavy weapons against civilians due to fear of causing collateral damage and is yet being criticised. The Indian Army fights with one hand tied, non use of full force. Some want it to fight with both hands tied!

The third issue is can it be removed from some parts in Kashmir that are undoubtedly peaceful. The problem in this case is what if the militants commit violence somewhere else and take shelter in these areas? Knowing fully that the army cannot operate here!

What am I angry at? As much as I am angry at the politicians who are simply unable to comprehend the long term repercussions of their selfish and dangerous actions today, I am even angrier at the dumbed down population which has lost its ability to seek the truth and question what they are being force-fed. Much of the urban youth of today is lost in the land of the lotus-eaters, and they could only care about fornication and consumption. I generalize of course, but I see it as the truth. The media has succeeded in making the people feel ashamed of their heritage and their culture and replaced it with a North Atlantic pop culture where everybody is happy driving cars, hanging out with women (this works very well for the male-centric society), wearing nice clothes and sipping alcohol. I wish something would happen that made this society stop taking for granted the blood and sweat of our armed forces.

In the end, since we are a true blue democracy, the people have got to make better choices, but then again, probably nobody thought that the Fraud Gandhi's led CONgress government would take the rape of the country to such an extreme level that I shudder to think that these buggers still have 3 years left. So unfortunately, while our soldiers continue to patrol our borders and face the bullets from enemies who do not have the spine to stand up and fight face to face, we continue to be ignorant of what it takes to defend this nation, and our ignorance shows right at the top of the food chain, the Parliament of India.

2011-10-29T12:16:00.004+05:30

Angela Merkel said that Europe is facing its toughest test since the Second World War. Needless to say, the days of capitalist living and socialist economies may be finally over across Europe, including in Germany and France, and perhaps its time the European nations begin strapping up for a new age where the Asians control a part of their economy and living frugally becomes the best way to survive. Yes, it warms my heart to see that the days of gratuitous consumption in the European and even North American economies may be withering away.

After occupying the rest of the world for the past few hundred years, a part of me is pleased to hear all this protectionist talk coming from the US and other Western nations. Despite the massive debt Greece is in and despite the fact that Germany and France, as leaders of Europe, worked hard to get Greece's debtors to write down their debt to the country by almost half, the Greeks are angry. And why are the Greeks angry? Because its Germany, that's why. Those Nazi occupiers are back and the Greeks aren't liking it! Talk about beggars not being choosers.

As Greeks suffer from harsh austerity measures, there is growing popular sentiment here that the country has ceded key parts of its sovereignty, and its pride, to its foreign lenders.

Beyond populist talk, which ranges from euro-skepticism to anti-German demagoguery, experts say the concessions that Greece has made in exchange for the foreign aid it needs to stave off default — including allowing European Union officials to monitor Greek state affairs closely — are unprecedented for a member nation, making Greece a bellwether for the future of European integration.

“If we weren’t under the E.U., which is the only reason this loss of sovereignty may be justified, I’d have to say that Greece is an occupied country,” said Nikos Alivizatos, a constitutional lawyer in Athens.

Now since this is the New York Times, I do not know if they have put their own spin on the story because I could totally trust the media to obfuscate the truth to make it more salacious and scandalous. After all, the word "Nazi" sends a shiver down every American's spine! Actually, I may be wrong here and despite Angela Merkel emerging as the one European leader who seems to have brought some order to this debt crisis, some Greeks view her as the new Nazi occupier!

The Greeks may not be the only ones that seem to be angry at the current situation in Europe and Germany taking the lead in bringing some relief to the debt crisis. Her words that Europe must continue to integrate economically or there could be grave consequences for the continent took many people back to the first half of last century when the then German nation was responsible for bringing the first modern wars to the continent. As the Sydney Morning Herald quotes the headline in the British newspaper Daily Mail - "German Chancellor warns of war if currency fails!"

But its very interesting to see that after what the IMF and other western lenders have been doing to the third world across the globe, they are applying the same medicine to one of their own. I've bought up this point before on my blog, but now that the European crisis has finally seemed to achieve critical mass, its certain that simple pussyfooting or simple short term measures will no longer work, and Europe has to take some tough decisions about its economic future. All this seemed very vague till some time ago, but now as expected, Merkel and Sarkozy have gotten the European bankers to back down and write down their Greek debt exposure.
For hours, negotiators had been trying to persuade the banks to accede to a "voluntary" 50 percent loss in the face value of their Greek bond holdings. The banks, which had already agreed to a 21 percent write-down, had dug in their heels.

They knew how badly the European leaders needed a deal and how much financial experts feared a disorderly, involuntary default. That could set off a "credit event," throwing world financial markets into turmoil, much as the collapse of Lehman Brothers did in the fall of 2008.

But Merkel called the bankers' bluff, said officials present at the discussions. Accept the 50 percent write-down, she told the bankers, or bear the consequences of default. In effect, she was willing to risk a credit event and place the blame for any fallout squarely on them.

So now Greece seems to have a plan going ahead, Ireland already had a plan with nationalisation of its banks and lots of bailout money, and nationalisation of banks across Europe, and now the show moves to Italy, which, being a G-7 nation, becomes too big to fail. According to that Economic Crimes link, Italy owes USD 2.7 trillion in debt, or 120% of its GDP!! How in the world are they going to get all that money even over several decades? In my opinion, Angela Merkel is hailed as a hero for getting the bankers to write down half of Greek debt, but how in the world is anybody going to write the Italian debt down?

There are many issues here that I constantly rant about when it comes to western economies, maybe with the two most important being how the western economies are moving towards protectionism after talking against it for so many decades, and the scale down from their gratuitous consumption and unsustainable lifestyle. Both of these will obviously change in the coming decades, and are changing right now as well.

Coming back to the point about Asia taking a lead in propping up the world economy in the near future, China and its money are on every body's minds as Europe tries to get China to put in their money in the rescue of Europe as well. As much as I dislike China, I also support them in the fact that they, along with other emerging economies such as ours, Brazil, Mexico etc, are correcting the long drawn skew in the global economy in favour of the western economies.

China is expected to demand significant concessions, including financial guarantees and limits on what Beijing sees as discriminatory trade policies, in exchange for any investment in Europe’s emergency stability fund.

That Europe would turn so openly to China to help stabilize the debt crisis shows how quickly the Chinese economic juggernaut has risen on the world stage. Indeed, if China comes to Europe’s aid, it will signal a new international order, with China beginning to rival the role long played by the United States as the world’s pivotal financial power.

And I feel the reason I can support China in this is because I know that despite all its flaws, the Indian economy too is at a stage where it can't be arm-twisted any more by the likes of IMF/WB and even China. If I were a Vietnamese, for example, then I would be very, very wary of how China is slowly controlling the global finances.

At the same time, I am also very fearful that with the emerging world looking forward to consuming the way the west does now will be disastrous for the Earth. Of course, my long term view is that the Earth will revolt and in the next few decades, the environment will have been exploited beyond redemption, and then que sera sera. I hope India, China, Brazil and all their third world comrades realize that we must protect the environment for our sake and not start blowing smoke through our nostrils if a first world country tells us to. Its possible to live a comfortable, modern lifestyle with consumption of goods and use of resources, but it is absolutely necessary that we manage what we have better to make it go long and give the Earth a chance to replenish itself. But I digress.

I feel that the notion that globalization was a mutually beneficial economic model is not true anymore, with risks being shared with the most vulnerable nations and economies and the profits continuing to land in the hands of the mightiest of companies, most of which have their origins in the west. Sure Europe is in a crisis but I believe that while I am happy that a rightful shift in the global economy is occurring, whatever is happening today will now be mixed with heavy doses of nationalism, protectionism and distrust from all quarters. Those with the loudest guns will have the strongest clout, and as the economy becomes a greater cause of social distress in societies and we continue to grow (the world population will cross 7 billion soon), we will definitely see some fundamental shift in the way the world runs, and it could be something completely different from our usual conjured scenarios of East-West, BRIC, Asia, WASP etc. The world to me is getting more divided even as it integrates economically, and the only constant that will remain is that most of the global population will continue to struggle to survive.

Diwali 2011

2011-10-27T20:59:00.000+05:30

Yesterday was Diwali in India, a time filled with an excitement in the air that permeates all corners of an office, factory, school or college. The period around Diwali is the time when manufacturers and retailers go all out in selling as many goodies as they can to the public that happily opens its purse strings in this otherwise bleak economic environment.

This being Diwali, an important day for the country, also becomes an important day for the enemies of the country, be they within or without our national borders. Just yesterday, there were two blasts in Imphal which injured 6 people and fortunately nobody is dead. Nobody claimed responsibility for the blasts but there could be two reasons for the blast - one, its Diwali and it being an important festival, cowards will try their best to wound the public sentiment. The second reason could be that its because P Chidambaram is visiting Manipur, and he will be specifically visiting three Naga-dominated districts, so perhaps this blast has something to do with it.

In Assam, there was a blast on the train tracks in Central Assam's Dima Hasao district that affected train movement but again did not result in any loss of life. Perhaps I am not paying attention to the news well enough but this was after a while that I heard of a blast in Assam. Unfortunate and dangerous nonetheless, and again on Diwali night.

In what seemed to be a restive Jammu & Kashmir, there were attacks on our security forces for two straight days, with the latest one being a grenade attack on a police vehicle in Anantnag district. On the previous day, there were grenade attacks on CRPF and police personnel in Srinagar. In Kashmir, this comes at a time when the demand for the easing of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) is getting louder, being led by the Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah. The premise is that these special acts are looked at by the locals as oppressive and tyrannical, and considering that the violence in the state has been in a steady decline (which is perhaps due to the fact that the Pakis don't have a lot of money to fund terror now), it is high time these laws be done away with in order to bring a greater sense of being a part of the Indian nation among the Kashmiris. A news report in Reuters, which I do not want to quote here for its obvious bias and regurgitation of hackneyed stereotypes on Kashmir such as Hindu-minority or Muslim-majority or Hindu/Muslim, Muslim/Hindu etc etc and the friendly reminder of how India and Pakistan have fought so many wars over it, says that the terror is subsiding and the government wants to use this opportunity to win the hearts and minds of the Kashmiri folk who hate the law.

I hate to say it but I think that a lot of Kashmiri politicians love to portray themselves as victims and if anybody says anything critical of how the state is functioning or if somebody calls some bluff of theirs, or even of a group of people from there, then that at once becomes an example of how Kashmir is being victimized by India. This is not just a Kashmir problem but an India problem that the law enforcement side is the one that is always supposed to act within the boundaries of what is right, just, lawful, legal etc, while the enemy has all the laws in the world to flout. At the same time, it is much easier to show your contempt towards the side that is forced to work within the law because you know that you can shout at them, throw stones at them and they won't be able to do anything about it. The terrorists, well, they're fighting for a higher cause such as a brainwashed mind and some promised money in their familys' pockets when they are gone. With the grenade attacks in the past few days, maybe Omar Abdullah might consider backing down.

In Kashmir too, it is very easy to shout at the Army and be heard because the Indian media usually works without having sense of what it is doing. The Army in Kashmir is the villain for many Indian journalists who shed tears about how human rights are being flouted by the men in uniform. The terrorists, sorry, alleged terrorists, well, can shoot into a crowd and still be doubted if they are real terrorists at all. Way to stand up for your country, Indian media.

I do not claim to know everything about the AFSPA or even form a good opinion on the Act, because as always, the truth is always muddy. Perhaps if the Government of India grew some more balls and allowed the Armed Forces a little more leeway in doing more damage to the terrorists in Kashmir and those sitting across the border, including their handlers, maybe the state would be a lot more peaceful. This is not just true there, but in a lot of places across the country where the spineless government of India continues to let rashes fester till they become more dangerous. Then its operation containment and appeasement at a national scale.

I'll end up ranting against the absolutely disgraceful and shameless Government of India again but I just want to say that I hope things will get better in this nation so that we can continue to celebrate our traditions and festivals and events without the fear of having some traitor or enemy try to kill us. However, to ensure that the possibility of that remains a bare minimum, sometimes the solution does not lie as deep as making the world a better and a more equal place, all it needs is more spine to get rid of crazy fanatics who have lost all their sense of reasoning and objective.

If these results are anything to go by....

2011-10-20T11:21:00.000+05:30

With the shenanigans that the CONgress party and its allies have been perpetrating at all levels of governance, there was always a discussion on somewhere about what it does to the poll fortunes of this sycophantic political party. If anything, there is something which I will always admit the CONgress never lacked, and that is their arrogance and quick dismissal of anything remotely critical of them.

I am sure the fraud Gandhi family and their minions around them are planning to shift power at the center of what was the Government of India - now its the Government of the Banana Republic of India - to bring Raul Maino at the helm, but surely the results that came out in the past few days, not just from one state, but from Haryana, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Three of these seats were Assembly seats and the one in Hisar, Haryana was the Lok Sabha seat vacated upon the death of the former Haryana Chief Minister, Bhajan Lal. According to the Business Standard:

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance’s failure to win not even one of the four by-elections — one Lok Sabha and three Assembly seats — has set off alarm bells within the ruling alliance.

In Bihar, UPA ally Rashtriya Janata Dal lost the Daraunda constituency in Siwan district by a convincing 20,000 margin, enabling the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) to retain the Assembly seat. In Maharashtra, the blow was sharp and deep.

Although all parties in the ruling UPA have gone into a huddle following the current setback, they say it is just a set of by-elections. But in three out of four states, the party in power is the Congress.

Election season in India is clearly showing signs of coming in full force now, and much to the chagrin of CONgress and its allies, Anna Hazare and his team have been pretty active in campaigning against CONgress, including in Hisar, which happens to be Arvind Kejriwal's native place. The Hindustan Times asked on the 11th of this month whether Mr. Hazare and Mr. Kejriwal will be able to influence the outcome?

In fact, the writer, Vinod Sharma, is very critical of what Mr. Kejriwal and Mr. Hazare have been doing in Hisar, which he says, is based on misrepresented facts and false claims. Mr. Sharma, of course, is a known CONgress boy and hence can be expected to be vexed to see so much support for the people campaigning against the CONgress, and apparently, seem to be winning.

Apparently there is a spin in the media these days to show that Team Anna is losing its plot and are losing their support by becoming more political and on many occasions, unabashedly anti-CONgress. There was a shoe hurled at Arvind Kejriwal recently by a man named Jitendra Pathak in Lucknow. I haven't read all the accounts, but the article I just linked from IBN Live is enough to tell me that there was definitely something fishy in that shoe throwing.

The attempted attack came a day after the drubbing Congress party got in Hisar by-poll and a few days after the attack on Prashant Bhushan and Anna's supporters.

There is some ambiguity about the affiliation of the man, Jitendra Pathak, who attacked Kejriwal. He is known to be close to the BJP and has also appeared in many of Congress's rallies.

Pathak said, "I attacked Kejriwal because he said he had come to speak about corruption but then never addressed the issue."

So Jitendra threw the shoe because Team Anna only speaks about corruption but never addresses the issue. Everybody else believes its political but nobody seems to know what is affiliations are, his uncle believes he used to work for the BJP, and this comes after Prashant Bhushan supported a referendum in Kashmir and was slapped in his office for saying so!

IBN Live is not without putting in its parting shot in the article to create some sort of a propaganda among its readers, as it tries to create a spin that Hazare and the people around him are crumbling.

Team Anna caught the nation's imagination by creating strong emotions against the government. Now it seems the same emotion is turning against them even if it's at a small level.

I just love how news stories put their own opinions into their pieces and then pass it off as news. That's the trend now and with the way media is controlled today by the rich and powerful, its no wonder that the media is now so sensationalist and yellow. I am saying this to simply illustrate that this is why I will take what they write with a barrel of salt. Today, for example, the news sources are reporting that Mr. Prasad now says that he will give a "similar treatment" to Anna Hazare. This time the issue is that Mr. Hazare must clear the air on Prashant Bhushan's Kashmir remarks. I suppose he is also upset that Hazare is now more explicit in campaigning against the CONgress, as opposed to campaigning against something as universal as corruption. That smell of bulls**t in the air is just nauseating.

I feel there is a confusion in many minds about what the central theme of whats going in. Anna Hazare brought up corruption in the government and the people rallied with him. So the main issue is corruption and now no matter what Hazare and his team does, the hope would be that the people's awareness towards the absolutely unbelievable levels of greed and avarice in the current Government has risen that their demand for justice can sustain itself. Unfortunately, that is not the case, and more often than not, to kill the issue, one has to kill the messenger. By discrediting Hazare and digging up his past and implicating Arvind Kejriwal in old tax cases, just to give examples, are ways by which the government is using the vast machinery at its disposal to get back at the people who oppose it.

Of course, since elections are in the air, that has been gaining the maximum coverage in the media, but once in a while the issue of election reforms also comes in. There is still a big discussion on about the various aspects of election reforms such as the right to reject or the right to recall, and there are opinions from various stakeholders including the Chief Election Commissioner of the India saying that Right to Recall will lead to destabilisation of the country, the Right to Reject is a more easily adoptable idea. He makes a valid point though - "everywhere there is discontent, people will start recalling their representatives." Since this nation is a nation of discontent, I am imagine that will happen very frequently.

So I do not know whether Hazare's strong words against the CONgress will work and whether it was his campaign or cast politics which lost CONgress the Hisar seat. However, I do sincerely hope that with so many elections coming, people will actually be more aware and vote for change. I simply can't shake my belief that this country and society has a government and representatives that it deserves. Till our society, especially the democratically inactive part, stop blaming the ills on everybody else and be more active in demanding what is right, we won't get it.

How do we recycle?

2011-10-12T15:58:00.001+05:30

I work in a very large Indian company that has operations in many parts of the world. I work for a company that is a part of this large group, and its operations are only a tiny part of the total operations of this enterprise. So when I look at the paper consumption of my relatively small company, that can run into many reams of paper in a day, I can only imagine how many hundreds of reams of paper will have been consumed in one day by the company's operatives in all parts of the world.

Now if this is one Indian conglomerate, there are dozens like this with revenues running into thousands of crores, so one can imagine how many reams of paper all these companies put together will be consuming in a day and when we realize that the world is full of such conglomerates with operations and activities in every corner of the world, I find I am unable to fathom the sheer amount of paper consumption of all these corporations.

A few weeks ago, I asked the maintenance person what happens to all the waste paper that is generated on the floor. He didn't know where it ended up, and upon my question that did he know if all this paper went to recycling at all, he drew a blank. Another colleague of mine with who I raised this point mistook my intention, and assuming I was talking about the security of the discarded paper, as in, whether they were shredded to destroy their content.

These reactions ably demonstrate our own attitude towards trash. We throw something in the trash can, somebody comes and collects it, and that is the end of it. I think none of us has ever bothered to wonder what happens to the trash that is generated by us and by our surroundings. Most of us are too used to dumping all our waste together, so that our tea leaves mix with plastic, our banana peel mixes with our waste paper, and we turn in into a stinky cocktail of trash and put it out for somebody else to take care of it.

Indians are chronic litterers. For one, we can't seem to travel to any place without food. A calling sign of many Indian tourist families that travel without and outside the country is the need for food. Gujarati families are famous for carrying as many Gujarati packed food items as they can, and no matter where Indian tourists are - on a boat, on a train, on a sidewalk in Singapore, on the beach in Thailand, on a raft on the Ganges river - our favorite activity is eating. I say our favorite activity is eating because we do that consciously. Our second favorite activity of course, is littering, which most do almost as unconsciously as breathing. Every passing moment in Mumbai when I am on the local train or sitting at Marine Drive or riding in a taxi, the most common theme I see are people spitting and littering, and I sincerely believe that we all will be living on mountains of trash soon. The movie Wall-E may actually be a very true scenario many years down the line, because it is amply visible to me that the earth's capacity to take our crap, and scrap, is diminishing.

Of course, littering is only a small part of the overall increased consumption levels of the developed and the developing world. The first world had already adapted a lifestyle of gratuitous consumption and now the developing world is matching them trash per trash. Is it any wonder that our pristine seas are now slowly dying because of the decades of human and industrial trash that is being continuously dumped into them?

There is a formation called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch which is the world's largest landfill according to some, and sits smack in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! Very simply, the oceans are our dumping grounds, and have been forever. We know that there are ocean currents that flow in various directions across our oceans, and when a few currents meet each other at such angles that creates a sort of vortex in the middle, imagine a tiny tornado you see when the winds blow through building corners and lift light dust and trash into a tornado, they dump all the trash they are carrying with them into this vortex. Such a system is called a gyre involving large ocean currents.

So just like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, there is the Indian Ocean Garbage Patch, and just like them, there are three other great garbage patches floating on our oceans.

While there is visible debris and trash floating on the oceans, the problem with the garbage patches is that they are mainly plastic, and that too in a form that is broken down to very tiny levels, or as the article says, polymer level.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has one of the highest levels known of plastic particulate suspended in the upper water column. As a result, it is one of several oceanic regions where researchers have studied the effects and impact of plastic photodegradation in the neustonic layer of water. Unlike debris, which biodegrades, the photodegraded plastic disintegrates into ever smaller pieces while remaining a polymer. This process continues down to the molecular level.

As the plastic flotsam photodegrades into smaller and smaller pieces, it concentrates in the upper water column. As it disintegrates, the plastic ultimately becomes small enough to be ingested by aquatic organisms that reside near the ocean's surface. Thus, plastic waste enters the food chain through its concentration in the neuston. Some plastics decompose within a year of entering the water, leaching potentially toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A, PCBs, and derivatives of polystyrene.

Who is to disprove what I say is a fact that the suspended polymers will definitely have originated from the tobacco satchets that millions of Indian men dump around them without thinking anything about it. This is just to illustrate that eventually, we will be polluting the entire world and then have to deal with the consequences. Most of the world's trash ends up in the water bodies, notwithstanding the large masses of landfills that we continue to fill.

I wanted to write about a relatively simpler process of recycling of paper, but its hard for me to not think about what's happening to our planet through our littering. I simply do not trust the human race to change its behavior, especially the consumers, and perhaps the only way out now is to develop a game changer, maybe something that can reduce plastic to organic waste or simply burn it into water vapour!

Here are some facts from an article in the Telegraph, a British newspaper:

There are now 46,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometre of the world's oceans, killing a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals each year.

Invisible to satellites, poorly understood by scientists and perhaps twice the size of France, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not a solid mass, as is sometimes imagined, but a kind of marine soup whose main ingredient is floating plastic debris.

Fifty years ago nearly all that flotsam was biodegradable. These days it is 90 per cent plastic.

The world's navies and commercial shipping fleets make a significant contribution, he discovered, throwing some 639,000 plastic containers overboard every day, along with their other litter. But after a few more years of sampling ocean water in the gyre and near the mouths of Los Angeles streams, and comparing notes with scientists in Japan and Britain, Moore concluded that 80 per cent of marine plastic was initially discarded on land, and the United Nations Environmental Programme agrees.

The wind blows plastic rubbish out of littered streets and landfills, and lorries and trains on their way to landfills. It gets into rivers, streams and storm drains and then rides the tides and currents out to sea. Litter dropped by people at the beach is also a major source.

Plastic does not biodegrade; no microbe has yet evolved that can feed on it. But it does photodegrade. Prolonged exposure to sunlight causes polymer chains to break down into smaller and smaller pieces, a process accelerated by physical friction, such as being blown across a beach or rolled by waves. This accounts for most of the flecks and fragments in the enormous plastic soup at the becalmed heart of the Pacific, but Moore also found a fantastic profusion of uniformly shaped pellets about 2mm across.

Nearly all the plastic items in our lives begin as these little manufactured pellets of raw plastic resin, which are known in the industry as nurdles. More than 100 billion kilograms of them are shipped around the world every year, delivered to processing plants and then heated up, treated with other chemicals, stretched and moulded into our familiar products, containers and packaging.

During their loadings and unloadings, however, nurdles have a knack for spilling and escaping. They are light enough to become airborne in a good wind. They float wonderfully and can now be found in every ocean in the world, hence their new nickname: mermaids' tears.

Worldwide, according to the United Nations Environment Programme, plastic is killing a million seabirds a year, and 100,000 marine mammals and turtles. It kills by entanglement, most commonly in discarded synthetic fishing lines and nets. It kills by choking throats and gullets and clogging up digestive tracts, leading to fatal constipation. Bottle caps, pocket combs, cigarette lighters, tampon applicators, cottonbud shafts, toothbrushes, toys, syringes and plastic shopping bags are routinely found in the stomachs of dead seabirds and turtles.

A study of fulmar carcases that washed up on North Sea coastlines found that 95 per cent had plastic in their stomachs – an average of 45 pieces per bird.

Plastic is bound to a human life in such a way that if we were to discard even a quarter of all the plastic products that we use, I believe we would not be able to survive! That's modernity for you. Unfortunately, so it is for the rest of the species on this planet as well, as we kill them slowly. I've reached this conclusion many times that we won't be able to turn back to living a life that is simpler, nature-friendly and simply less materialistic. Unfortunately, recycling is not very profitable, its not very profitable to produce electricity using the sun or the wind, there is no alternative to plastic, and nothing has been found, organic or chemical, that can burn down plastic, so I do not know what's going to happen, but if there is ever a change for the better on this planet, it will be only after we've managed to kill half the planet! I'm being a pessimist I know, but I do not see anything around me to make me believe otherwise. I'm a sinner myself, and I know how difficult it is to find alternatives to so many of the plastics I use daily. Working towards changing the world on that front is a failed exercise that will never succeed. The only solution now is to find something that will make all this plastic vanish!

losing trust

2011-10-10T14:49:00.000+05:30

I must admit that my head is spinning, because there is just too much information circling around me at all times. Perhaps the truth is that such a copious amount of information always did the rounds around me or anybody else for that matter, my own receptiveness for such a massive variety of information seems to have gone up, and my own frustration at not being able to write about them adding to the headache.

I have always tried to be a good political blogger, even though I write in a blog which attracts a minute number of readers most of who happen to venture here by chance. Over time I think I have improved in what I write, and always attempt to back up some of my points made with what is said in the real media, but I think i'm now facing a crisis of trust. Trust in the sources I take my information from, and trust in myself to formulate a cohesive opinion piece that I can back up with at least some data.

To explain the lack of trust in myself, I know that there is always too much information, and there are always too many opinions. Life was good when I didn't care about the other opinions and simply wrote what I wanted to write, or rather, rant. Now I feel I have an obligation to be fair in what I write, and for some reason, the realization that there will be plenty of facts and figures to prove my opinion to be wrong in at least somme way is beginning to bother me. But isn't that true for every opinion expressed, especially in politics and global affairs? I hate the CONgress for the unaccountable and opaque fiefdom that they have turned the administrative machinery of this country into, but then, there are regular opinion givers in the Indian media who sing paens of this fraud Gandhi led gang for all the good they have done, and will illustrate far reaching acts such as the Right to Information Act and the reservation of 33% of seats in Panchayat elections for women. And thus have my opinions ended up becoming stuck in the middle as I try to take into consideration the fact that I should write from all angles as I am aware that I may be wrong!

For the lack of trust in the sources where I take my information from, again there was never a dearth of sources from where I could glean information and opinions of what was happening around me. However, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that there has been a steady degradation of the way the media of this country functions that has only now become more visible to the common eye. The fact that the media has closely been entrenched with the political system of the country was never in question, and one can only imagine the level of parlays that the powerbrokers at the top of the political/social/economic foodchain must be participating in. However, the recent past has perhaps been the first time that the common man saw how strong these links are.

Then at the same time what I am feeling about a lack of trust in anything that I write and from whichever source I read is being felt by everybody in this country who now sees the absolute shamelessness and brazenness with which the top governance structure in the country goes about its business of being irresponsible, unanswerable and downright reckless in their disregard for norms and regulations.

The political class in this country always had their paws in the economic pie, with many of them owning businesses with legitimate or illegitimate operations or both, but I think the last four years have thoroughly established that on the lines of most of the developed capitalist economies elsewhere on the planet, the politician sitting on the proverbial chair of an Member of Parliament or a Member of Legislative Assembly is more interested in doing business than being an administrator and political leader.

In such a situation, when I do not know what is true or what is not true, I have found it very difficult to trust my own judgement and opinion on a politicial situation, a political entity or a political accusation because I suppose the recent shenanigans of the country's political and business class have more than ably demonstrated that the truth is anything but, especially the 'truth' that we are fed through the controlled media.

However, as much as I rant against the political and business leadership, I know that they represent the society at large, and no matter how bad things get, I, being the idealist that I am, believe that this situation exists only because this society lets it exist. On that corollary, the situation exists because the society wants it to exist. Given the consumption levels of the Indian society, especially the Indian middle class that is working in white collar jobs or owning their little business enterprise or working in the service economy, there is no doubt that while the size of the have-nots is definitely swelling, so is the consumption levels of the haves, and this group is the one that seems to drive policy, despite the politician going all out to woo the marginalized classes for votes.

I think the situation that exists today, of India being this strange mixture of extreme poverty and extreme wealth, extreme under-development to extreme development, absolute lack of infrastructure to the best urban infrastructure, millions of homeless to homes that cost crores of rupees, is because now our society has increasingly adapted the policy of laissez faire - non-interference. Everybody to themselves, is the rallying cry of the masses now, and that definitely includes the options available to make money. Now that consumption and accumulation of wealth defines our existance, surely I have nothing to find fault with in the leadership we have because thats the leadership we deserve. If a few farmers have to give up their farms to make way for a manufacturing plant, then as a supposed democratic republic which is aware of the concepts of justice and fairness, India must ensure that those farmers are given the best value for their land, and more importantly, are fully supported by the state to enable them to continue to earn their living.

However, ensuring justice and fairness takes time, and nobody in this country has the time to wait for it, not the politician representing the people of that land, not the bureaucrat administering that piece of land, and certainly not the businessman backed by a sea of investors who can smell the profit and want to get on with it as soon as possible. So in this case, the unfortunate farmer will have to be sidelined as has been happening for so many years now, be it in mining, manufacturing or urbanization.

Even then, it never remains this simple because even among the haves, which all these people mentioned above are, nobody wants to be left out. Thus even as a politician and a businessman shake their hands and think of the profits ahead, there will a politician and a businessman sitting on the sidelines who will be miffed at not being the politician and businessman shaking their hands. So considering that our national policy is 'everybody to themselves', the miffed players begin their own efforts to scuttle the deal. Now if this happens in an administrative structure that has completely lost the will or the ability or both to govern, then no holds are barred and no amount of money is too small.

Now after all this I try to write about the good things such as social reform, economic security, housing for all, healthcare for all, safety of society, education for our children, a part of me gives up completely at the pointlessness and hopelessness of it all. What leaves me wondering is how this society continues to evade itself from descending into anarchy, because ideally, if things continue the way they are, we should fall into that very soon. Anarchy does not have to mean all out fighting with weapons and gangs roaming the streets, but simply that everybody will believe that nobody is to be trusted, and that any administrative set-up is a farce. As is the case, a government can can't govern, a police force that can't police, a judiciary that can't deliver and a society with its priorities in all the wrong places.

So after writing all this, what do I want? I'm not even sure.

CONgressing on and on....

2011-10-01T17:55:00.000+05:30

It seems the strange games that the CONgress government is playing with the country is creating news in other parts of the world as well, with several high profile US based newspapers writing about the inexplicable incompetency and silence of the government and its Prime Minister on many issues. However, there is a general consensus building up towards the strong possibility that the stage is being set for the CONgress to install Rahul Gandhi as the Prime Minister, and he is expected to hold the boat steady, and then everything is expected to be just fine.

The game between P Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee seems to be over, with the two of them coming out together and Pranab da saying the letter that created so much flutter was not his view but just an inter-ministerial background paper. Well done Sonia Gandhi, you're handled your minions well.

In a show of unity, Pranab Mukherjee and P Chidambaram, both principals in a blockbuster political drama , appeared together to make a brief statement today on the infamous "2G note." Mr Mukherjee said that the document, attributed to his ministry, was in fact "an inter-ministerial background paper" and that it contains "certain interferences and interpretations" that he said do not reflect his view.

Mr Chidambaram then stepped forward to say, "I am happy with the statement read by my senior and distinguished colleague Mr Pranab Mukherjee. I accept the statement. As far as all of us in the government are concerned, the matter is closed."

The double-bill appearance was followed by Sonia Gandhi driving to the Prime Minister's house. They met for 30 minutes, reportedly to take stock of the truce that was declared in public by their ministers. It's unlikely to provide the government the respite that's needed.

By the way, this said note became public information after an RTI application! So one can add this as another great example of the positives of such an act.

The CBI has shown itself to be in complete control of the CONgress and its cronies, with the way it completely refused to entertain any sort of inquiry into the allegations against P Chidambaram. Subramaniam Swamy though says that its not over yet, and considering how this man is single-handedly shaming so many of the top political names in New Delhi, surely there is more to come.

On a side note, the grand daddy of scams who manages to make billions and yet not have a single finger pointed at him officially makes a statement at how the government will remain stable despite all the scams and allegations flying around.

But so much for him. Maybe his time will come too, who knows. But a lot of things have been going on, and a lot of action is expected in the next few days. Like mentioned before, the matter of ordering CBI inquiry against P Chidambaram is with the Supreme Court, and if they say its a go, then the Home Minister will have to resign.

It seems that the heat from all corners has now moved as high up as P Chidambaram, with this really revealing article by Ram Jethmalani in The Sunday Guardian on Chidambaram and the evil in the government itself. The good news is that for the first time, a member of the fraud Gandhi family has been named, and that is a very good thing.

Dr Subramanian Swamy has clearly stated in his website, "I now have further information from my usually reliable sources in the Union Government that the tapping of Finance Minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee and his close associate in the Ministry, enabled Mr. Robert Vadra the son-in-law of Ms. Sonia Gandhi and Mr. Karthik son of Mr. P. Chidambaram, to use the data thereby collected to manipulate and rig the Mumbai stock market. Earlier these data were directly provided by the then Finance Minister Mr. Chidambaram. I demand that the SEBI be asked by PM to initiate 'Insider Trading' investigation and prosecution of Mr. Vadra and Mr. Karthik."

The dark clouds of the 2G scam and the repeated evidence being given by A. Raja and other accused of his tacit involvement and other acts of omission and commission are menacingly closing in on Chidambaram. He is losing his cool, and more importantly, losing his carefully clipped English accent to its more indigenous roots more often. And like his colleague Digvijay Singh, his mind seems to be disintegrating to a stage where he has started talking gibberish. Take this, for example: in reply to the BJP demand for his resignation for his involvement in the 2G scam, Chidambaram claims that the BJP is targeting him since he initiated a probe by the NIA into Hindu terror.

While the airwaves are rife with all things related to the 2G scam (where is Nira Radia by the way?), the next "set" of scams are from under the ground. The mining scams are coming in from all over the place, starting from Karnataka which was the CONgress' big fightback against the BJP government there, and a chance for the CONgress to showcase that they aren't the only ones steeped in corruption.

Since then, scams have been unearthed in Goa and Orissa, with some newspapers reporting that the scam in Orissa could be as big as 3 lakh crores! Illegal mining is not new in the country, because for most businesses in the mining industry, apparently doing business while subverting the laws is extremely profitable and easy, and with the amount of money involved, its very easy to keep all the politicians, policemen and judges, etc humoured and keep their eyes closed.

In Goa, the current Chief Minister, Digambar Kamat, has been the mining minister for over a decade, so if there is any hint at how lucrative the ministry is that the top politician of the ruling party keeps the portfolio, this is a big hint. India Today says that the loot there is almost as big as the loot in Bellary.

Unfortunately, its an open secret in all aspects of human business that politicians have their paws in everything, and the politicians are the new businessmen in this country. They control the lawmakers, they control the resources, and they wield considerable power in the media.

India will pay dearly for the actions of the fraud Gandhi family and all the minions it controls, and its allies. Indian populace may not be too concerned when it comes to the economy, but the direct effect of what this evil government is doing to the country will begin biting each and all of us before we can say "Rahul Gandhi".

Strong women = strong societies

2011-09-27T12:14:00.000+05:30

There was a historic decision taken in the Arab world yesterday. For the first time in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, women were free to stand up and vote in elections! The fine print is that this comes into effect only in 2015, still 4 years away. According to the King.....

“Because we refuse to marginalise women in society in all roles that comply with sharia, we have decided, after deliberation with our senior ulama (clerics) and others... to involve women in the Shura Council as members, starting from the next term,” he said in a speech delivered to the advisory body.

Uh, yes, because the Arab society and the Saudi's in particular have been at the forefront of women's rights and freedom, they've taken this great epochial step towards granting them 'more' freedom. I'm wondering here what will the Saudi women do with all this freedom at their beck and call!

Of course, before I weer off into my rant against the Arab society, I thank the global media for providing me more details of this 'historic' decision by the King, taken in consultation with the topmost group of supreme Islamic scholars, and making sure that the tenets of Sharia are not at all harmed in allowing women political freedom. According to many, with the winds of change sweeping the Arab world, it was only a matter of time before the big daddy of the Arab world did something to fend off the criticism against its own society.

So before I start fretting at this unmitigated freedom that Saudi women have been given, I should remember that...

Women will also be able to join the Majlis ash-Shura, Saudi Arabia’s appointed consultative assembly, the king announced yesterday. However, they are still forbidden from driving; need written permission from a male guardian to travel, work or attend school; and will be excluded from elections due this week.

Though I often come down heavily on societies all over the world, and some societies in particular, but its true that change is the most difficult thing to come by, and I think by nature, most people resist change. Change means having to get out of one's comfort zone, change means having to do something new, or change is having to stop doing something, and I think as humans, most of us like being in a comfort zone where one is familiar with where everything is and how most things are done or which rules are to be followed.

When it comes to the Arab society, I think before the spring revolutions all across the Arab world, most of the change that was demanded in that society was not from within, but from the rest of the world, particularly the stalwarts of equality and human freedom and expression residing in North America and western Europe. Even then, the spring revolutions weren't really about social freedom, but more about economic conditions and political freedoms. This is evident from the fact that the first response in all the states was to raise salaries and announce hosts of public spending schemes to quell the discontent over unemployment, inflation and economic inequities, including in Saudi Arabia.

It should not be surprising that this latest announcement from this 'reformist' king will be taken with a barrel of salt by many Saudi watchers and particularly Saudi women. This is not the first time that the Saudi King has promised gender reforms, and they have always failed to pass through the super fundamentalist and by the book religious clerics that make all the rules in the kingdom. For example, Saudi Arabia goes for local municipal polls (only grassroots polls are allowed in monarchies for some reason, I suppose its too much work for the King to choose each and every civil servant) this week, and the common refrain is that the system is not prepared currently to allow for women and participate and stand. According to Nesrine Malik writing in the British paper Guardian,

In the last elections, in 2005, practical considerations and the difficulty of preparing for women to take part at short notice were the official reasons given for the postponement of the decision. Elections scheduled for 2009 did not go ahead.

Officials have had six years to get ready but when the advisory Shura council recommended to the king this month that the ban be lifted it was too late to do so this year. It would seem that separate polling stations for men and women remained a problem.

This is something often seen in the Kingdom with regards to women's rights: a promise and an expression of goodwill scuppered due to bureaucracy. There is no law prohibiting women from driving, for example, but an administrative vacuum makes it impossible to get a driving licence or register to drive. "We are not ready" is the refrain often heard from those in authority.

So its still 4 years away, to come back to the point at hand, and while the rest of the world seems to be obsessed with only the fact that Saudi women are not allowed to drive, its the least of worries for women in the Arab world. Its another discussion that is Islam really opposed to all the things that modern society prides itself on - equality of gender, freedom of speech and freedom of the individual? I don't know and I know that that is not true. Religion's always been convoluted to fit one's own ends, just like the evangelists in the United States and the Orthodox clergy in the Muslim world.

I am a strong proponent of the women's reservation bill in India as well, because as I have said before, it will only improve the system because I simply am not a fan at all of the crappy Indian society, and with money taking front seat everywhere, philosophical terms such as respect for the individual, respect for laws and respect for the land in general are all secondary. Its time our brute society had a mother's/daughter's/sister's/wife's touch, and I believe because of the inherent nature of women to care, I think our society would do well to get rid of some of its animalism that is prevalent in everything today.

I really wanted to pay a tribute to a great woman of Africa who died recently after battling cancer. Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai of Kenya passed away in Nairobi at the age of 71. The first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, the lady promoted everything that I believe in - sustainable development, environment, womens rights and raising her voice against a bad government, which I believe should be a staple in any democracy. Here is an interview of her published by the National Geographic magazine in 2008.

Africa has few things to celebrate today, and she was one of them. May the world continue to be inspired by her work and the third world rise on the pillars of environmental conservation, justice and equality, sustainable development and a defiance towards all the predatory forces that roam the world today preying on third world money and resources. Consumption is not the answer.

“You cannot protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform them, and you help them understand that these resources are their own, that they must protect them.”

Politics all over

2011-09-21T11:22:00.000+05:30

While India's political scene is always bubbling with some scandal, accusation, fist fight or apparently epochial expose, these days there seem to be a huge inferno raging in this political cauldron, with so many stories going on at once, and the common man, as usual, just watching the show at the sidelines.

I mean I don't even know where to start from. Okay, lets start with the man everybody loves to hate - Narendra Modi.

Actually, before that, I want to remember the victims of the earthquake that was centered around Sikkim and has devastated major parts of the state. At last check, the toll had risen to over 50 in the state alone. A good friend of mine here is from Sikkim, and he told me even his home in Gangtok had cracks in it, though the major devastation was in the northern part of the state. My best wishes to the Armed Forces and the paramilitary and state forces to effectively reach out to all the affected regions, and my prayers with all the affected people and families to help them rebound and my condolances to all those bereaved. This world's been having way too many natural disasters in the past few years, at least a lot more than I can remember seeing in the past, and I wonder if the Earth is finally starting to revolt.

Coming back to Narendra Modi, It seems to me that the stage is being set for him to enter national politics. As a Prime Minister, Narendra Modi will prick the conscience of every pseudo-secular traitor hugging politician and social activist, and while the CONgress and the psuedo-seculars will never allow the country to move in from the Gujarat riots, I can definitely feel that they are genuinely afraid of Modi.

I do not know what goes on the corridors of power - who talks to who, about what, and about who. So the news that there was a recent American report which praised Modi really took me by surprise, because this same country denied visa to Narendra Modi because of his bad religious freedom credentials (!). So Mr. Modi was denied a visa for his bad record on religious freedom, but the same people praise him for his effective governance. Once again, American double standards come to the fore. The BJP certainly used the report to project Modi as the next big thing on the national stage and the CONgress releasing a quick rebuttal.

But overlooking the other issues, it cannot be denied that under Modi, Gujarat has come up as the new economic driver of this country, leaving behind traditional industry powerhouses such as Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu far behind. In a country that has been set back many steps in the past few years of the UPeeA government, Gujarat has been doing splendidly well economically and I suppose American or no American, any capitalist would drool at the market and the potential. The American report also praised Nitish Kumar, and on this front, I am really glad that Mr. Kumar does not seem to have lost a lot of steam, because its very easy for politicians to give up and see their efforts fizzle out after a short while in power.

In my opinion, the new poverty leaders in India will be West Bengal (who would have thought that a region and people that have given this country so much should come to this), and Uttar Pradesh. Mamata Bannerjee had asked the Centre for a bailout package of Rs. 47,000 crore a few months ago because the state has absolutely no money left! The economy of West Bengal was not a communist economy, it was a CPI(M) economy, and good luck to that state, and UP to get themselves out of the morass. I was just thinking about this a few days ago, that this is a democracy, and no matter how crazy or ridiculous this nation is today, at the end of the day, it is possible for people to come out and vote out the incumbants. So I believe that the people of West Bengal voted for CPI(M), at least till the time the Commie bastards started voting themselves in by hijacking the voting process, and the people of UP have voted Mayawati in with her agenda of self-aggrandization and caste divisions, so they should be content right now, no matter what armchair analysts like me write.

Coming back to Narendra Modi, he had recently fasted for three days, named the event as Sadbhavna mission, which means compassion/harmony/understanding among religions (in this case). The three day fast was a media circus, because I think it was, at least in my eyes, the first time that Narendra Modi was doing something so brazenly and openly and which was being followed by the national media, and the Government of India chiming in with their ridiculous jibes and dismissals. On a sidenote, Mahatma Gandhi's real great grandson Tushar Gandhi, who had dismissed Anna Hazare's fast has dismissed Modi's fast as well, calling it self-publicity. While the fraud decendents of Gandhi rape the country, the real descendent is now only busy with one thing - others associate themselves with Gandhi, he disassociates them.

So a lot of people came to meet and greet Narendra Modi as he sat on his three day Sadbhavna mission, and they all presented him with turbans, shawls and all sorts of stuff. A Muslim cleric presented Modi a skull cap and a shawl, and Modi politely refused to wear the skull cap. NDTV and the Tabloid of India, faithful dogs of the CONgress party and the rest of the media, went to town highlighting how un-secular Modi still was. The cleric was on the television too, hurt had how Modi had hurt all Muslims by not wearing the skull cap. Such is the level of propaganda machinery that the CONgress rules over, and it just surprises me sometimes how people can't recognize such blatant propaganda machinery that the CONgress indulges in. Throughout this post, I haven't even mentioned that their local politician Shankar Singh Vaghela went on a counterstrike to ridicule Modi's strike!

When I talk to people of leadership, everybody bemoans the current government, and then tells me we have no choices. I tell them I am surprised that they think this country of over a billion people can't throw up a few credible people to form a government. Sure the CONgress and the fraud Gandhi's are blatantly ruling the roost and quite possibly setting up the stage for Rahul Gandhi to stand up as the next PM, but surely the people of India have now reached a stage when they say enough is enough. Modi is a man everybody loves to hate, and no matter what he does, how effective he may be or how active he gets on the national stage, Godhra will forever be brought up when the elections come. He was elected as the CM of the state again even after 2002, and I believe that while his detractors are most vocal, there seems to be a big silent mass of voters who will easily vote for him because of what they see happening in Gujarat now.

In the end, this country needs a leader with some spine and some scruples, because current leadership hasn't an iota of either. If Modi, despite all his flaws and right wing leanings and whatever, represents the leader to display those, then there will be huge chunk that will bring him in. Whether that happens, we shall see, but to me, that represents the most credible answer to the current onslaught against the country by the CONgress. The CONgress is certainly sitting up and taking note.

Indian economic musings

2011-09-14T12:26:00.000+05:30

1. I've made this point many times before that India has effectively wasted the past 5-6 years in terms of economic and social reforms, and most importantly, infrastructure. The United Progressive Alliance has been one of the worst governments ever to rule this country, and every passing day provides more examples of that.

First of all, the social agenda that this government tomtomed is a myth and an eyewash. I just want to make that clear because that is the selling point that brought these bad people, but excellent self-serving politicians to power at the center. In words that are very true, a fellow forumer at one of the forums I frequent wrote that the UPeeA's jihad agains the Indian economy continues unabated, after posting yet another failure on the policy front by the government.

Very recently, I had posted a news on how there has been no development in the ports sector in the country in the past one year with the ministry failing to award a single project! The report says that some of these projects are carryovers from the past, thus showcasing that with all the issues such as the Jan Lokpal Bill and this irritating bug called national security, the government has been just trying to play safe almost everywhere where they need to take a stand and actually behave like a government.

Recently, the Prime Minister said there's an international conspiracy to destabilise India's economic growth. What he failed to add was that 'his' incompetent and self-serving government was doing everything in their power to help the conspirers.

I've been in firm favour of the opinion that India needs at least a short term shock to wake itself out of this delusion that this country's economy is going gung-ho. People need to see the truth about how India is a land of bottlenecks and inequalities and inequities, and they need to see how the Government is only too quick to hide behind India's relatively good macroeconomic numbers, creating an impression that everything is fine.

2. Not a lot of people would follow this news but India and Iran were having issues in payments of Iranian oil, with US sanctions on Iran and it armtwisting Germany to stop Indian payments to Iran through a German Bank. The US armtwisted the Reserve Bank of India the same way to ban a regional clearing mechanism for the oil payments. There were a lot of issues involved, with Iran actually allowing India to buy oil on credit for a couple of billion dollars.

In fact, one big conspiracy theory, which I feel definitely has a lot of truth in it, is that one reason the US wants to clamp down on Iran is because that nation wants to sell oil bybassing the US Dollar as the global exchange currency. New York and London are two centers of global oil trade, and any effort by anybody to change this status quo has always been met with stiff resistance. Countries like Japan already trade in their currencies, but the Yen has always been used as an alternative currency and reserve currency by many nations. Now for the first time, the Rupee will be used in international trade, bypassing the US Dollar. For a developing country, and the fact that India is slowly turning to a major American stooge thanks to our Government, this is a big step that will undermine the USD's grip on the global oil trade.

According to a report in India’s The Telegraph newspaper, "Through this method, the path for India's national currency to enter the international currency market will be paved. India's Ministry of Finance has considered a method to resolve the tension over currency with Iran.

According to this proposal, oil buyers are allowed to open Letters of Credit in rupees and this Letter of Credit can be used by Iran to buy Indian products."

Under terms of the arrangement, Iran can buy Indian commodities including tea, rice, machinery, and engineering and technical services instead of using dollars, while Iran under terms of the arrangement can convert its surplus currency revenues from selling of oil to India into euros. Should Tehran endorse the arrangement it will mark the first time that the rupee will be utilized as an international currency beyond the dollar/euro zone.

This is good to see actually, because to the naked eye, either India did it out of sheer desperation and lack of any other option, or that it thought that it doesn't need to be cowed down by the US when it comes to such a thing as India's oil imports, which keep our economy running. I think its the first one - sheer lack of alternatives.

3. Lest I forget, a forumer posted an article by Branko Milanovic titled "Inequality and its discontents", obviously playing on the work by Joseph Stiglitz on globalization. Mr. Milanovic himself is a very accomplished economist and one of the leading voices on global poverty and inequality trends. Always good to read what he has to write on these issues which are the hallmark of today's unequal capitalist world.

A lot of us in India comment on the fact that the rich seem to be getting richer while the poor seem to remain poor. The truth is that it is a fact, and its a fact the world over.

From Tunisia to Egypt, from the United States to Great Britain, inequality is cited as a chief cause of revolution, economic disintegration, and unrest.

This feeling that the incomes of the rich and the poor have diverged in part reflects reality: between the 1980s and mid-2000s, income inequality rose significantly in countries as diverse as China, India, Russia, Sweden, and the United States. The Gini coefficient, a measure of economic inequality that runs from zero (everyone has the same income) to 100 (one person has the entire income of a country), has risen from around 35 to the low 40s in the United States, from 32 to 35 in India, from 30 to 37 in the United Kingdom, from less than 30 to 45 in both Russia and China, and from 22 to 29 in famously egalitarian Sweden. According to the OECD, during the same time frame, the Gini coefficient increased in 16 out of 20 rich countries. The situation was no different in the emerging market economies: in addition to in India and China, it rose in Indonesia, South Africa, and all the post-Communist countries.

The economist does mention how India's rich do not report a part of their income and thus their share in the pie does not reflect their actual share, while the poor's even marginal growth tends to get magnified.

India has become something of a cause célèbre of this problem. Since the country’s economic reform in the early 1990s, its GDP per capita has risen by an average of almost five percent per year. But per capita consumption, as calculated from household surveys, grew only slightly, at one percent per year. Some of the discrepancy is due to the declining share of personal consumption in India’s GDP, but some is thought to have been caused by the low “capture” of the incomes of the rich. In other words, the mean income rose because the rich got richer but did not report it, while the poor and the middle class earned only moderately more income, which was well reported in the surveys, and did not consume significantly more.

Feelings of injustice are driven by domestic factors. When combined with corruption and persistently high unemployment, inequality is transmuted into inequity in people’s minds.

But the perception of today's world by its people is summed up by the fact that we, as individuals in this society driven by consumption and shows of wealth, are driven by the exact same things, and want to know what the rich are doing, not what the poor are doing. The ability of the media to reach anywhere and everywhere just magnifies the glitter of the lifestyle of the rich and famous, thus driving many of those who do not have those things into lives of crime, prostitution and plain old thieving.

Today’s economic ethos is magnified by a media that focuses only on lifestyles at the top -- those of the richest, the most beautiful, the most successful. Of course, the media does not choose its stories arbitrarily; it is driven by public preferences as much as it shapes them. And people want to know about the top.

And the politicians hearts cry out again....

2011-09-10T13:56:00.000+05:30

after another blast rips through the Delhi High Court, killing almost a dozen, injuring many others, and the politicians get into the crocodile tears act, with visits to the hospital and statements about condemning terrorism and how they will not bow down to terrorists.

The fact is that the people of this country should have started calling out the incompetence and unaccountability of this putrid government many years ago, but then there are very few things that actually seem to stir our numb society into any sort of action. That's why I praised Anna Hazare because keeping everything else aside, he stirred a lot of people into opening their eyes and realizing their government's absolutely the worst ever this country probably ever voted in.

Yes, the Delhi blasts have failed to register in the national psyche once again, nobody around me has even mentioned it, talked about it, or expressed any anger or any other emotion regarding it. Sometimes I wonder why terrorists even bother trying to blast our society, just like an ant farm, you crush a few and the rest continue doing their job. So if there's any sort of shock that terrorists hope to create, perhaps our society is too numb to feel it? But then again, if the terrorists happen to be, or be supported by, pathological India haters that the Pakistanis are, then I suppose they're just living their lives i.e. hating India and trying to hurt it because that country's society has nothing else to fill its national psyche.

The Pakistani regime must feel a change is in the air though, definitely. In the past, it has been very easy for Indian politicians to simply hint at foreign forces or Pakistani hand in terror blasts and attacks in the country and the rest of the country would take it for what its worth and get on, but now apparently the people seem to have started calling out the Politician's bluff because while it is true that some people will always try to hurt India no matter what, it is upto us to protect ourselves, and this country's leadership has been very, very incompetent in that regard. Our body, no matter how strong it may be or has the potential of becoming, will be upto nothing if the head is incapable.

There was a lot of direct anger and sarcasm on facebook over the comments and visits of the bloody netas of the ruling government, including how Rahul Gandhi got booed at the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. Its very good that the people are catching up to the perfidy of the CONgress elite. Over the past few weeks, there was another joke that the ruling government played on its people - all the ministers declared their wealth. Apparently Kamal Nath is the richest politician with Rs. 300 crore worth of assets, leaving behind by a mile the other honest politicians of the Queen's cabinet, including the Maratha son of the soil Sharad Pawar, who has 12 crore in assets. I am surprised an honest man such as he even has 12 crores! Considering all his wealth is stashed away in Switzerland and tax havens and in the name of his family, its very honest of him to declare such a large amount as 12 crore. Hats off to this honest politician.

Anyways, the latest news is that the Queen is back to rule over her subjects, and they can definitely use her leadership to guide the propaganda machinery back in their favour. A lot of conspiracy theories are reporting, or I feel wishing, that she was abroad also to take care of their massive wealth, as there might be signs that there was a showdown looming where all this wealth would become public knowledge. I too wish that that were the case, but politicians have a tentacle like grip on every system in the country, and its very unlikely that there ever will be a day which will see all this stolen wealth ever returned. I think its all sunk.

I am not quite sure whether I should consider that the issue of shameless corruption and blatant inaction on national security are related, but somehow my gut feeling tells me that they are related, I really don't know why. The point is that in the past few years, I have seen our country become more and more accepting of terrorism and deaths of our citizens, and that is a very dangerous sign. Like I said, the bomb blasts in Delhi hardly created a ripple in Mumbai and anywhere in the country, and thats a very very sad state of affairs. When this society is unable to stand together to fight a common enemy, I suppose the government will not have the pressure to do anything, and the enemy will obviously have a field day killing.

2011-08-29T13:52:00.000+05:30

These past few days have been marked by an absolute disinterest in me to write about anything, especially about the topics that I particularly relish in ranting about, such as politics, global affairs and economic relations. As much as I would like to separate my blog from my personal life, I suppose my personal life has been so emotionally taxing lately that I have to force myself to think about anything else, more so about my blog, and eventually my personal thoughts spill into my blog.

Its been raining incessantly in Mumbai for the past two days, and they being the weekend, i've been at home, unable to do much. Fortunately, I did make them worthwhile by visiting Haji Ali Dargah, Siddhivinayak Temple and attend a Bharatnatyam performance at NCPA Jamshed Babha Theatre. Being fully clothed and being wet is not a nice feeling most of the time, and that was the case for me this weekend.

When I am not writing and slaving through my days, I look around me and start taking mental notes of the things I plan to write in my next post, and then when the time to write comes, I forget most of the good points I had thought of in my head earlier. I believe a lot of writers solve this problem by always keeping some sort of a recorder handy so they can record their thoughts clearly. Some write them down, which I have tried too, but I end up jotting my thoughts down as bullet points, and when I look at them again, I am unable to expand them in the same way as I had thought of them earlier. I wish i'd take my writing more seriously.

There were two things I wanted to write about mainly, or rather, had identified as two issues I would write about in my next blog. Once was the fact that Moammar Gaddafi has run away from Libya because he's been run over by the Libyan rebels. Yes, his fight is finally over as Libyans take a look at the former dictator's spectacular wealth. The rebels are very much there, and I am very surprised by the inconspicuous absence of any central leadership among the rebels. Or is it just my lack of awareness? Yes, its just me and my ignorance, because there is a transition government in place in Libya which is holding parlays with Gaddafi's loyal team as he tries to negotiate for some transitional government with his family involved.

Ah yes, I was way too ignorant on this issue. The Libyan Interim National Council was formed in February/March 2011 to represent the unified face of the Libyan revolution against Moammar Gaddafi. This Council, readily recognized by the developed nations fighting under NATO and many others, is actually not looked at favourably by the African Union, who say that the next Libyan government should be representative of all people, including the supporters of Gaddafi. Things get mixed up more because the Arab League, of which Libya is a member as well, recognizes the Council. I sincerely hope that whatever in store for Libya does not become a puppet of the Americans and its allies, and we find out later that the big oil majors are moving into Libya to suck out the oil for themselves. That would be just sad.

The other issue is of Anna Hazare, who, has I just found out since I haven't been following the news at all lately, broke his fast on today, Sunday. A majority of the discussion among the armchair politicians has been the utter disarray that the CONgress party displayed over the past few weeks, most notably after the absence of Sonia Gandhi who is somewhere in the United States recuperating after a major surgery. Such a lack of leadership and coherence within the CONgress only proves what many believe already - its a hollow party only held together by the fraud Gandhi family.

Somebody raised a very relevant comment on a forum - this CONgress led government, and particularly the Gandhi family, has always believed that they do not need to explain themselves to the people and the country. That opacity and arrogance was severely shattered by Anna Hazare, and the way the people joined him, I do not doubt for one second that a lot of their anger was also directed at this government's attitude towards governance and the people.

The media has gone to town in support of Anna Hazare, of course, not without a few low blows against Hazare and also Ramdev and an effort to communalize the issue, but considering that the majority of the country's population seemed to be on the side of Hazare, the media thought it best to be on Mr. Hazare's side as well, notwithstanding the CONgress's extremely effective and powerful propaganda machinery, which enlists such media leaders as the Tabloid of India and NDTV. Amazingly, the media has picked up Anna supporters from all across the country, including a Sikkim farmer losing over 10 kilos after fasting in Hazare's support, people from Udupi, Assam, Manipur, Kashmir, Orissa, you name it, and the support was there!

Foreign news sources say its the rise of the Indian middle class as a political entity, and the BJP thinks so too. According to a journalist writing in Reuters, and sourced from The China Post, Taiwan, very basic explanations of whats been going on....

Hazare has tapped a groundswell of public anger against endemic corruption, uniting the country's bulging middle-class against a hapless political class and underlining voter anger at Singh and the ruling Congress party.

Tens of thousands of mostly urban and wired voters across India celebrated the achievement of an unprecedented movement that may usher in a new force in Indian politics and damage the ruling Congress party in crucial state elections next year.

While protests in India are not uncommon, the sight of many well-off young professionals using Twitter and Facebook taking to the streets of Asia's third-largest economy suggest an awakening of a previously politically-ambivalent middle-class.

Mukherjee announced parliament's support for Hazare's demands after over nine hours of fervent debate in both chambers of parliament that highlighted just how much the activist's campaign had rocked India's political establishment.

Deep-seated change has been underway for years in India as its once-statist economy globalises, bolstered by a widely used freedom of information act, aggressive private media and the election of state politicians who have rejected traditional caste-support bases to win on governance issues. After a botched arrest as part of a hardline approach to Hazare, a government U-turn saw ministers praise the activist, suggesting a leadership deficit in Congress without party head Sonia Gandhi, who is recovering after surgery for an undisclosed condition.

So the focus of a large part of the media has been on how this "revolution", though I don't believe that its been anything of that sort, is led by the more affluent, modern, tech savvy middle class. So with Sonia Gandhi missing and the rest of her party running around like a headless chicken and the Prime Minister still claiming innocence and Rahul Gandhi merely acting as an interjection here and there, a popular media exercise has been the critique of the Government (well, that has been on for a while now), but more so of the CONgress party.

Once influential magazine India Today does a cover on the party with the title "Gone With The Wind." The first point that was obvious to anybody watching the show was the flipflop by the Government. From terming Anna Hazare and his team as anti-national to terming them great patriots, politicians from the ruling party have called him everything. This article is a good read in the sense that its a very comprehensive look at the way ministers and other party leaders were acting as islands in their statements and actions. Rahul Gandhi, it says, has done his best to distance himself from his mother's government which is facing the flak.

The Congress had projected the trinity of Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh as its leadership in the general elections of 2009. That leadership was given an impressive mandate by the people of India, the best for the Congress in two decades. Two years on, all the goodwill and hope has disappeared only to be replaced by public anger at what is perceived as a Government without credibility. Yet, none of the three top leaders is speaking to the people of India, ceding the mainstream discourse almost completely to Team Anna.

The article makes a good point - the UPA rode to power projecting three strong leaders - Dr. Singh, Mrs. Gandhi, and Master Gandhi, and all three of them have been the quietest in facing the ire of the nation. The next few days will be important because this is when the euphoria of the actual fast itself should be replaced by the hard work of bringing together a worthy bill that all sides fought for. That work can't be done by the flag waving crowds across the country, but has to be done by learned men and women who will sit behind closed doors hammering out something not as toothless as the Government's earlier version and perhaps without some of the points included in the Jan Lokpal Bill. It will do our entire society more good if we take some time out and perform the intellectual activity of actually reading the bill or at least trying to find out what the bill actually is. While the middle class and the youth seem to have shown some sparks of political activism, no doubt, it'll do the country more good if they take it to the next level by being more politically aware and not simply retreating into their lives after this battle's won.

2011-08-20T16:18:00.000+05:30

For all the gargantuan propaganda machinery and control over the media that the CONgress possesses, I am sure they must be wondering where they lost control of the situation with Mr. Hazare.

Like in every other situation, blaming the messenger is the surest way of derailing an accusation and guiding the spotlight away from the actual issue, so Mr. Sibal raised the questions of where Mr. Hazare and his team are getting the money to travel around the country and hold the various protests and other meetings. Then some other supporters came out and disclosed how Dr. Kiran Bedi's organization has been receiving crores of funds from somewhere, and similar accusations and insinuations keep coming in.

But then trust a politician to be the quickest to realize which direction the wind is blowing. For all their accusations upon Mr. Hazare, Mr. Kejriwal and others who they had arrested, once they realized the media (their beloved media so firmly under their control) was actually hinting that the people were swinging in Hazare's favour, they set him free at once with an unconditional permission that he was free to do whatever he liked.

I read a very interesting point made the other day - first the government invites the people to comment on the Lokpal Bill, Mr. Hazare's Civil Society takes the lead and in fact goes further, then the government squabbles with him for bringing those changes, and now as Mr. Hazare digs his feet in, the government's left in a position of reduced maneuvuering in about everything, now that they are the known bad guys around the country.

When I refer to Mr. Hazare, I want to make it clear that I include all the members of the team that he is a part of, including my friend Manu who has been working behind the scenes this whole time. A big section of the media hails him as the new Gandhi, much to the chagrin of the current generation decendent of Gandhi ji (not the fraud Gandhi's who rule the roost at the centre).

The fact is that every uprising, protest or revolution needs a face, and Anna Hazare now happens to be that face. Now it can be that that face is just a face to show, or a face that actually leads as well, and in many ways, Mr. Hazare is both of these, because I know that a leading fighter in this camp has been Arvind Kejriwal who has all the experience and capabilities to be the brain behind the planning and strategy. In addition, Dr. Kiran Bedi's experience in dealing with politicians and with the population is a huge asset. Swami Agnivesh has also been an instrumental figure in the campaign, though his image isn't as visible as the others. But my point is that the people need a rallying point, and Mr. Hazare has become that point because of his age, his Gandhian dressing and the fact that he belongs to rural India. So more power to him and those that question his actions or the fact that he shouldn't be blown up into such a big deal, the fact is that there needs to be a face, and he is one because I feel that our society in general, I included, are very weak to rise on our own, hence our tolerence for injustice.

Of course, the big question that even the government has raised is how is the Civil Society a representative of the entire population, and who made it such. Again, I would raise my point that those who are most vocal are heard, and fortunately, there was some group of individuals who were loud enough to be heard, and the good news is that now Civil Society has a huge support from the common populace behind it.

While I am writing about the Lokpal Bill, I, perhaps like many others who have written about it, have not read it, and do not know the differences between the bill the government proposes to pass and the one that is being pushed by team Hazare. I have been reading conflicting reports on who supports what, because the BJP too is apparently not in favour of the bill that is being pushed by Civil Society but a few days later, Varun Gandhi says he will introduce the Civil Society's version of the bill in the Parliament.

Of course, every party (other than the CONgress that is) wants to cash in on the Anna Hazare phenomenon by supporting it with big words and even some action. Perhaps to the naked eye is a good thing that Anna Hazare and his team have not really accepted support from any political party, and this is good strategic thinking because even though they could have gladly accepted the BJP's support, the CONgress would have at once pounced on this opportunity and painted it as a far Right anti-secular conspiracy, similar to how they discredited Baba Ramdev. Not that the CONgressi's haven't done so already. Ah, and the foreign hand card!

From what I gather from the news around, the good news is that the media is still paying attention and that the people are still supporting the movement, and the CONgress is still looking at how to get back on the driving seat again. One possible way forward for the Government is to get one of India's most corrupt politicians to solve the crisis. It'll be a great way to go for the party, I must say, because its time Sharad Pawar was questioned for his greed too. After being shown the door from the Parliamentary Committee on corruption, when he tried to show that he had quit on his own, he has been keeping a low profile in this whole episode.

Perhaps this country is waiting for the Sonia and Rahul to come in and sooth the frail nerves of this country and everything will be right again. Yes, I think the stage is being set for that.

Banana Republic

2011-08-16T12:39:00.003+05:30

India is supposed to be a big and powerful country, with a strong government and political and diplomatic relations that reach into every corner of the world. There are numerous countries that look up to India in terms of aid, guidance and support, and there are numerous groups and organizations that India is a part of where it makes it voice heard.

So when the government of this same country squabbles with a group of seemingly harmless men and women, a minuscule entity when compared to the collective might of the government of India, it shows that this same government is incapable of behaving like the government of a nation that is supposed to be big and increasingly powerful, and that the politicians who form a part of this government demonstrate a very petty, selfish and short-term behaviour that shows that this big country is increasingly functioning like a banana republic.

Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi, Swami Agnivesh, Baba Ramdev and many others are doing what they have to, and no doubt they seem to have attained a critical mass of support behind them that is openly questioning the motives and action of this sad sad government, but to watch the Government of India, that mighty Government of India, led by the CONgress party to fret, shout, parlay, browbeat this group of people, threaten them with consequences, dig out laws to disallow them to assemble and then arrest them for breaking those laws shows that the CONgress party and its government seem to be losing control of this great game.

Either that or the CONgress's plan is running so perfectly that everybody is fooled into believing that the CONgress party is cornered when in fact they are pulling the strings of this entire operation.

Watching Kapil Sibal talk to the press about Anna Hazare and accusing him and his team of all sorts of tricks and treacheries with that Government of India logo behind him was the first time I realized how petty this whole show had become, when this man, supposedly representing the Government of India, is attacking a 74 year old man and his group like a perfect tabloid story. While it is tragicomic to watch this 'fight' between what increasingly seems to me the Government of India versus the people of India, its amusing to watch all these CONgress netas come on television with all sorts of statements and reasons about what is going on. Surely there must be something brewing which the CONgress has no control over when the Prime Minister of India when addressing this country from the Red Fort on the 65th Independence Day spends so much time talking about corruption and how people like Hazare should use the legal and democratic processes to have their grievances heard! On another note, nobody seems to take the PM seriously anymore. Shammi Kapoor died (may he rest in peace) and a tabloid Hindi news channel said that upon his death, a number of notable personalities such as Manmohan Singh and Amitabh Bachchan expressed their grievance! A notable personality? Ha ha, I would think the office of the Prime Minister of India would be much much more than that, but then we're fast turning into a banana republic as I said.

One CONgress spokesman said that what Gandhi (the real Gandhi, not the frauds today) did was against the colonial occupiers when he got the masses behind him in civil disobedience and the movement of non-violence. To do the same today against a "democratically" elected government of the people is wrong and should be punished. It really amuses me at how the word 'democracy' is used so efficiently by politicians to justify their actions and shenanigans. It is exactly like how everything in China is for and by the people, such as the People's Republic of China itself, even when its people can't think for themselves anymore.

Anna Hazare, Mr. Kejriwal and the rest were barred by the Government of India to protest, and the Delhi Police, obviously under the directions of the Government of India, said they couldn't have more than 5,000 people at the protest even if they were allowed to have it. Last week, there was a big political rally in New Delhi by the Youth CONgress, where over a lakh "young" CONgressi's attended. Anna Hazare and his team went to J.P Park in New Delhi to fast in quite a symbolic way, considering it was J.P Narayan who had unseated Indira Gandhi as the Prime Minister of India.

Of course, killing the messenger is a very effective way of killing any dissent, as the CONgress abley demonstrated against Baba Ramdev and Balkishan ji. By attacking the background of Ramdev, the CONgress basically killed the point he raised, that the Government needs to be more open on what its doing about bringing the black money from abroad home, and basically being more open on who owns most of it. I suppose it would be a very educated guess on any body's part that most of the black money outside India can only belong to people who are in a position to earn it and stash it, and this would include the big businessmen of India hiding their untaxed wealth, and of course the politicians who run this country and have their paws wherever money is involved. I think it was in the era of Rajiv Gandhi that this shift started when politicians started keeping huge chunks of money for themselves, as opposed to keeping it for the party.

So if somebody says that Sonia Gandhi's family in Italy is a billionaire family now, you know that it is not because they hit upon a billion dollar business idea. But the CONgress says that nobody has a right to question it because they are capable of digging the dirt on anybody who raises a voice. Of course, the Nehru family is only one of the many, many beneficiaries of Government policies over the decades, so I think if skeletons indeed tumbled out of the cupboard, they'd be so many that they'd drown us all. And of course, coming back to this pesky issue of corruption, the Prime Minister, yes, he's still around, promises us the strictest action against graft! Ha ha ha, this truly is turning into a banana republic where ridiculousness rules the roost. Its like a mad world that Asterix had to face as one of his twelve tasks - a world where nobody is answerable, the answers remain hidden and if you go seeking for answers, you will run in a loop forever.

I really don't want to say anything about what I expect to happen in the next few days because I, like the rest of us, have absolutely no idea of what is brewing in the backgrounds and the parlays between all the stakeholders involved. I do hope though, that there is some semblance of law and order, and more importantly, a sense of justice, instilled in the psyche of this country again.

North Atlantic medley

2011-08-08T15:39:00.002+05:30

There is no central theme to what I am going to write and what I want to write today about whats going on the economies of the United States and the European Union, except this: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

Now that the Standard & Poor's Company has downgraded the sovereign ratings of its home nation, the United States, to AA+ from the best possible rating of AAA, I can't help but ask this question - who guards against the guardians? Considering that these same rating agencies recklessly awarded the highest ratings to a lot of junk securities that hurt the global economy in 2008, I, as a novice in international economics and politics, want to ask how does one company (or a cabal of similar companies), have so much power in affecting the financial markets of so many sovereign nations around the world, based simply on their opinion?

Obviously, once everybody realized even the big ol USofA is not above scrutiny, all fell back on the rhetorical question asked around the world - these same people gave a AAA ratings to all those junk bonds 3 years ago right? However, at the same time, one can probably look at these agencies as just the messenger. The fact that the US and the European economies are hurting was known to all, and perhaps this rating downgrade, though it shouldn't really affect the US in the near term because there really is no other alternative to US gilts even after the downgrade, will probably bring a sense of urgency to their process of clearing up the mess, and hopefully get on some very fundamental and real reconstruction of their economies.

On a sidenote, Indian media firms can't get enough of the fact that a person of Indian origin, Deven Sharma, is the President of Standard & Poor's. But its just an aberration because most Indian readers who read the Tabloid of India or biased Congress mouthpieces like NDTV really don't care about the actual story to read into every nitty gritty of how the global economies work and the sideshows make up for juicier stories.

I suppose the 'slugfest' between governments and ratings agencies will get bigger now, considering they have dared to downgrade the global cop, with many smaller nations, developed and developing, joining in with the "that's what i've been saying!" pitch. At the same time, I really can't understand what economic mindset does the American government work in at all when their constitution actually states that the US debt will not be questioned!

Coming back to whats going on, Joseph Stiglitz continues to rip apart the western capitalist system, writing that the leaders on both sides of the Atlantic are still making huge economic blunders.

A busted bubble led to a massive Keynesian stimulus that averted a much deeper recession but that also fueled substantial budget deficits. The response—massive spending cuts—ensures that unacceptably high levels of unemployment (a vast waste of resources and an oversupply of suffering) will continue, possibly for years.

The resulting austerity will hinder Europe's growth and thus that of its most distressed economies. After all, nothing would help Greece more than robust growth in its trading partners. And low growth will hurt tax revenues, undermining the proclaimed goal of fiscal consolidation.

The European Central Bank's vehement opposition to what is essential to all capitalist economies—the restructuring of failed or insolvent entities' debt—is evidence of the continuing fragility of the Western banking system.

The ECB argued that taxpayers should pick up the entire tab for Greece's bad sovereign debt, for fear that any private-sector involvement would trigger a "credit event," which would force large payouts on credit-default swaps, possibly fueling further financial turmoil. But if that is a real fear for the ECB—if it is not merely acting on behalf of private lenders—surely it should have demanded that the banks have more capital.

And matters are little better on the other side of the Atlantic. There, the extreme right threatened to shut down the U.S. government, confirming what game theory suggests: When those who are irrationally committed to destruction if they don't get their way confront rational individuals, the former prevail.

As a result, President Barack Obama acquiesced in an unbalanced debt-reduction strategy, with no tax increases—not even for the millionaires who have done so well during the last two decades, and not even by eliminating tax giveaways to oil companies, which undermine economic efficiency and contribute to environmental degradation.

This point on prolonged high unemployment rates in these affected developed nations has been raised many times, and considering that their new aim is austerity and budget cuts, the dole to be shared with the unemployed in these nations will substantially reduce. Added to that is this adjustment to reduce excess capacities and consumption.

It is true that to stem the falling heart rates of these developed economies, a big booster is needed in the form of economic stimulus, but that has been tried before, and that only resulted in all these nations balooning their government debt. So I suppose more money can be thrown, but where will this money come from? There was talks of the US printing more money, so that will have its own consequences such as devaluing of that currency and a host of currencies around the world, and not to mention the trillions of dollars in their treasuries.

Coming back to the ratings game, I heard a good comment about what the ratings mean. That person said that these ratings are a symptom, and not a problem. Should the US and the rest of the world get too busy in providing a befitting reply to these ratings agencies, they will have lost sight of the fact that the developed economies, used to living on debt and gratuitous consumption, do need genuine reforms. Perhaps some people are smacking their lips that the US is not AAA anymore, but then what else? Absolutely nothing. The way the global economy is now entwined into the American economy, unfortunately, we will continue to share the repercussions of its mess.

Of course, as I wrote before, one big reason many people may be smiling with a bit of evil is how the mighty seem to have fallen after lecturing the world on how their economies should be run. Ha ha, as one European said, now not much difference between the "old Europe" and the US!

Back in India, the RBI has been doing its bit to increase rates in an economy where inflation is purely due to supply side constraints, but I am sure they must have put some good thought in believing that higher interest rates will somehow make vegetables and grains cheaper for the poor family which has never taken a loan in their combined lives but barely gets by.

So as much as I am critical of the way the global economy has been run by the nations facing the crisis today, I am scared at the repercussions India will face as it forces itself down on the very same path. The economic austerity and firm state oversight on the economy should stand even stronger today, but unfortunately, just when they are needed the most, the UPeeA government led by the very very selfish and self-serving people in the CONgress party, seems bent on totally toeing the neo-liberal line that the US had so far been espousing to the rest of the world.

As for Europe and the US, well, till they start making genuine changes to their lifestyle based around gratuitous consumption of resources, they will realize that it will impossible for the rest of the world and mother nature to fund it anymore. As a cousin said, if things have to go down, if institutions have to be sacrificed, let them go. Everybody knew that the socializing of private debt (the massive debts taken on by the governments), and the added fiscal stimulus would eventually return with a vengeance, and apparently, they have returned way sooner than everybody anticipated.

Crime against women - Round up

2011-08-03T15:00:00.000+05:30

I was really angry this morning (its about a girl), and after I got to work and was reading up on all the online news headlines, I came across a news item which made me even angrier. Somewhere in Madurai, a father-in-law burnt his daughter-in-law alive because he was not in favour of his son marrying her. So one day when the son was out, the swine father-in-law snuck in, beat her up with an iron rod and set fire to her. Her little child was burnt too and is battling for her life in a hospital.

Now when this happens, what punishment can this man, nay, virus, be given but that which completely wipes him out from the face of this planet? Can such people be shown any mercy? Unfortunately, the history of humankind is replete with millions of such in'human' acts, most of which go unreported. Crime against the weaker sections of society, especially such gruesome crimes which involve grievous physical harm happen every day, unfortunately, is the universal truth of human society. Earlier it was war, now you can add exploitation to it.

History is replete with great examples of the gravest injustices and crimes committed against women and children, and for all our modernity today, they continue unabated, whether it be human trafficking in India and rest of the world, rape of women in war-torn African regions, or stoning of women for being women in sick societies such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, and some Arab and Islamic nations. I was just telling somebody this the other day, and I will write it here though I know I am probably repeating myself - a society that can't take care of its women and children has no right to progress, and will not progress. Sick, perverted people are everywhere, but as a modern society, if we can protect a vast majority of our women and children and also the aged, I think we will have done acceptably well for ourselves.

But it is far from the truth because while such news will be reported regularly because it will be impossible to restrain every father, mother, brother, sister, in-law or uncle or aunt or whatever from turning into an animal, what is most appalling in this country is the absolute lack of fear of the consequences, and that is where our society absolutely fails in its ability to create any repercussions - social or economic or criminal - for such acts committed daily in every corner of the country. In fact, in the same newspaper, another news was about a raid on a drug rehabilitation center that ran outside the city of Bangalore in a farm, but the state of the inmates there was worse than the animals that were kept there once. The inmates were humiliated and lived in appalling conditions, and without the presence of any doctors, counsellors or any other trained help at the site. In fact, this is the not the first time I have come across news of exploitation at rehabilitation and other centers such as orphanages, destitute centers and centers for women. I have heard of harrowing stories of children and women being sexually exploited at such such centers by politicians and policemen and I can never erase what I heard that day from my mind.

Browsing through the online news, I realized that today's tabloid media thrives on such news. These "human interest" stories are what keep the general, slowly dumbing down population interested. Other news items reported illustrating our barbarian society's attitude include 2 youth in Lucknow setting fire to a girl who resisted their rape attempt (if the girl is dalit, the crime becomes heinous, but otherwise it'll probably go unreported by the Indian media), a man help for raping his step-daughter and two youth in Nagpur found guilty of raping and killing a 4 year old girl.

Lets bring in all the robots, all the fast cars and jet planes, all the television sets with HD, but a human being's mentality will not change ever.

Syrian connection

2011-08-01T17:07:00.001+05:30

My buddy and his girl were down here for the weekend, taking a detour actually in their week long stay in India. Instead of staying in and around Delhi all the time, they planned a few days in Mumbai so we could hang out, and it was great fun to have them over.

Even though it didn't stop raining the entire time they were here, I was still very keen to take them to the Elephanta caves, as much for the ferry ride as for the caves. On the ferry ride towards Elephanta island and the caves, we met a gentleman who happened to be a professor at Georgetown University in Washington DC, United States. Realizing that he had some things in common with us, he chatted with us about the places to visit and things to do in Mumbai in one day. I helped him the best I could, considering my own knowledge of Mumbai is too elementary in my own opinion, but eventually our conversation moved onto global issues. I think it started with a comment on how differently China and India are going about this whole development scenario, with China being able to boast of shiny new infrastructure, but as we both agreed, with a totally dumbed down citizenary. A thought that had just struck me as I talked to him was that the Chinese people could not talk about the issues any person in a free society could talk about not because freedom of speech was clamped upon, but they simply couldn't.

As we talked about the politics in the United States and politics in India, we realized that the Chinese people simply don't know how to talk about politics because they've never done it for the past many decades because at least in my opinion, and even if it sounds sinister, they have for decades been systematically made to think of the state as the ultimate (just like North Korea) and the party as the only truth. Basically a society is created where doubting the party, which is only working towards making China a great nation, is doubting China, and doubting China is next to treason!

Eventually he mentioned he is originally from Syria (I had guessed Isreal) and I started talking to him about the current affairs in the Middle East region. The talk shifted to the Middle East when we talked about how China supported all the bad regimes in the world to prop itself up in that country, including a host of little states in Asia such as the Pakistan military, the Burmese Junta, and now even Bangladesh. He said that the most unfortunate part is that the world's oldest democracy has been doing it in Syria for all this while, constantly propping up the regime of Basher al-Assad, which continues to fight against its people.

The reason I wanted to write about this episode and more about whats going on in Syria is because this morning, one of the first headlines that came on was that the Syrian Army had massacred 100 anti-government civilians in the city of Hama that Assad's forces were trying to reclaim from the protestors. Various news sources put this figure between 80 to 140.

"Unlike" in Egypt, where the Army did not support Mobarak and instead chose to remain neutral and did not attack the civilians, the forces in Syria have been used brutally and extensively to fight against the Syrian people. The same was seen in Bahrain as well. The only difference between Egypt and Syria in this matter is that the Syrian Army is firmly under the command and control of Basher al-Assad.

Like others before him in Egypt, Yemen and elsewhere, the Assad family has been trying to make parlays with the protestors, allowing more democratic activities such as forming political parties that will compete with Assad's Baath party, but when the country is baying for their dictator to step down, such "reforms" look like a handful of sand trying to put out a bushfire. According to the news item from The New York Times....

Mr. Assad’s arrival in power in 2000 was met with broad popular expectations of reform. He carried out some steps to overhaul the economy, but retained at least the framework of the authoritarian state built by his father, who had ruled Syria for three decades. There was another burst of optimism in 2005, when intellectuals and activists tried, unsuccessfully, to organize in Damascus and elsewhere.

Rights activists said that at least 1,600 people have been killed since the demonstrations started and that hundreds of protesters are in jail, most without being charged.

Mr. Assad’s other steps, described by the government as concessions since the uprising began, included issuing several pardons, lifting the decades-old emergency rule and granting thousands of Kurds, a minority group, Syrian nationality.

What did the Syrians want from Assad? They wanted reforms, change and personal freedom, and it seems to me that like most dictators, he thought he could simply crush the grumbling population with force. But then, as we all repeat that cliche, "power corrupts...". No dictator would want to give up any power, unless absolutely forced to do so. Of course, we know from history that most of the times, when dictators are forced to give up power, they are basically made to give up everything. Unless of course they are supposed by the United States or other powers in Europe and elsewhere.

Very predictably, Assad also raises the bogey of Islamic fundamentalism, that the people who want to topple his regime are fundamentalists, obviously directed at the US and the rest of the white world. So when his offerings of peace do not work, Assad falls back to the shock and awe tactic that his father used a long time ago on the same city. Its quite a co-incidence that Libya has a city too that has historically been against the country's dictator and Gaddafi has been trying to run that place down.

Coming back to the Professor, I told him that considering its been so many months and these fires are still raging in the region, perhaps the movement for more freedom and some demo'crazy has gained some critical mass. While the Europeans are not allowing Gaddafi to bomb his own people any more, Assad still has no international intervention, at least on the ground, with governments and the United Nations only still condemning the actions of the dictator.

I do hope a clearer picture emerges in the Middle East, and these regions do get to witness greater political and personal power in the hands of the people, and hopefully, hopefully, without any of these enforcers of democracy butting in and setting up a puppet democratic government there. In the long term, well, i'll see what happens in the ME as the oil starts to run out.

Shut up and let money talk

2011-07-27T12:02:00.000+05:30

There is a prick out there who is peddling fake MBA education to thousands of unsuspecting students who fall for his tall claims of rankings, international exposures and placements. In the end, most are left with a 'degree' that is not worth the paper it is printed on, and employability that will probably not get them through the front door of most corporations.

Yet money talks, and it is quite true in this country that those who rock the boat are not looked at kindly. There is a Indo-British writer, Siddhartha Deb, who wrote a book called "The Beautiful And The Damned: Life In The New India", which explored the various ideas and aspirations that drove Indians from all economic backgrounds today.

Quite an interesting description by the person who is reviewing the book, a noted Indian writer in English in his own accord, Amit Choudhuri, who writes...

The book is divided into an introduction and five chapters. The first of these, "The Great Gatsby: A Rich Man in India" (Deb's second Fitzgerald allusion after the title), concerns the hugely successful but enigmatic entrepreneur Arindam Chaudhuri. His opening sentence reworks Fitzgerald shrewdly: "A phenomenally wealthy Indian who excites hostility and suspicion is an unusual creature, a fish that has managed to muddy the waters it swims in." How true: wealth, decried in the Nehruvian age, has never had a higher reputation in India.

Yet who is Arindam Chaudhuri, this grinning, pony-tailed, bespectacled man hovering on the edge of Indian middle-class awareness? Clearly, like other public or would-be public figures, he's an invention; but a uniquely self-driven one. We hear of him through his advertisements, and occasional reports containing accusations of fraudulence; Deb's piece is probably the first proper profile of the man. Deb speaks for many when he observes that, "throughout the years of Arindam's meteoric rise, I had been happily oblivious of him, although once I heard of him, I began to see him everywhere". Chaudhuri made his money running a business school that admits people who don't have the background or money to enter the canonical Indian Institute of Management; he then, in some magical strategy of auto-consumption, employs his graduates to run his business school. He's written a putative bestseller, Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch. None of these successes can be entirely verified, and they are, indeed, disputed. But Chaudhuri catches people's attention by insisting to them, repeatedly, that he's successful. In this, he conveys (via Deb's prose) something of the astonishing quality of present-day India.

What Arindam Chaudhuri has done is that he has sued the writer, Siddhartha Deb, the magazine - The Caravan, owned by Delhi Press and where Deb is a contributing writer and which published an excerpt from the book, the publishers Penguin India, and perhaps to attract more attention, Google India.

As much as I, and perhaps millions of others who can see the fraud at work and can see how this company is able to browbeat any criticism of its predatory activities, hate the situation, this article is not about this company. I strongly believe that Arindam Chaudhuri has embarked on his life in cinema using the money he has earned selling his fraud degrees to youth all across the country. His fraud company's advertisements in the media are worth crores of rupees, and that is the reason why any criticism against his activities comes only from smaller publications and from independent writers and bloggers. So when a question is raised in the Parliament if his company, which had paid Rs. 400 crores on advertisements in one financial year, had paid taxes, the government is quick to respond that everything is fine. So even when universities have said that this company is not legitimate, the advertising juggernaut still rolls on.

What amazes me is the number of youth who aspire to be a top notch corporate executive with an MBA but do not even do the simple homework of checking the credentials of the entity they are going to join. Perhaps there is not much success for them in the corporate world then. While the big newspapers in the country shut out the bad news and instead stick to the lakhs and crores they are getting from advertisements, the internet is a vast place, and I feel any person aspiring to be an MBA should be able to get some access to the internet and use it. Yes, if you think the "institute" has any legitimacy because Shahrukh Khan advertises for it (he also advertises for other worthies such as skin whitening cream and the most popular shaving cream in barbershops), then perhaps you deserve this?

Unfortunately, higher education is big business in India. Every politician worth his or her salt owns an engineering college or a MBA school, and there are thousands of Random Institutes of Technology churning out graduates by the dozen, but the fact remains that quality education's capacity is very very limited, even today. Sure everybody can blame the IIM's for only taking in less than 2000 students in a year, but what stops other schools to aspire to have the same high level of education and industry is something i can't fathom. Is it that quality of Indian society that Amartya Sen wrote about - crabs pulling each other down? Anyways, meritocracy is something that is slowly being removed from our system, even with more quotas and other regulations.

In a recent article in The Guardian (it kind of makes me uncomfortable that so much of this blog is sourced from British newspapers), Mr. Deb wrote about the issue, and the broader issue of how this society somehow fails to defend all that we feel proud to boast of as a democracy - such as freedom of opinion and dissent, and is somehow more than accepting of browbeating and bullying from rich and powerful forces in the country to suppress any criticism against them. The politicians use brute force to silence criticism, especially from single individuals or groups of individuals, and the rich use their money and the loopholes in law to get the courts to do their dirty work.

In his article in The Guardian, Deb makes a few interesting points....

Built upon a series of interviews with Chaudhuri, a flamboyant, pony-tailed figure who is chauffeured around Delhi in a Bentley, the chapter was, to my mind, a nuanced portrait of the man and his business. It looked at the aspirations unleashed in the new India, both in figures such as Chaudhuri, whose face stares out at one from advertisements in virtually every newspaper and magazine of note, to the largely provincial middle-class students who flock to his schools in their desire to make it into the world of business management.

Nevertheless, on 30 April, a court in Silchar, a small town in the north-eastern state of Assam that is more than 2,000km from Delhi, issued an injunction against the Caravan article and the chapter. No notice was received by any of the defendants before the injunction was issued.

The injunction has received little attention in the Indian media. There has been hardly any discussion, as yet, of the fact that for all India's vaunted embrace of free-market capitalism and its frequent claims to being the world's "largest" democracy, it remains a place utterly reluctant to allow public criticism of the powerful and the wealthy. Indeed, India has had, in recent years, a very poor track record of defending either artistic freedom or critical nonfiction.

But the most mysterious of all such cases is the book The Polyester Prince, written by Australian journalist Hamish McDonald. This book was a biography of Dhirubhai Ambani, a shrewd investor who built a vast business empire that was inherited by his feuding sons Anil and Mukesh, two of the wealthiest individuals in the world. McDonald's book was published in India last year in an updated version under the title Ambani and Sons, but the original book, to be brought out in 1998, faced injunctions from Dhirubai Ambani's company and was never available officially in India.

This kind of suppression is far more insidious and much less visible than the way China locks up dissidents such as Ai Weiwei. It passes without notice in the west, but what is more significant is how damaging it is to India's fragile democracy. It promotes, in a country that is diverse but also deeply hierarchical, a culture of cringing before the rich and the powerful.

Business arrangements known as "private treaties" between media houses and corporations ensure positive coverage for the latter, a process known as "paid news". Arindam Chaudhuri himself produces a constant stream of advertisements for himself, and also runs a small media empire that includes a magazine called The Sunday Indian.

The sad fact is that this country, for all its thousands of years of history and philosophy and learning and apparent cultural "superiority" that we claim over other societies, has fast transcended into an intolerant cesspool where money drives the society, and power justifies all actions. If I get into a tirade of how our society has become an entity so materialistic and superficial, then it will not serve the purpose of this post. However, my main reason to talk about the frauds talked about in this post is to bring out the fact that with financial backing, it is quite easy to turn public action, or inaction, into your favor, and of course, much easier to take advantage of the clogged and hole-riddled law and order situation in the country.

Unfortunately, I do not believe it is as simple as the innocent versus the unjust, because in my view, no body's a saint, and I think every individual's first priority is one's own safety and security. When I deride our society for being so tolerant towards injustice and crime against women and children, it could be that its in our psyche, and it could be that as a society, we are now in such a constant state of bullying and subversion by politicians, business corporations and governments, that I think the ideas of change and justice remain in the minds only, and a common family man/woman would think of the safety of the family first, and if that means not getting involved in raising voice against injustice, then so be it.

Just to provide some closure to the story of the fraud institute versus Deb and Delhi Press, I suppose Delhi Press itself can boast of some strong credentials, and possibly some pull, so they have decided to fight out the case. The magazine is very forthcoming with the details of the lawsuit, and the reasons why they will fight it, and definitely the blogosphere has backed them, considering its the blogging community that is most vocal in bringing out the fraud at Chaudhuri's fake company. Its a good thing, because its always good to be totally open with information, and in this case, I think most people will see it as an individual using his money to shut down something written about him in the media. Its just like Harbhajan Singh and his mother not liking an ad poking fun at not him, but an ad which he had done for a rival liquor brand. Of course there is probably a big difference between the actions of Harbhajan and Chaudhuri. One is probably just embarrassed and the other, well, suppressing anything critical of his fraudulent activities is something that's been a regular feature.

So the magazine writes....

In addition to The Caravan and its proprietors, the suit charges Siddhartha Deb, Penguin (the publisher of the upcoming book by Deb in which the article is a chapter), and Google India (which, the suit alleges, has been “publishing, distributing, giving coverage, circulating, blogging the defamatory, libelous and slanderous articles”).

The civil court in Silchar granted the IIPM a preliminary injunction, enjoining Delhi Press to remove the article in question from their website, ex-parte, without any pre-hearing notice.

In 2005, the IIPM filed a case against Rashmi Bansal, a blogger and editor of Just Another Magazine (JAM), who published an article in print and online questioning many of the claims made by the IIPM in its brochures and advertisements, which highlighted that the IIPM had not been accredited by any Indian agency such as AICTE, UGC or under other state acts. The IIPM filed a case against Bansal from Silchar, Assam, even though she runs a small independent outfit based in Mumbai. The IIPM managed to get an ex-parte order from the court, forcing Bansal to remove the article from the website. The IIPM also filed for damages.

In 2009, Careers360 magazine, published by Maheshwar Peri, who is also the publisher of Outlook magazine, carried an article titled “IIPM - Best only in claims?” investigating the authenticity of many of the claims made by the IIPM in their advertisements. The magazine’s investigation revealed that the IIPM claimed that its students were eligible for MBA degrees from IMI, Belgium, but that NVAO, the accreditation organisation of Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium), did not recognise IMI. Also it reported that following a local agitation against the opening of a new campus in Dehradun, the state government of Uttarakhand had asked the Uttarakhand Technical University to conduct an enquiry on the activities of the IIPM, with which IIPM did not co-operate. The investigations revealed that IIPM could not in any circumstances award valid MBA/BBA degrees or conduct such courses in the state of Uttarakhand. The IIPM, again, filed a case against the magazine and the publisher in Silchar, and obtained ex-parte restraint against them. The IIPM also filed a criminal case against Maheshwar Peri from Uttarakhand, which was subsequently quashed by the High Court.

The Caravan intends to fight this suit because we believe that we must defend the right of journalists to report on controversial subjects or persons without undue fear of legal intimidation from powerful entities or organisations that seek to insulate themselves from criticism.

Those with money know its very easy to keep cases against them in courts for as long as they like. Some can have the pull to knock off witnesses and pay off the other parties, some are just content in agonizing the other party through their ability to pay lawyers who are good at finding the loopholes in the country's laws, and there are, of course, many, in addition to the fact that there are more than 300 crore cases pending in our judiciary system! It'll be interesting to see how this one pans out.

The Horn of Africa suffers again

2011-07-22T14:32:00.000+05:30

I do not expect many Indians, and perhaps many more around the world to be aware of the fact that there is a famine raging in Somalia and spreading quickly to other parts of North-Eastern Africa. While I do want to write about the famine and how the world community is reacting to it, I cannot but feel angry at the same world community, especially the UN, for letting the situation reach the stage when thousands of Somalians and other Africans are dying of hunger. Its easy to blame it on Somalia's internal strife and warn-torn status, but I believe that allowing such crisis, even in this new millennium where we seem to move on from one technical achievement to another, allowing a famine to occur anywhere on the planet is a matter of shame, and excuses such as allowing each country to govern itself, or in this case, bring itself out of the misery, are just that, excuses.

The big word associated with Somalia in recent times has been piracy, and I have read and heard on more than one occasion that perhaps the biggest reason for piracy to exist is because its the only bread earner for many Somalians on the coast. Absolutely there is no doubt that bad elements, and genuine criminal elements do get involved and run the show at a number of places, but gone are the days when pirates would go looking for gold and hoarding it. It is my opinion that the world's inability to bring Somalia out of this internal strife is a matter of shame, because clearly in my mind the country is unable to bring itself out of it. If the great powers of the world can impose their will upon nations to bring them "freedom", surely the aware and advanced developed, and developing, world of today can get together to pull the poorer nations of this world out of their misery and despondence.

Clearly, Somalia, and a lot of countries around the world, need the positive intervention from the rest of the world, even if for the most idealistic reason of "humanity". The Islamist rebel group in Somalia called Shebab had banned foreign "aid" groups in the country, or whichever part of the country they control, and according to the BBC, are denying there is a famine in the land! For good effect, the BBC throws in the factoid that the group has ties to Al-Qaeda, perhaps so the news registers better in the mind of the western reader. So once we know that Islamist rebels rule most of Somalia, is it quite easy to pin the blame on them for now allowing the rest of the world to come together and help the starving people of Somalia.

The United Nations World Food Programme was one of the organizations that had left the country in 2009, and here is my peeve - what stops the rest of the world from coming together and pulling Somalia out of this misery? When we can have some stupendous forces such as "Coalition of the Willing", or the "Global War on Terror", or "Operation Iraqi "Freedom"", I do not think it will take much to come up with a "Maybe Somalia needs intervention too". I mean, what stops the world from getting together and getting rid Al- Shebab and all the warlords there?

Initially, there was a news of draught in the region, but only recently did the United Nations raise the crisis to famine. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer article -

It is a famine. The U.N. made that official this week when it noted that a "food crisis" had reached level five on the U.N.'s Integrated Phase Classification system. By that standard, famine is said to occur when malnutrition rates among children exceed 30 percent and when the death toll rises to more than two adults or four children per 10,000.

This is the first official famine in East Africa in 19 years. But an alternating current of drought, famine and war has plagued this land and its mostly innocent people for all of human history.

Drought is inevitable in the arid regions of East Africa. Famine follows, killing thousands who never recover enough from the last famine to fend off the ravages of the next.

When we hear of aid, or a UN official talking of aid, we tend to hear that the developed nations need to do more, the developed nations need to take the lead, more money is needed from the developed nations of the world, but in my opinion, it is absolutely wrong on the part of the rest of the world to sit idle. The global media reports on what the American government is doing, what the American Army is doing or what Europe is doing, but what about all these new big boys on the scene such as BRICS, and others? I can feel the hypocrisy in my own writing when sometimes I write about how the third world is going to rule the world and now I fall back to the old line that the developed world must do more. Even now, all the world media reporting is about the US - the US will allow this if this happens, or the US says this, or the US does this, or should the US help at all, but perhaps the rest of the world, including the new rising powers, are not ready to take on a bigger role in the world. Its very easy to showcase their new economic might, or argue confidently for their cause at international trade fora, but countries such as the BRICS must do more on the philanthropy and assistance front.

Its quite true that for most of the third world groups fighting for whatever cause in the world do not trust the WASP countries, and particularly the United States. But what stops China and India and others to take the lead and be more proactive politically and philanthropically?

I feel that most nations suffering from whichever strife afflicting them today are there because of their inability to raise themselves out of it. For the rest of the world, it becomes that nations' internal affair (for the most part that is), and thus it allows that nation to run itself to the ground. At the same time, I feel that even the global community itself, including the UN, can sometimes come across as pretty incompetent when it comes to dealing with the world's problems. According to this lady writing in the Gulf Daily News....

Two decades later, poverty has not yet been made history and repeated calls for aid have largely been ignored.

SOMETIMES defining a situation properly merits some sort of action. It took an estimated 10 million people in East Africa, including half the population of Somalia, to be severely malnourished before the United Nations declared famine in two southern regions of the country.

What possible effects such an announcement could have is anybody's guess.

Does it somehow legitimise to the international community that the Somalis are in real need of food and haven't been arbitrarily dying all along? The first famine of the 21st century wasn't a horrible surprise sprung on the world, it has been some years in the making. Poor rains since last year and the increasing desertification of the Horn of Africa have turned the region into a dustbowl.

Fourteen years ago, at a special convention of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification in New York, it came to light that 73 per cent of dry lands in Africa used for agricultural purposes had been degraded. The current crisis is in part the result of the Sahara desert's continued encroachment into the East African countries, a process that has turned these regions arid.

The growth of lawlessness and extremism that followed Somalia's war with Ethiopia in 1991 has devastated the country.

Maybe, there's a problem with the definition of the word famine. The UN says famine can only be declared when two adults or four children for every 10,000 people die of hunger every day. Now that the world community has got its statistics right, I suppose we can expect some real action. Somalia has often been called as the world's first failed state, but on hindsight, it's we who failed them.

The lady raises a very valid point about "definitions". The sense of urgency that we seem to be seeing today from the United Nations and other agencies and nations has come about once it was officially declared that there was a famine in Somalia. So if children were dying in that country but could not muster the death rate needed per 10,000 for them to be declared living in a state of famine, perhaps this process would have continued till an indefinite time while we could continue to keep ourselves busy in everything else.

As far as I know after scanning the online news sources for a while, I think the Indian media is still oblivious to what is happening in Somalia, and it is not surprising at all. In the World headlines section, that shitty NDTV is reporting such important news (most of which are America-centric) such as that of a small airplane making an emergency landing on a highway, or how a hundred street signs have been stolen in some town. The Times of India, well, is the Times of India, no expectations there. Yup, checked out a couple of other sources and their international coverage begins and ends with the US, Europe, Pakistan, and tabloid stories from the rest of the world.

My prayers are with the region, and I will try to locate if there is anything going on in India at all in terms of aid or help towards Somalia and if lucky, get to contribute towards it. The rest of the world must come together and help, and ask questions about why was this allowed to happen.

Between blasts and everywhere

2011-07-19T20:49:00.002+05:30

Lately, I seem to be going back to my state of numbness, not wanting to do anything mentally and physically, and slowly and surely slipping into a lethargy that I thought I had managed to pull myself out of a while ago. Perhaps it is the weather that is bringing me down. I hate showing up at work drenched regularly, and being in that wet state makes me quite irritable, so much so that I begin hating a lot of things I normally enjoy doing, and a lot of things that I would simply not bother about begin getting on my nerves. So unfortunately, that has been my mental state the past few days.

In this state of mental frustration, its very easy to doubt everything, and even easier to lose one's faith in everything positive and representing home. At least for me, i've become a very cynical being these days, and in my cynicism, I see that nothing around me is changing. The media continues to feed us the same muck, or rather, the people in the news continue to feed us the same muck, and the media presents the same muck to us with one or two variations in its flavour and presentation.

When I have to look at what is happening politically, I see that there's nothing new to write about. I wish I had the political insight that would allow me to read into actions and decisions of politicians and political parties, and I believe most of the media lacks the same, most unfortunately. If I had to think more on this subject, I think that it is perhaps prudent of the media to not focus on conspiracy theories. Now there is two rebuttals in my mind regarding the same. The first is that while the media steers clear of conspiracy theories (well, most of them anyways, those that remain I think are part of a plan), the fact is that more often than not, there have been such ridiculous truths unearthed in recent times that one wonders what the truth in Indian politics is any more. So my first point is that now I believe more often than not, prevalent rumours regarding our governments and politicians seem to hold more weight than before. Especially in this environment of government unaccountability and misgovernance, the nation is merely a spectator in some big game being played at the highest levels.

The second point is that if the media is so careful to steer clear of conspiracy theories at the political levels, surely that had not stopped them from accepting conspiracy theories at other levels, and all these "human interest" stories that the media churns out are an example of that. Numerous stories have been nothing but a big, pointless, and inexplicable media circus, something to keep the people glued to their television sets. At the political levels, I trust nothing what the media reports, anything that comes with an opinion attached, which is most often the case now. The Radia tapes showed that the media is merely a fiddle for the political class to play with each other, and my trust in them is really low. So my second point is that if most of the Indian media - print and television, wastes no time in cranking up their tabloid expertise at all levels, at the political level, they are only interested in indulging in propaganda and spreading bias. Of course, these are very broad and sweeping generalizations I am presenting here, and I wish I had more proof or examples of what I write, but I am relying more on anecdotal evidence here than anything else. If anybody pays attention to what is going on in the media, they will agree that the Indian media of today has a huge credibility issue.

After the Mumbai blasts (the latest one), lots of newsreel has been spent on who is saying what (mostly from the Government of India, but mindless), what evidences have been found, and what the cops are up to. The good sign is that there are indeed a few leads that police from multiple states are following. There is no mistake in my mind - India is at war, but it is overt and most are unable to see it. Our politicians on the other hand, do not want to act on it because it goes against their interests.

The Government of India started the National Investigation Agency (NIA) post Mumbai blasts so that a national level agency directly under the center could be created that would assist state police in probing terror. As far as I remember, P Chidambaram was really gung-ho about the whole thing, and now that it faces its first crisis, it has to "pull out".

Call me a cynic (and since I am in that state of mind these days), even if India faced the most horrific of wars, our government structure would still not be able to coordinate with each other and put together a unified response. People can say that it is a very exaggerated statement, but I think it depends on conditioning. We just don't seem to have good administrative leadership in this country at the highest level, and there are just too many egos and self-interests for Indians to come together. The reason the NIA pulled out was because it was not getting the support it needed from the Mumbai police. At the same time, the police say that NIA wants to go alone, and it is just not capable of doing so. That India's law and order is in tatters is a statement I keep parroting, and like I said, no matter what happens in the country, I think our security forces will always be deprived of good equipment and training and on an invisible political leash.

Coming back to other things, 9 July was the first Independence Day of Africa's 54th and the world's 194th country, the Republic of South Sudan. One of my buddies in Philadelphia was a South Sudan boy, so he must be pretty happy. Here's to you Mike. From the little I know, South Sudan was a separate land culturally and linguistically different from the more Arab north, but the British (who else?) put them together. It was Mr. Nelson Mandela's birthday yesterday, a great son of Africa. I was reading an article written by a Sudanese teacher how the white President of South Africa when it ended apartheid also received the Nobel Peace Prize along with Mandela, when he led the community, or whatever you want to call the white people, that till then still practiced the most shameful of segregation seen in modern times? So basically the lady was saying that Omar Al Bashir should also be given the prize because even if the country was being broken, he would let it happen, and in fact ensure that it happened peacefully.

Oh, heres something new. Shri Ramchandra Guha writing in the Financial Times about how "India is too corrupt to be a superpower". Well, my initial first thought would be that its not that we are too corrupt, its that we are just not that driven to be any sort of power, least of all the common man/woman who struggles to make ends meet. Just like how you can't preach religion to an empty stomach, so you can't expect the millions of have-nots in the country, in terms of food, education, housing, healthcare, to care even an iota whether India became a 'superpower' or not if they still can't bask in its benefits. So yeah, its the intent. When the top leadership can't think big despite being on top of the political food chain, I don't suppose they can lead the rest to think big too. A few big M&A deals and lots of Bollywood do not make an Indian century.

Goodnight everyone.

July 13, 2011, Wednesday, Three blasts in Mumbai

2011-07-15T12:38:00.001+05:30

After more blasts in Mumbai on Wednesday, I am beginning to believe that terror attacks aren't even registering as an important event in this city's psyche any more, which perhaps is not a good thing.

I was at work and about to leave to meet a friend when news first started trickling in of a blast in Dadar. It was through a phone call somebody received from somebody. A quick google search shot up nothing, and some old references of a gas cylinder blast in Dadar. I was hoping that this is what it would be, but as more news started trickling in, I came to know that there are three blasts, and then the online news sources came to life, and televisions went into overdrive with the blasts at Zaveri Bazar, Dadar Kabutarkhana (one of my favorite places in Dadar) and Opera House.

All plans were cancelled and my immediate worry was to figure out a way to get home. I really did not know how big the attacks would turn out to be, and after 26 November 2008, one would think better systems and networks and measures would be in place to prevent another serial attack on the city, but then, the law and order of a nation run by a government that has given up on governance and whose sole motive now is to be on the back foot deflecting scandals and defending allegations, should be expected to be porous.

I am still not sure of the final count of the death and injured is, but the number of dead is reported to be around 18-20, with over a 100 injured, and perhaps this is one reason why, despite any terrorist attack being as heinous as the next, this city found it just that much easier to take it in its stride and stand up right after? It is macabre and just wrong to think about it, but yes, our acceptance towards injustice and death of fellow Indians really makes us accept a lot of bad things that continually happen in our nation, situations that can be prevented by a more aware citizenry, a much, much more responsible media than they are today, and well, a simply better functioning government at all levels.

When I first heard of the blasts, I thought at least somebody in the CONgress led UPeeA government will be glad to see the media focus drawn away from their shenanigans. At the same time, what I didn't see was that these blasts seem to be angering the general population even more given the already incompetent and unresponsive government the country has today. Dr. Manmohan Singh has become a ghost who speaks nothing, announces nothing, and God forbid should be have control over the actions of HIS cabinet ministry. The buggers just underwent some cabinet reshuffle, which I suppose is common in governments so as to allow every suckling neta from the coalition to have a chance to sit in the spotlight and make some money while in it, but this time, perhaps it was also to try to present a picture of action. Hmm, whatever, all I know is that economic progress or no economic progress, if this country isn't safe, then we all should probably just start organizing our own neighborhoods and societies and take the law and order situation into our own hands, because the entire system has been hollowed with poor laws and missing intent.

After the 2008 attacks, a minister then, R.R Patil said that such small incidents keep happening in such big cities. Now Rahul Gandhi, the 41 year old bachelor and supposed PM in waiting says that it is not possible to prevent all such attacks. I think Gandhi's missed the point completely. The rest of the world perceives India to be a super soft state, and such attacks only reinforce such a perception, thus emboldening all the people who want to harm the nation. The attitude is wrong, Rahul, the attitude is completely wrong.

Manmohan Singh and Godmother Gandhi paid a visit to Mumbai to cry some crocodile tears and say some strong words such as "we will prevent future attacks", "our hearts are with victims and their families", etc etc, and while they visited the victims in the hospitals, the victims' kin waited outside for these VVIPee's to finish their daily routine of farce. Bastards, bastards, bastards.

There's so many ideas and theories and analysis that I have come across in the past two days that I am not even sure of what to write. Every thing should say that Pakistan is involved, and I am quite amazed at how the word has not been mentioned even once by the Government of India or Government of Maharashtra. P Chidambaram said that "all" terror groups are under investigation, which actually has no leads till date according to the media, and certain media sections have been quick to defend Pakistan when some guest speakers pointed a finger at them. There is this organization called the Indian Mujahideen, who apparently are only around because the government lets them be around because they happen to be Indian Muslims. Ah yes, the only reference from the GoI has been that this should not derail the piss process, I mean peace process with Pakistan. Actually, a few officials have said there is no Paki link to it, so there you go, if they are being so categorical before the investigating agencies have had even an iota of success, then surely they must be right!

Godmother Gandhi's most loyal pet said that at least India is better than Pakistan where the blasts take place every day! Ha ha ha, I am really not sure whether I should laugh, cry or cry with laughter. Another anecdote from TV came when a former top spy chief from India was listing all the things that the UPeeA government did, or didn't do to strengthen law and order in the country, the other guest on the show, CONgress spokesman Abhishek Sanghvi, accusing the former of being a BJP supporter! I think the Government of India is truly going crazy, and this is not a good sign for this country. I fear we may have to keep paying with our blood for voting these ridiculously shameless group of people to run our country for us. Well, back to normal life now and probably wait for some other tragedy to strike this country from within or without.

earth rant.

2011-07-12T12:13:00.000+05:30

There were a few thoughts running in my mind about how humankind is ravaging this earth, so before I forget these wondrously negative and retributive thoughts out of my head, I think it will be a good idea for me to put them down here.

When we talk of global warming, resource crunch, loss of forest cover, change of weather patterns, what are we talking about? We talk of how we are shifting the way the planet is functioning. When we use such phrases such as destruction of the eco-system, or extinction of species, or simply how the planet is being destroyed, I think we all mean how we are changing earth the way we know it. This is not a new thought that I am articulating, but I just want to reiterate it again - we are afraid of changing the planet the way we know it. If I look at earth as just an emotionless planet in the vast universe, then what we do is inconsequential, because for all our knowledge, there could be millions of other systems like ours which are being built and destroyed as we speak. One reference that always fascinates me is that of a clock. If the clock was the life of the earth, the history of man is merely the last few seconds, or even the last second, so what happens next second could be any body's guess, and for the earth, it will be just another second! For humankind on the other hand, that next second could be the second when we all just get ahead of ourselves and just destroy our civilization.

I am a believer in the origin of species, so if you believe that we were put on this earth by a higher intelligence, you should probably stop reading this. While I firmly believe in God, I believe God exists in our minds and hearts as an entity that gives us hope when we realize that we have no control of anything around us.

Is the earth missing the pre-historic man? When I say pre-historic, I mean history as today's humankind perceives it. I doubt that the earth does. Does the earth miss the dinosaurs? I highly doubt it. In fact, for all we know, the evangelists could be right and may the dinosaur bones were put on this earth by the devil to misguide us! So perhaps in the future there will be another life form that may or may not be similar to us, may or may not have the same power of thought and abilities, that will be scraping through the rocks and mounds in the earth to look for bones of the current homo sapien. So we will be their dinosaurs!

Yesterday I was taking a few print outs at work and I noticed the pile of waste paper in a box next to the printer. Every day, kilos of paper is discarded the same way, and I wish whenever I look at it that our company is waste conscious enough to diligently recycle all this paper wasted every day. For a company with so many thousands of employees and dozens of locations, one can imagine that the amount of paper discarded daily will be in tonnes, and when you imagine that there are thousands of such organizations around the world with the same paper usage and wastage patterns, then you can well imagine that every day, many million tonnes of paper is simply wasted or discarded. Add to it news print, brochures, paper used in books, notebooks, paper cups, oh, and even toilet paper, the whole unimaginable volume of this paper makes we wonder how in the world are we able to procure the raw material to generate so much paper!

And what will happen when the earth just can't support the production of so much paper? Any company worth its PR harps on how it is trying to save paper, adding little signatures in their employees email id about refraining from printing the email and all that, but I know from my own company that there is absolutely no effort made to create any employee awareness on how to save paper and basically cut down on consumption while at work. A lot of paper and other resources at work is wasted simply because of ignorance. It is quite true that most people don't even realize their habit to litter and create unnecessary waste.

Well, I suppose I have nothing else to say except regurgitate my own belief, that I will wait for this kind of world that we are living in today to run its course and wait for some epochal life style changing events to happen. The sad part, once again is that while so many millions will have lived the entire life cycle of gratuitous consumption, billions will continue to live in poverty and without resources, as the world's food crisis and resources crunch keeps getting more inimical to human survival. But at the same time, I know that what we fear is that we (the modern people in developed countries and the haves in the developing nations) will lose the earth as we know it today, with our levels of consumption and production. That's fine with me, I think, but what I do believe in most certainly is that humankind is simply not capable of destroying the planet, because it is way more capable and smart to survive our onslaught.

We need to get back to the ways of living with the attitude of nature as a friend, and this freakin western philosophy that the earth is something to be tamed and mastered is absolute hogwash. Perhaps the people thousands of years ago worshipped the earth not because they were afraid or anything, but they lived as one with what surrounded them.

Aliens

2011-07-07T12:14:00.000+05:30

I think I had written about it a long time ago that this tendency of developed nations to refer to outsiders, especially the emigrants from poorer nations looking to migrate or just work, as aliens was very offensive, and at least in my mind, told me that these developed countries minced no words in letting the poor non-white immigrant know that he/she should consider himself/herself lucky to be given this opportunity to go to their developed, advanced country. In my mind, using the word 'alien' at once establishes the notion that the immigrant is different, in a negative way, from the people of the country he/she is going to. But apparently alien is an actual legal term to describe people who are not of legal status in another country, so I could be just being irrational when I say I find the term highly offensive and condescending.

With the way the economic scenario is changing around the world, and as the third world is rising, it was my sincere hope that this equation would change, as better opportunities arose at home, and basically global trade became more equitable. Having spent so many years in the United States, I suppose I can say I have seen first hand how big an issue illegal Mexican immigration is over there, and when I read about this article in the New York Times this morning about how illegal immigration to the US is trickling down due to better conditions at home in Mexico, it only reinforced my belief that these next two decades could be the decades of change that will make the developed world more irrelevant to the developing world (which constitutes most of the world population by the way).

While many Americans go to great lengths deriding the hordes of Mexicans in their country, they tend to keep quiet when it comes to all these Mexicans tending their gardens or building their homes or serving them their fast food at the drive in. Of course, some states such as Arizona have such an "inspired" leadership that they've given their police unprecedented powers to simply check anybody who they believe is an illegal immigrant. So I am not a white or black person and I happen to be walking around in Arizona, the police have every right to stop me because of the colour of my skin. Those who call it an example of ethnic and racial profiling are correct. According to the article, while strong sentiments, enforcement and border sealing is a factor, there is no denying that there are better opportunities for many Mexicans at home, and especially the younger generation which has access to better education and opportunities.

I think this theme is being repeated in many places, including India where the phrase "brain drain" now seems used so long ago. There are more opportunities here, although not as many in comparison to the size of the population chasing them, but there definitely are. India becomes different from the rest of the world, I feel, because it has a huge population, and no matter what one does, it is simply impossible to create millions of good jobs in a year, despite all the increased production and consumption. Thus while I am all for greater economic development in the third world, it does not mean they should not continue pushing for more equality in global trade, which also includes trade in labour.

Joseph Stiglitz had written in one of his books that when it comes to global trade between the developed and the developing economies, while the developed economies have their manufacturing prowess and can flood the developing nations' markets with their goods, the best export for most developing countries, such as Mexico or India, is their people, and this is where developed nations tie themselves up in knots. I think its fairly obvious for most to see that its very easy for people from developed countries to move around the world, especially if they happen to be from a white developed country, while people such as Indians, Chinese, maybe Latin Americans, are always presented difficulties in traveling, lest they immigrate to that country. Work visas for the third world are especially hard to come by in places such as the United States and western Europe, which is quite unfortunate, and just points to that attitude that you are good enough to sell our products and services to, but just not good enough to work in our country and earn in our currency.

I've always ridiculed the double standards of global trade as it stands today, but have also written about how so many third world nations are finally coming out of the economic shadows of the developed nations. There is greater south-south trade, better management of their resources (now a western oil company simply can't come in and take over an oil well after paying off the local rulers/oil companies of the developing nations are in the fray as well), and I suppose just better awareness towards economic management and development. Thus while the North Americans and the Europeans can continue debating (or pretending to debate) this immigration issue, I think the best thing is what is happening already - third world countries beginning to stand up for themselves.

Metro musings

2011-07-04T15:42:00.000+05:30

Among other news, today is the 4th of July, made famous throughout the world by Hollywood as the American Independence Day. Having spent a few of them there, I know the kind of feeling, passion, and revelry they generate, with fireworks, parties, strong words, chest thumping, and the bursting "Proud to be American" echos everywhere.

Been traveling the past week, so didn't have a lot of time to sit down and write something, but there's quite a few things I noticed around me. For one, maybe I have mentioned this already, but the Delhi metro is a wonderful system most of the time, and if it wasn't for that, it would not have been possible for me to travel from Gurgaon to Delhi to Noida and back for 4 days in a row without spending lots of money and time and doing it in the sweltering Delhi heat. I do wish DMRC is planning to expand the system, not just extending the current lines to run farther, but new lines altogether. There was an old map I had come across some years ago of an impression of DMRC's vision for the Delhi metro in 2021, and since we are 10 years away from there, there's plenty of time for the company, and a willing government, to see them in reality. I am not quite sure if I remember whether that plan had new lines, but what that plan did have was a lot of new lines that connected the existing lines at various points, thus creating numerous loops all across the city that connected each of the lines with each other at multiple places.

While technologically and planning wise this seems very good, but we must keep in mind that modern urban technologies are fairly new to our society, and it takes years of training and acquaintance for the general public to know how to use, and more importantly, understand these systems better. The big problem of civic etiquette is also something that takes a long time to build when it is not backed by strict enforcement, which is the norm almost everywhere in India.

A very simple example was when somebody I knew had to take the metro to the Delhi-Ghaziabad border. To do so, they had to hop onto the yellow line and then switch at Kashmiri Gate to the red line, but they found it very difficult to do so, and didn't sound too confident. Thus, even if all the instructions are also written in Hindi along with English, it is still very difficult for many common folk to understand instructions, or simply to navigate through the fairly confusing and bustling junctions, such as Kashmiri Gate and Connaught Place (sorry, Rajiv Chowk, renamed after Mr. Gandhi by the Congress sycophants). While the security at the Delhi Metro is fairly strong and the cops are alert and armed, they also double up as information givers, which is totally fine.

I typed a lot of things here a few minutes ago and all thanks to my awesome luck, lost it all. I was saying that I did find the map of Delhi metro grid on http://www.urbanrail.net/ as they hope will look in 2021, and it will include a new line, which is good.

Ah the sweet anger inside me to see all those words just fade away. I'll type later now. All that I wanted to type about Reliance, Mumbai, the metros in other cities can probably wait now.

Its good to see that other cities will have metros running, but cities like Chennai and Bangalore can certainly do better than have just two lines running in them. I feel cities of their size and scope should have more lines, and just having two lines just makes it more like leaving a political landmark than anything else. Of course countless studies and forecasts are done before a decision is taken, but still, a politician can't be expected to understand most of the economics behind urban transportation. Recently, Jayalalitha was quoted as favoring the monorail in Chennai, simply because it was the DMK which pushed for the metro, and she just wanted to show that she is different. Or at least this is now the story goes.

So I was writing about how Mumbai seems to be in no hurry to get anywhere quickly at least on the infra front. It seems that decisions here take longer than anywhere else in the country, which I am assuming is mainly because its always been such an enterprising city that everybody is fighting hard to corner a piece of the pie for themselves, thus leading to delays due to more wranglings and agreements. The perenniel politician-builder nexus which everybody talks about will always remain there.

bailout! woooo yeah!

2011-06-21T12:00:00.001+05:30

Euro 700 billion is the new bailout package announced by European Union to save the Euro area from financial collapse. This is after more then 300 billion had already been pumped into the sinking economies of member states. After the US, its Europe. Japan's already been suffering for decades, so whats next?

Just yesterday I had written a note for our company's annual report that the developed economies, or rather, "developed" economies are still doing the clean up after the 2008 financial crisis brought on by the most powerful economy in the world, and it seems that this circle is destined to go round and round for the foreseeable future, because as I have mentioned many times before, there are many things that are structurally wrong with the economic system they live in, and the lifestyles they maintain.

I have mentioned on my blog quite a few times earlier about the economic report that I had contributed to during my internship, and it focused on the same issue. That was 2009, and now two years later, all these developed economies, read the Americans and the West Europeans, including the Irish, the Greeks, the Portuguese and a few others, are still feeling the heat. That report was written by an investment bank that was actually British and an integral part of this very economic system that I write so acerbically about sometimes, and yet that report really enthused me because of its truthfulness. After all the technical analysis and opinions on where the economies are headed, my MD, the lead author of the report, still finished off on a very fundamental note - that these economies must bring about a fundamental change in their lifestyle of high consumption. Of course, when one is used to living in luxury, and at the cost of the environment and cheap production of the third world, any change in the status quo must come slowly, and hopefully surely.

Coming back to the bailout, the big daddies of the European economy are France and Germany, and I think they reached an agreement on the bailout as recently as last week. Googling for their views on the Greek bailout throws out a lot of mixed views, but even they mostly swing towards the pessimistic side, including this American view of why their (Merkel-Sarkozy) plan for the debt crisis will fail...."miserably".

I Think the one word that was missing for the past many years in the way business was done in say New York, London or Paris or even Tokyo, actually especially Tokyo before they went down, was "fiscal prudence." In fact, countries like India which had a greater control, or rather, financial oversight over their economy were ridiculed regularly for not being "open" enough, something which countries like India still get to hear today. The global watch dog still views India as a market that needs to be opened more for its firms. I wonder when this mindset will change, or rather, I wonder when the scales of the global economies will truly start turning in the third world's direction?

But this is not a third world rant, rather, its a first world rant, so coming back to the impending European debt crisis, the writer that I referenced to in the Forbes link says that Merkel in a way was (I use the word "was" because her agreeing to the bailout goes against her public view of opposing such a bailout) a leader who was financially prudent, and was in favor of banks and institutions who lent indiscriminately or took on too much risks to bear the consequences, or in other words, fold.

“Angela Merkel has consistently opposed the terms of the Greek bailout because she is well aware of the domino effect which could begin after they fully agree to the terms — this making them the guarantor of several irresponsible countries with no ability to pay them back.”

On Friday, Angela Merkel “caved” on her tough stance which involved mandatory participation of the private sector, (banks, financial institutions etc.) and said she would back a “voluntary” participation of banks and financial institutions in the bailout of Greece. This due to the pressure of the threat that it was mandatory that they strengthen the European banking system and support the weaker economies of other European countries to avoid a complete meltdown.

The domino effect that is being talked about in Europe is of course all too real, and will definitely impact the entire world, and take many years to resolve. There are somethings that I am unable to process completely in this chain of thought though. When people talk of situations where the US economy collapses, or defaults, then some say that since the US prints the global currency, its dollar, all it has to do is print more. I am not taking into account the domino effect that it will create on its own, but that's a scenario I have definitely heard from a lot of places. So can the Euro print more Euros to get out of trouble? I don't know, and all the smart bankers and policy makers out there will surely discuss these issues. I am sure in financial economics there will be a margin up to which they will be comfortable with the Euro sliding in such a scenario.

Then at the same time, since the global economy is centered around the US economy more or less, even if they default, so what? I mean does China stop doing business with it? Do they stop selling arms to the rest of the world? So the same should be true for the European Union then. I think the fact that they are not one big economy like the US but a mix of all these economies, big and small, that creates bigger problems and lesser space to bully their way out.

I came across this article by a European politician written before this bailout package was announced, but it seems that even now these nations are not able to come around to accepting the fact that there needs to be a fundamental change in the way they run their economies. He talks of, first, getting Greece out of the mess. Then he talks of strengthening their own financial institutions and policies so this doesn't happen again, and then to encourage savings by strengthening their bond market, and yes, creating a climate of investment and growth.

In my opinion, all these good words that we hear from American and European politicians today are nothing new, but in their hubris and overconfidence, they totally overlooked them because when the going's good, why question the process? Now we have all these people preaching to the rest of the world about good policies and institutions as if its the third world's that been living prodigally, but then, charity begins at home. It'll be interesting to see how Europe gets out of this mess, and I hope they do, but long tough years seem to be ahead for them, and I wish them the best of luck.

yellow Indian journalists

2011-06-20T12:20:00.000+05:30

I had read an article on yellow journalism some time ago and read about what kind of reporting constitutes yellow journalism. In fact, I had made a note of it in my blog as well, and realized that all those characteristics, if not all, are employed by the tabloid media of today. When I say tabloid media, I am clubbing all the Indian media together, especially the English media because in their eyes, objectivity means nothing and their only concern is to sound as sensationalist as possible and look as western as possible.

So I was reading some news headlines online today and it just struck me that a lot of online articles today begin with questions. And not just generic questions or harmless questions but mostly negative questions that will already create a bias in the mind of the reader that whatever the subject of the "news" article is, is a bad person, thing or phenomenon.

On Google news, the news is presented in sections, and under the Sci/Tech section this morning, there is a substantial coverage of the Mumbai metro. The Bhaskar Group's English daily, Daily News & Analysis has a coverage as well, titled "Metro ride in Mumbai could prove 'shocking'". Now there are two or three thoughts I have about this headline.

First, it is sensationalist without doubt. I personally have a huge dislike for reporting that looks more like an opinion piece but is reported as objective and factual. a metro ride could prove shocking because the wires running overhead have the potential to hurt the commuters inside the trains and the commuters and drivers on the street below. Using the same theme, lighting can start striking the Mumbai streets and could prove "shocking" to many, including taking many lives. So perhaps the dumb media needs to come out with a headline that citizens beware of this rainy season because it has the potential to kill. Anybody who follows the national media diligently, and unfortunately there are many who take everything the likes of Times of India, Hindustan Times and NDTV peddle very seriously, should then drastically reduce the time they spend outside, because if their luck runs out, the next lightening victim could be them.

Here is the point I am trying to make is there is threat, no doubt, and unsafe construction, wiring could pose problems, but here is when objectivity takes a back seat. To catch the eye of the reader, you put a vague headline on top, such as this - that a Mumbai metro ride could prove shocking. First, the Mumbai metro is a prestigious and much awaited project. Much, much delayed and with a myriad of issues, but prestigious none the less. So after thousands of crores being invested, if a metro rider is going to get "shocked", then obviously you will prick your ears and try to find out why.

Then the second part is that Mumbai Metro is not just one kilometer long, so is the wiring faulty or dangerous throughout the constructed line, or just one stretch or one specific location? If I can understand the situation correctly, here is what is happening. Now any metro runs on electricity, and there are a number of ways of providing this to the coaches. First, you can do as they do in the railways, the overhanging cables which is connected to the coach. This is what the first line of Mumbai Metro has. Now another way of providing this source is through the third rail, which is what the Kolkata metro and the London metro have and under-construction Bangalore metro proposes to have. The Delhi metro, which can be called the seed for all the new metro projects in the country, has overhead cables, and so do the lifelines of Mumbai, the locals. Delhi metro has had incidents in the past and even deaths, but as far as I recall, I have not heard of any mishaps due to the overhead cables.

When a metro system is being laid, there are a lot of discussions done on what technology to use, what design to use, and what not to use, and the engineers and designers and other professionals must have sat down and discussed whether the line should have a third rail or overhead cables to provide power. Just to soothe all the self-flagellating Indians out there, these professionals not just include Indian professionals, but all the global companies that are part of the EPC contract, such as Siemens of Germany or Veolia of France. So surely they must have had very good reasons for using the overhead cables.

Now an issue with the overhead cables in the Mumbai metro's first line could be that they are not constructed well. But I am glancing through the article and I do not see any issue of bad construction. And yes, there are hundreds of safety scenario analyses done, "what if" analyses done so that metro systems all over the world are prepared for most eventualities.

So this is the Indian media. I am googling this news and I realize that actual media reports say that the MMRDA wants the Mumbai metro authorities to "explore" the third rail option to provide traction to the metro system. These media reports say that the reason why overhead cables could be dangerous in Mumbai is because its path is surrounded by many tall buildings, something which most of Delhi metro avoids. This is however completely lacking in the Indian coverage.

The fact about technology is that no matter how efficiently it is run, one can't rule out a mishap or error - by the machine or the person running the machine. Even Kolkata metro is facing problems this rainy season as water has seeped into the tunnels and is affecting the functioning of the third rail.

So finally, my peeve is that all these Indian media houses have adapted this form of yellow journalism where they try to be opinion leaders instead of being professional journalists. The television media does it all the time, seeping in their biases into their words and the way they present issues. Perhaps soon all the pages of a newspaper will be the ed-op pages because there won't be objective news, but what the journalist, his/her editor, and their paymasters want the situation to be presented as.

Women in India need no enemies

2011-06-15T14:45:00.000+05:30

I have on more than one occasion maintained that a society that cannot protect its children and care for its women has no right to survive. I categorically place the Indian society, including all the smaller societies that make it, into this category.

The fact that India is one of the world's unfriendliest and disrespectful place for women and children need not be repeated again and again to prove that its true. It is true but time and again, there will be reports published in the national and international media which will tell us just how backward we are as a society.

So when a poll by Thomson Reuters Foundation says that India is one of the world's most unsafe places for women given its track record of female infanticide, female foeticide and human trafficking, I think we as a shitty, tabloidical, shallow society that we have become, should pause, think nothing of it and move on, because that is just how important this issue seems to be for us. Better yet, let us watch television where we will be able to see half naked women gyrating to crass music and lip-syncing to absolutely crass lyrics. Yes, I think that would be an apt tribute to this report. Then we can tell the rest of the world that look, our women are so free, how can you say such a thing?!

In this poll, carried out by TrustLaw, the legal news service arm of the trust asked 213 gender experts from all over the world to rank countries based on their perception of danger and the risks posed to women on these six criteria - health threats, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, cultural and religious factors, lack of access to resources and trafficking.

If I look at this list, women fall behind on each and every one, including the cultural and religious factors. In a country where when a monkey of a human being misbehaves with a girl in public, its the girl who is reprimanded for maybe wearing revealing clothing, or for taking that path, or even giving hints to the animal, and the animal just goes on with his daily life of being a nobody.

So this is the society that we live in, this is the society that turns a blind eye to injustice, or this is a society that just doesn't say maybe there is something wrong if we allow our women and children to be exploited and suppressed habitually and systematically.

India's record in human trafficking as always been atrocious, and I am simply unable to comprehend how it is so lucrative that all the politicians and policemen look the other way (while making money on the side). In other words, this is a country ruled and administered by pimps.

According to the TrustLaw website:

India ranked fourth primarily due to female foeticide, infanticide and human trafficking.

In 2009, India's then-Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta estimated that 100 million people, mostly women and girls, were involved in trafficking in India that year.

"The practice is common but lucrative so it goes untouched by government and police," said Cristi Hegranes, founder of the Global Press institute, which trains women in developing countries to be journalists.

India's Central Bureau of Investigation estimated that in 2009 about 90 percent of trafficking took place within the country and that there were some 3 million prostitutes, of which about 40 percent were children.

In addition to sex slavery, other forms of trafficking include forced labour and forced marriage, according to a U.S. State Department report on trafficking in 2010. The report also found slow progress in criminal prosecutions of traffickers.

Up to 50 million girls are thought to be "missing" over the past century due to female infanticide and foeticide, the U.N. Population Fund says.

Some experts said the world's largest democracy was relatively forthcoming about describing its problems, possibly casting it in a darker light than if other countries were equally transparent about trafficking.

Is it possible to protect all of a billion people? If we take crime statistics, is it acceptable to hide behind the mask of numbers, saying that the number of rapes is very small when compared to the total percentage of the population, or some other ridiculous comment like that? Is it acceptable to blame women for wearing provocative clothing or going out of their homes and thus inviting the attention of the animals roaming outside? These all exist in a society because the society itself is slow in accepting, or living, the modern elements that one would think any modern society is based in - the freedom of the individual, respect and equality for all races and genders and creeds, or respect for life itself. Many people blame our backwardness on most of these modern parameters, including one as simple as basic etiquette, on our past, saying we are such an old society that we will take time to change. Till we can make our social development a priority at the societal and governmental level, no amount of economic development will be able to bring genuine happiness and growth to our country.

Thanks big drug!

2011-06-09T18:03:00.001+05:30

The big news concerning the health of the millions of poor and sick across the third world, and obviously very briefly reported in the ever-sensational tabloidical Indian media, was that the major drug companies of the world have reduced the prices of major life-saving drugs such as those for diarrhoea and malaria, which kill millions of men, women and children in the poor nations across the world.

This is good news, definitely, and before I start talking about whats in it for them, let me try to dig out more details of this development. So according to the BBC News, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi-Aventis have agreed to cut prices through the international vaccine alliance called GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization).

According to the news, the medicines will be subsidized by the higher prices being charged in the richer nations. According to the CEO of GSK, Andrew Witty,

"What we need is a return to invest in the next generation of new vaccines and drugs and that has to come from the profits of the medicines or the vaccines," Andrew Witty, chief executive of GSK told the BBC.

"But it's obvious that if you're in Kenya or a slum in Malawi or somewhere like that there is no capacity for those people to contribute to it, so they have to be helped out by the contribution from the middle and the richer (countries)."

There's something that I have been really curious to get some concrete data on - how much of the R&D investments of the big drug companies is going into life saving drugs and how much of it is going towards the lifestyle diseases, which mainly afflict the richer nations.

Some examples of the price cuts are:

GSK said it would cut the price of its vaccine for rotavirus by 67% to $2.50 (£1.50, Rs. 112.5) a dose in poor countries.

Merck has said it will provide its own rotavirus vaccine for $5 a dose, coming down to $3.50 (Rs. 157.5) once more than 30 million doses have been sold.

The good thing is that Indian pharma companies too are working towards these price cuts.

The price Gavi pays for pentavalent vaccines, which protect against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type B will be cut by two Indian firms, Serum Institute and Panacea Biotec.

According to the coverage in the Times of India, which focuses on the Indian companies that are part of this pledge, the alliance is short by USD 4 billion in its commitments towards vaccinating populations in many poor countries.

Bharat Biotech, Serum Institute and Shantha Biotechnics are developing rotavirus vaccines for GAVI-eligible countries. Vaccines from these firms, however, are not expected to be ready for purchase through Unicef until approximately 2015.

I think its my own ignorance in this case that I have not heard of GAVI before. The BBC article talks about them a lot, and in glowing terms, and I did read recently that Bill Gates found it.

Its not that its without its critics. One of the reader comments in the Times of India article that I just referenced is that GAVI is a "notorious NGO with an aim on depopulation!" However, that reader makes a very valid point - whether the price of a vaccine is low or high, for a healthy nation, the main aim should be reducing the number of vaccines given to the children. I think what the reader has in his mind is a thought similar to what I had regarding aid to the third world. Don't make them dependent on aid, rather, work towards creating avenues of growth so they won't need aid.

This article in the British newspaper, The Guardian, discusses why GAVI is so short on funds, but it also tells me how this seems like a big tragicomedy with huge hints of the white man's burden. The countries funding it are European, the NGO is western, and the companies winning their contracts are western, when it has been reported again and again that Indian companies can make the same vaccine at a much much lower cost.

Gavi agreed to pay $3.50 (£2) a dose, or $10.50 per child, since each child needs three shots. But to tempt companies in, it offered double that price in the first years, subsidised from the $1.5bn pot of money in the AMC. Two of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world - GSK and Pfizer - won contracts to supply 30m doses a year for 10 years. They were guaranteed $225m each from the AMC, in addition to the $3.50 Gavi pays, which works out at a total price of $7 a dose for the first two years.

Gavi has also committed itself to funding a range of other vaccines. The demands are so great that it may even struggle to afford the full rollout of a new vaccine to stop the annual death toll from meningitis across a central belt of Africa, even though the vaccine developed by an Indian company costs less than 50 cents a dose.

MSF and Oxfam say the money could have been better invested in helping developing world companies in India, China or Brazil to produce vaccines at a cheaper cost. The cheap African meningitis vaccine was made by the Serum Institute of India. The company is now working on a pneumococcal vaccine and will have a version available by 2015 that is expected to cost $2 a dose, or $6 (Rs. a child.

I think its the power of big drug companies at work here. Since most of the funding comes from the western nations, I am assuming the pressure would be to engage companies that are based in the west. Its quite similar to the way the rich nations and now the Chinese do business - we will fund you, but you use our equipment.

Coming back to the question whether developing vaccines is really a priority for the big drug companies of the west, the article only briefly mentions that pharma companies (I am assuming it only means the western pharma companies) have left the field because of no profits. But if they are going to fund these vaccines from their profits from the medicines they sell in the rich nations, then that is in direct conflict with the raison d'etre of any public company - profit!

I can't seem to understand, but what would make more sense is if these companies would stop making it so difficult for the numerous pharma companies in India, Brazil and elsewhere to fill in the vacuum. Thats where the nations of the world need to come together and work out a proper agenda that will encompass all the poor nations in the world instead of leaving it to individual NGO's or institutions to try to make a change.

Huff and puff and blow the house down

2011-06-06T13:32:00.000+05:30

At any point in time, there are so many stories at play behind the scenes in politics in India that whenever I say or write something about anything that is going on, my immediate feeling is that I am probably wrong because I might not even be knowing whats actually going on.

With what is going on between the forces facing the government, at present the face of which is Baba Ramdev, and the mighty Government of India, who had to use physical force against the modern Yoga guru, I really can't say who is right and who is wrong, but what I do wonder is how can this man fluster this government so much? Especially this government who's hallmark in office has been secrecy and obscurity in its words and actions.

This time, I feel the CON'gress led government is very conveniently again using the bogey of "Hindu nationalism" or this obscure phrase called "Saffron terror" to again hide from its responsibility towards the people of the country who have been braying for them to be tough against corruption in the country. The irony is this - how can the most corrupt entity that rules this country take action against its own?

Corruption again, is a very broad word, but I think what is shocking in today's India is the relative ease with which so many big politicians and businesspersons have been able to get away from the long arm of the law, and all we are left with is scapegoats like Raja and Kalmadi. It is not that people's anger has not been able to manifest itself into action. Congress has been losing allies and elections in a lot of places, with the first to go many years ago in Lalu Yadav. The DMK relationship is the latest to sour, and it looks like this one is probably going to sour for good. In politics, nobody wants to partner with a has been, and with the way JJ routed Karunanidhi and his party, it basically paved the way for a lot of things to happen, such as Karunanidhi's daughter going to jail and now the Marans under the spotlight for corruption. JJ had already set her sights on the financial might of the DMK and the Marans, and is already on the offensive by planning to nationalize cable tv distribution in Tamil Nadu, which till now was effectively controlled by a Maran company.

When everything seems lost, the best thing to do for a good politician is to change the subject. Thus when some people, who may happen to be saffron wearing yoga teaching public figures or khadi wearing social workers or whoever, say that the government must do something on corruption, and give the country some details on the bank accounts of India's politicians and business people, the good politician will basically give it a communal flair and say that they are driven by their Hindu fanaticism.

So as seasoned politicians, the Gandhi minions in the Congress were told that they have crap on them, and they first, refused that they have any crap on them, accused the accuser of having a hidden agenda in telling them that they got crap on them, and then successfully turned around and accused the accuser of having crap on them as well.

Without going into whether Baba Ramdev is right or wrong, or what his or the government's intentions are, I just want to talk about these examples of propaganda that the Indian English media is so good at. Of course, since Baba Ramdev wears saffron, he is quickly painted a rabid Hindu nationalist, and the the Congress mouthpiece NDTV led national media goes all out on showing the communal angle. However, very few television crews actually covered the meeting of Baba Ramdev with Father Dominic and Imam Bukhari when they visited his rally and one of them even hugged him. For all the countless hours that the television crews were buzzing around like flies, apparently just during that meeting they found a pile of dung more smelly to crowd around.

But to any innocent mind who is trying to make sense of the whole situation, the issue gets muddled. Is it merely about calling for action against corruption? No doubt it has taken a much more political, and unfortunately religious turn, but like I said, obfuscating the real issue in question is what seasoned politicians do.

I've come across many people who say that they don't like the Congress, but that they hate the RSS, Modi, etc etc and go into this rant that at least the Congress is not that! So yeah, they want the Congress to pay, but they are not in favor of such "Hindutva forces" coming into power. I am such a rookie that I don't even know what Hindutva forces mean! If a Muslim leader had led the protests, then what kind of political wranglings and media reportings would we be seeing? I actually wish that somebody would be involved who the media and the government couldn't spin into being "communal".

Theres a lot going on in India these days, and it'll be interesting to see what happens. Not just interesting to see, but perhaps even to be a part of! There is one assumption i've been noticing in every political discourse or analysis of events - "public memory is short and they will forget everything." I wonder if this assumption will also go the real estate way. Let us hope it does.

unreal estate

2011-06-04T11:16:00.002+05:30

My mind's been so unsettled in the past few days that I have been unable to figure out what I want to write about on this blog. There are a number of issues always going on around me that I would like to comment on, but as it has happened so many times, I begin to collect my thoughts and form the words in my mind on a certain issue but soon descend into thinking of the pointlessness of it all.

There's actually a huge interest in me to write about the real estate market in the country, and the apparent lack of any norms or rules in governing it. It's a good story to write, but I am afraid there are so may angles to it that my utter lack of depth in the subject will be painfully visible. When I talk of the lack of norms or rules, I think what I really mean is the opacity that this market represents, right from how the land prices work to how projects are planned/constructed to how they are sold to the public.

It is this opacity which I feel works in the favor of everybody but the common man for whom a home is still a once in a lifetime investment, and it is of paramount importance to them that they get it right the first time. Unfortunately, real estate has this big dark underbelly where the real estate construction company owners, contractors, local politicians, national politicians, bureaucrats and such control the land and use the laws of the land, or the lack of them, to make a quick buck for themselves.

The Japanese economy tanked because it worked on the presumption that real estate prices just can't fall. Banks lent heavily and big money was spent on construction and real estate, and then the bubble burst, thus leading Japan into a soup which they are still trying to get out of, even after so many years!

The one thing today's free-economy driven world perfectly demonstrates is the axiom that the one thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from history. The US economy then took up the challenge to test the hypothesis that the only way the land prices in their country will go is up. We all know how well it worked out for them and the rest of the world.

Now a lot of stories are doing round today that the real estate market in India is either in the middle of a bubble, or heading towards one, but all seem to agree on one point that some near to medium term correction in real estate prices is definitely on the cards.

There is one very strong feature of the Indian real estate market, in my opinion, that may not be as prevalent in the more developed markets, is that a large number of high end buyers in the country are either speculative buyers or they buy their property as an investment. I believe that a big reason for this is that being such an opaque market, there may be a lot of avenues for high earners to either stash their dirty money, or money that they otherwise would have paid as tax, into apartments and villas and then put it in the name of their wife or son or mother or uncle or whoever.

Now what speculative/investment buying of property does is that in places such as Mumbai or posh parts of the other cities where the land is already scarce and heavily, heavily protected and bargained for, it reduces the already small market of homes available for the genuine buyer who wants to settle down with his/her family. Politicians are big users of this policy actually, and have benefited a great deal from the opacity of the market. An adarsh scam here and there really does nothing to slow down these reckless renegades from seeking out the riches of the real estate market which is into crores and crores of rupees. Add to that the politics and economics of urban slums, and we have this situation where there seems to be absolutely no way forward without one section of the stakeholders not opposing it vehemently.

Nothing is substantiated by proof but there are many stories out there that say that Sharad Pawar, Praful Patel and other politicians purchased huge tracts of land for cheap in the Panvel region of Navi Mumbai in the anticipation that land prices will skyrocket once the new international airport is sanctioned to be built in that area. Then the new airport was sanctioned and the prices did go up by a few times. Its quite true actually, that real estate is a great refuge for a politician's hard earned money.

Coming back to the question of India's real estate sector being a bubble - I believe that whether its a bubble or not a bubble, dirty money will always continue to flow into the sector as long as the laws are not clear and the markets not under scrutiny. But again, it would be wrong for me to say that this side of the sector drives it. I think its still the common man/woman, or the business house that drives the market with their demand for homes and office space. In my opinion, I've been waiting for such a bubble to form, or burst, and see this 15-20% correction in prices for myself. I am not quite sure that happened even during the American shenanigans of 2008, so I am actually a skeptic when it comes to believing in such a bubble.

However, at the same time, its quite possible that the economy and the stakeholders were probably woken up from their "real prices can only go up" dream by the global economic downturn. With rising inflation and prices, and absolutely no fiscal policy so to speak of the government of India to contain it, once again the nation relies on the good old monetary policy by tinkering with the rates. So the interest rates are high, thus taking the cost of a home loan higher and effectively reducing the purchasing power of many a hopeful home owners.

Real estate companies across the country were scaling up on construction by taking a huge amount of debt to build new projects, buy new land and pouring all of it into high-end housing. Then comes all the economic upheavals and at least in my eyes, a lot of demand just shrunk simply on weak global cues. Then came the recovery and the high inflation with it, thus taking the home loans out of reach of many people, and so, a lot of the real estate companies are saddled with a huge amount of debt and a lot of high-end property that apparently not a lot of people are buying. So now a host of companies, including one of the biggest ones in the country - DLF, are selling assets and land to shed this debt. At the same time, they are reaching out to PE firms, which I think may again make them more prudent in their decisions, considering PE firms may be firmer in their terms and conditions and stricter on meeting milestones.

However, this does not really answer the basic question whether such sales will actually bring prices of developed properties down. The interest rates are high, so ideally the prices should come down to stimulate demand. Its so ironic that when I write this, there is a shortage of 24 million low income and lower middle income homes in this country! No real estate company wants to touch this sector in a big way, and only come up with a few projects here and there and tom tom it as their contribution to the society. The UPeeA Govern"mint", well, wants to get rid of slums in the Indian cities so they do what they do best - announce a big scheme named after a member of the Gandhi family. I am still to see how the government proposes to take over the land in such cases. If India manages to provide all families in this country with a home, that'll be a true step forward in our development, but unfortunately, our priorities seem to lie everywhere other than the most basic development indicators such as primary education, housing and healthcare.

India and Africa 4 eva!

2011-05-30T12:33:00.002+05:30

I had been traveling the past three days, had gone to Vizag in Andhra Pradesh to attend a friend's wedding. The wedding went well, very traditional, and the food very sumptuous, and the city, well, quite hot and humid, but very livable. I plan to write more about my trip later.

In the past week, the Prime Minister of India visited two nations in East Africa - Ethiopia and Tanzania. Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, is also home to the head quarters of the African Union, hence the significance of his visit there, where he addressed the African Union and Heads of State of over 10 African nations. Addressing the second ever Africa-India Summit, the Prime Minister talked about all the right things, especially a greater third world partnership between the two economic blocs.

While for much of the western media, and perhaps any journalist/observer not from Africa/India/China, China's and India's parlays in Africa are more about gaining access to its resources than for the genuine reasons of diplomacy, good relations, and economic and cultural ties.

Given my disinclination towards trusting the Chinese Government (not the people though. From what I read, their abilities to form opinions has been systematically eliminated - all part of the process to be a world superpower that rules through fear), I do know that respecting other nations does not form a part of their plan for world domination if being nice to others does not help them in that regard. As far as I know, its only recently that China actually started making parlays into African nations, giving them money, or rather, building projects for them - with Chinese money, using Chinese labour, and then using that as a quid pro quo for securing mining rights. That's pretty much how the Chinese have been operating. I would like to believe that while India has a need for resources, and that Africa is a great avenue to provide them, I think its just not in our international relations repertoire to be so obvious sometimes (which I think is a very good thing). Don't get me wrong, it amazes me at how sneaky the Chinese can be with so many other things in the world, with the latest example being propping up Christine Lagarde for IMF head and then getting together with the rest of the BRICS and issuing a statement against it!

It is not that India and the nations of Africa are strangers to each other. To give the most proverbial of examples, Gandhi ji earned his chops in South Africa, to put it very crudely!

So instead of building a huge parliament building, or other infrastructure monuments, India has focused on sectors it is good at, and I believe sectors that genuinely help a nation stand on its own two feet, such as healthcare and education, just to give two examples. In fact, the Indian Railways, which may invoke strong emotions in many Indians, in good ways and bad, are a big factor in India's push, with India offering railway hardware and railway construction to the continent. The Chinese could have offered the technologies, but they're too busy building high-speed railways across the country, which well, are quite unreliable and of poor quality from what I hear, but my point is that the high speed railways will probably not do in most of the African continent. The African Union in fact requested India to assist with the USD 300 million Ethipia-Djibouti railway line, which will link the landlocked nation of Djibouti to the ports of Ethiopia, thus providing a quicker and safer mode of transport for goods and services in and out of the nation. Of course, sometimes one wonders how India manages to get ahead with its sensationalist and unintelligent media, who again sensationalize the move as India vs. China. Sorry, I don't think I should provide a link here to these tabloids.

In Ethiopia, India's Apollo Hospitals will build a super-speciality hospital for $150 million. Its a wonderful thing, because in the long term, it will have such an enabling effect on the people who will have access to better healthcare, research facilities that will attract the best medical talent in Ethiopia and yes, it won't be manned mainly by Ethiopian doctors and other professionals, thus enhancing their own abilities.

Similarly, the information technology sector is somewhere India has been doing very well in providing aid and resources to its African counterparts. While information technology hardware needs intensive capital investment, and probably depends a lot more on markets to obtain economies of scale, the IT services sector, especially the BPO/KPO sector can be a great spur for the local education landscape, because it will spur people to be educated because there are jobs available, and a big industry invariably supports a broader spectrum of support services and industries around it. So its good to read that Ghana has a desire to do well in this sector, and its a very good feeling to read that India's helping them. This is what the third world needs - just ego-less help and support for each other. In fact, the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Center for Excellence in ICT in Ghana has been functional since 2003. In Ghana, India's also going to assist in a multi-thousand crore fertilizer project, another project that will go a long way towards agriculture and food security.

India's actually deeply involved in the INR 4,500 crore The Pan-African E-network project with the African Union, which will eventually connect all African nations by fibre optic cable and satellite links! The man who announced this program first was none other than India's great son, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.

There have been similar strides in virtual education and telemedicine, aided by India's strong portfolio of satellites. IGNOU now has plans to open an Indo-Africa Virtual University soon which will focus on very very relevant and important subjects, such as health sciences, vocational training, food and nutritional security, and gender empowerment. IGNOU is already a part of the Pan-African E-network project.

Of course, one of the biggest areas where I have again and again written about the great support India and Africa can provide each other is medicine - cheap, affordable, and effective medicine, a concept which the big drug companies of the developed world can never relate to. If the rich white world had its way, they would have cut India's supply of cheap medicine to the third world a long time ago, and they never stop trying.

A big factor in any international relations is the people. It is my opinion that when governments actually try hard to increase people-to-people interaction, and genuinely invest in developing social and cultural ties, that's when relationships strengthen. India and Russia used to have that for many years, but that's all a thing of the past now. With more African airlines flying into India soon, I really hope a lot more African tourists visit India, and I really really hope our ignorant society does not treat them in its usual racist way - serve the white, scorn the black. Perhaps with more societal linkages, our society, ever lapping up the western pop culture, can realize how common we are to the cultures and cuisines in Africa, especially the east and north, a point which the Prime Minister also raised there.

For those interested, the Africa-India Framework for Enhanced Cooperation, released on 25th May, 2011 at Addis Ababa, is a good read on what the African Union and the Government of India think of as important going forward. For me, nothing will make me happier than to see the third world unite in this utopian picture I have that will make them independent - independent in their economies, and independent in their thought.

European Monetary Fund

2011-05-25T13:02:00.002+05:30

The former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has been in the news lately because he tried to rape a hotel employee in New York City. He's denied all charges, and has been let out on a bail of USD 1 million and a USD 5 million insurance bond. I think according to the latest news, his DNA has been found on the dress that the lady wore at the time he tried to rape her.

In such high profile cases, its quite possible that the actual truth might get muddied with a lot of conspiracy theories and special interests, and this is probably going to be another example of just that. However, this is where I stop talking about it.

Now that Strauss-Kahn has stepped down, the race to be the next MD of the IMF is speeding up, and a few names have already come to the fore, actually, just one, and Europe's already pushing all its might behind her. She's the Finance Minister of France, Christine Lagarde. According to many western media news sources, she's a popular candidate of the west, and the IMF itself. Somehow, my own impression of the news coverage of the BRICS, and other emerging economies' protest, is that they are reporting it as an irritant to the process, and that it will be once again, upon the west to help out the third world which can't seem to get its act together.

Lagarde, who would succeed countryman Dominique Strauss- Kahn and become the first woman to lead the Washington-based lender since its founding in 1945, now has the backing of Europe’s main economies and, according to her government, China. Brazil will also privately support her rather than backing her main rival, Mexican central bank governor Agustin Carstens, a Brazilian government official said.

“It’s looking like it’s almost a done deal for Lagarde,” Desmond Lachman, a former deputy director at the IMF and now a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said by telephone. “The emerging markets can’t get their act together and back one candidate.”

The IMF executive directors representing Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa did unite yesterday to protest publicly the presumption that the fund’s next chief once again be a European.

“We are concerned with public statements made recently by high-level European officials to the effect that the position of managing director should continue to be occupied by a European,” the directors, who serve on the IMF board, said in a statement yesterday. “If the fund is to have credibility and legitimacy, its managing director should be selected after broad consultation with the membership.”

I really don't know what game the Chinese are playing when they are supporting Lagarde's candidacy nonetheless, by allowing France to officially announce that she has the Chinese support as well.

The IMF and the World Bank have been the playgrounds of the Americans and the Europeans ever since they were formed, and these two entities are determined that it remains that way.

"It's a European consensus," Francois Baroin, France's budget minister and government spokesman, told Europe 1 radio.

"The euro needs our attention. We need to have the Europeans (on board), the Chinese support the candidacy of Christine Lagarde," he said.

The United States, who sources in Washington have said will back a European, and European nations have enough joint voting power at the IMF to decide who leads it.

I get the idea that the Americans and the western Europeans have already started taking the third world's opinions NOT seriously in this matter, and like I said, they probably consider that its just a minor irritant that they will be able to brush aside without much effort. Unfortunately, they may be right, unless the BRICS, being the most vocal of the third world economic blocs, raises its voice and shows that it is very serious when it says it believes in "abandoning the obsolete unwritten convention that requires that the head of the IMF be necessarily from Europe."

For the Europeans, the need to stay of top of the IMF appears to emerge primarily from the fact that their own economy is screwed up, and that controlling the agency will allow them to perhaps circumvent many rules and regulations that the IMF and the WB have historically forced the third world nations to be subjected to. That is my opinion.

According to the media, there seems to be a common theme in reporting - lack of unity. The Asians apparently are unwilling to support a non- Asian candidate, Brazil does not want to support a Mexican candidate, and China's supporting France because it does not have its own strong candidate. While at the same time, Europe and the US seem united in backing Lagarde.

Ah, I guess the world still has to be a white man's burden, but this time its to shamelessly protect their own economies while the developing world watches.

dabbling in slime

2011-05-21T11:37:00.000+05:30

I have a great interest in Indian politics - I like to know what's going on, what kind of alliances are being made, and what kind of shenanigans committed by our elected leaders are ridiculously obvious. Of late, most of my interest in politics has been of extreme rage, I think mainly because of the obviousness of the deception that so many of the leaders at the national and state level are pulling and yet we've been either helpless to do anything or blind to see it. I believe its the first one that is more prevalent.

The last few years of the UPeeA regime have been an epoch in terms of Indian politics and governance, because this government demonstrated on a lot of fronts that no low is too low. What has been fascinating is the absolute brazenness with which the leaders of this country go about doing what they do best without a hint of fear, guilt, shame or anything else for that matter. Sometimes I just can't figure out what is bigger news - the societal/social aspect of such news or the political aspect.

Today for example, M. Karunanidhi's daughter, who is also a Member of Parliament in the Upper House, was denied bail and sent to jail for her role in the 2G Scam, one of UPeeA government's grand milestones in office. So I am not able to understand what the news is - that a wrongdoer who made money off the process is being punished, or that the DMK is angry at the CONgress for letting her go to jail?

I don't know, my fragile little mind is just unable to grasp what's important here. Blah, what does it matter anyway? Two dynastic political parties playing politics with each other shamelessly while the nation watches? So what else is new?

My personal opinion is that when it comes to subservience and sycophancy, the CONgress is an unbeatable party, but then i've been proven wrong for a lot of things in the past.

"There is no doubt the Congress is to be blamed for everything, even for Kanimozhi's arrest today. What have they done to help us? Nothing," said a former DMK minister angrily.

...there was a sense of shock and betrayal among DMK cadres in the run-up to the April 13 assembly elections over the arrest of former telecom minister A Raja in connection with the 2G spectrum scam. It is now boiling over into a deep resentment and anger against the Congress with the arrest of Kanimozhi on Friday.

So yes, I suppose I can say that those who have served the Karunanidhi family well would be shocked that their great leader's daughter is going to jail for something in which they all - the family, the party and some minions, they all made money. Hmm, but just like in international relations, so too in politics, there are no friends, only interests. So yes, now that the scam is done and the money divided and the scapegoat found, I suppose it was time to move on, but could it be that maybe even the CONgress felt that this time the general public seems a lot more restless and unwilling to move on so easily? So no worries, you show to them that you care and you get a few more people arrested.

Okay, we know that the system is entirely and completely twistable right? Maybe that's why the DMK is angry with the CONgress, because with the games these two are playing, I am sure they must've allowed the courts to go ahead and deny bail to her and arrest her. Its quite akin to the recent MMRCA decision to downselect the Americans - It was a political decision to let it be a technical decision. Of course all politicians are connected by similar thoughts and feelings and if nothing else, at least share an honour among thieves. So now that the Tamil Nadu elections are over, JJ is back in the saddle and the DMK is routed, thus comes the arrest of Kanimozhi. Sitaram Yechury may not be much of anything else, but at least he can see far into the future.

So despite all these claims that the law is slowly taking its course and slowly even the big names are coming under the scanner in all these scams, somehow the 'whiny bitch' in me tells that its all a farce which should die down once the population of this nation moves onto more important things such as more cricket, Bollywood tabloid stories and other good things.

And what does your Prime Minister do? Well, he's the most adorable, impeccable, honest leader we've ever had, so lets just deal with this minor issue ourselves and leave him alone, shall we? What about the first family? Oh how can one even think they would even stoop to such level? Yes, its best we leave them alone too and deal with our own problems.

In fact, this quietness has been a hallmark of this government, which has gone about doing everything that it has been doing - good and bad - without any need or desire to tell the nation about it, or even attempt to explain or debate the issues. Of course, these people were brought back to power even stronger by the people of the country. I wonder what we have to say for ourselves now?

According to Shekar Gupta in the Indian Express:

From day one, UPA 2 seemed like it was embarrassed by the very factors that had given its voters such an aspirational belief. It was shy of talking growth, employment generation, modernisation, even national pride. It was shy of even sending a thank-you card of some kind to those who had voted it back to power.

This has been the quietest, the most shy government in India’s history, and nobody can govern this country from the trenches.

Because in a democracy, politicians must speak with people, to sell their ideas, plans, explain their mistakes, promise redress, and so on. But here, Sonia and Rahul rarely, if ever, speak in public. They almost never speak to the media or make an intervention in Parliament and rarer still on behalf of the government. The party behaves as if this government has been outsourced to bureaucrats. The prime minister too speaks rarely and his minders seem to not only draw great comfort from it, but also take pride in it, as if they have a prime minister they need to protect, and hide from public interaction and gaze.

This reminds me of that warm sunny day when the Prime Minister addressed the nation and talked about how one has to accept these things in coaltion politics. As the joke goes, the Prime Minister's response on the 2G scandal was - "I know only 2G - Sonia G and Rahul G."

and why global health needs more funds...

2011-05-19T11:16:00.001+05:30

There's trouble brewing in Nairobi as the Government of Kenya seems unable to meet its commitment to increase funding towards health and HIV. Protesters have taken to the streets to force the government to keep its promise on this issue.

Marching along Nairobi's busy Thika Road, protesters waved posters urging Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and US President Barack Obama - who pledged during his presidential campaign to provide US$50 billion to fight HIV globally by 2013 - to keep their promises. Other placards read, "You Talk, You Talk, We Die!" and "Broken Promises Kill!"

Perhaps the Government of Kenya can keep its promise if the moneyed nations of the world, including the President Obama-led United States, can come together and increase funding for HIV and healthcare across Africa and other poor nations of the world. Of course, they will have to stave off the pressure from their own Big Drug, and that has always been a sticky wicket, considering their deep pockets and influential pull across political corridors in most major governments in North America, Europe and even Asia.

Quoting more from the news story:

Demonstrators cited recent groundbreaking research showing that antiretroviral (ARV) treatment drastically reduced HIV transmission among discordant couples as justification for more funding for the pandemic. An estimated 44 percent of new infections in Kenya occur among married or cohabiting couples.

Unfortunately, while the need for the western world's money to flow into research and support of the global effort against AIDS and other diseases needs to grow, it seems to be shrinking.

Two consecutive rejections by the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, flat-lined funding from the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and an end to funding for paediatric ARVs from the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative have significantly dented Kenya's ability to fund its AIDS fight.

The country has put more than 400,000 people on ARVs, but another 600,000 need the drugs and have no access to them; an estimated 1.5 million Kenyans are infected with HIV.

In 2010, the national budget set aside an unprecedented 900 million Kenya shillings - about $10.5 million - for the purchase of ARVs, and the activists said the government's most recent application for $340 million for HIV from the Global Fund had been successful. However, this will still not cover Kenya's funding gap for HIV, which is estimated at $1.67 billion up to 2013.

Trying to look at this issue from a third person's point of view, who is sitting far away from Kenya and belonging to a country which says it has all the signs of being an economic power, I can understand that the Kenyans' first expectation to support the research and funding towards HIV is from their government, but I can't help but note that the Government of Kenya, in itself, it not too strong an entity financially, as a relatively smaller global economy, to make adequate funding towards research and eradication. Now if Kenya, which, comparatively, is one of the more well to do states in Sub-saharan and western Africa, is facing funding trouble, how can the poorer nations of the region be expected to do any better? But as we can see in the world around us, when it comes to the environment and global healthcare, I think nations will just have to buckle up and try to take care of themselves, because more often than not, global promises of support are not met. Now some countries such as India choose not to do anything domestic healthcare despite having resources and power of mobilization, but suffer from acute shortsightedness and lack of will to do anything, but I do hope the governments in Africa will not be so incompetent in this issue.

I hate myself

2011-05-18T16:42:00.000+05:30

I hate myself. I hate myself because I want to rant about this world's excessive dependence on oil, this world's excessive and gratuitous production and consumption (barring the millions in the poorest of nations who simply do not figure at all in our frame of reference) and my own inability to not be able to lead a life that cuts down its dependence on the modern forces of production and most unfortunately, consumption.

I say I love nature, and so do the millions of people who buy things sourced from factories consuming coal, fresh water, wood, etc and spewing out sludge and fumes. We all have this good intention in our heart and yet we just can't resist buying that new phone, or that new gadget, or whatever modern products that our bursting economies have access to.

That's what frustrates me. An individual is weak, and individuals form societies, and societies form government, so should it be hard for me to fathom that the global government structure will not be able to find a way out of this ravage of our natural resources because there is simply no other choice? Do we stop living the lives that we are living now? Can we change our lifestyle? Can we stop taking the bus, taking the train, taking the plane, or stop driving the millions of cars and other vehicles covering every corner of inhabited land on the planet?

There are still regions on that planet that host a number of species of flora and fauna and where the tentacles of human consumption and this need to be in control have not reached yet, and such regions have long been in the firing range of the numerous global supermajor oil and gas exploration companies, who are just salivating to drill. Since this whole world revolves around what the United States thinks and does, so obviously we need to pay attention to whats going on there, because what they follow in policy, they have a great tendency to make others follow soon as well. Of course, its not a one way street of course. When the world wants to get together on things such as Kyoto, then the supercop will have nothing to do with it. Sure the Obama administration is keen to increase penalties on erring oil & gas companies and increase their own ability to tackle disasters, both financially and legislatively, but what is lacking from the developed west, with most of the financial resources and talent teeming in their research labs, is the drive to discover and invent and strengthen sources of renewable energy. That hurts me. This should be a global mission, because oil can't be replaced overnight, but what this world can do in earnest, is find ways to make it more sustainable. Acres and acres of forests are being felled everyday in the Earth's tropical forests to make paper that will be turned into credit card mail spam and toilet paper for most of the developed world.

Gratuitously consume, baby, gratuitously consume.

Here I am, a treehugger worrying about what will happen to this planet as more people consume more and as more third world nations begin adapting the lifestyles of the rich nations, but the priorities of the world are totally different. A big multi-billion deal between two oil and gas giants from the western and the uhh, Russian world to drill in a most pristine Arctic region breaks down and the financial media reports that the failure of the deal puts the region back on the block for other companies to pounce on! What hurts me most is that I am a foot soldier in the same economy and am too weak to do anything about it.

So the region that we are talking about in this deal between BP and Rosneft is the Kara Sea. Its north of Siberia, and home to a number of endangered species such as polar bears, walruses and beluga whales. According to news sources, this region is also one with very perilous weather, thus implying that it will be difficult to put in place the entire gamut of technologies and construction which will make drilling safer and less polluting for the surroundings, and thus if a disaster occurs here, then it'll be environmental armageddon for the entire region.

India and China, well, as so-called leaders of the third world economic renaissance, say that they can't allow their economies to sputter because of these so called environmental concerns because they have every right to provide their citizens with the same comforts and facilities that the developed world is able to provide its citizens. Point taken, but why do these nations miss the point that the third world needs to embrace nature and a more sustainable way of development not because the developed world is forcing it to, but because it needs to to ensure and strengthen its own long term survival.

To give a small example - in a global economy, consumption leads trade, and that consumption, for the most part, is coming from the developed countries. Now what happens to the whole production juggernaut in a small country making cotton textiles for a European country when that European country is no longer able to pay for them? With the way Europe is going these days, I can foresee days of severe austerity ahead of them, and I think it was a long time coming.

An issue raised today is that electricity produced from renewable sources, such as solar or wind power, is much costlier per unit than electricity produced from conventional sources. That is the gap that the world needs to bring together now. If the last two hundred years of innovation and discovery have shown anything, it is that the possibilities are endless, but only if the resolve is there. There is no reason why solar energy can't be harnessed more, by developing better technologies, just to give an example.

Why would it hurt India to prod every home in this country to go for rain water harvesting? Why can't societies and colonies across the country get together and collectively implement it? The same with solar energy. I occasionally read some commentary on how India gets ample sunlight throughout the year, and how it can be harnessed.

But but but, most importantly, the issue lies in not how we can feed our consumption better, but how we can make our lifestyle more sustainable. This is the biggest failure of our civilization, that we simply can't protect the environment from the spillovers of our lifestyle, be it dirty water which we fail to clean, dirty air which we fail to purify, hydrocarbon products that continue to choke and kill animals on land and sea, and our inability to use our own resources and technologies efficiently. I've already said it before and i'll say it again, humankind will kill all the species on this planet which do not adapt to our lifestyle. Dogs, cats, crows, pigeons can stay.

Supreme Court on Endosulfan

2011-05-17T10:33:00.000+05:30

When I wrote about Endosulfan last week, I ended my post with a note saying that the Supreme Court's decision was due to arrive shortly then. Since then, the Supreme Court has indeed passed its comments, and they have banned the production and use of the drug for the next eight months, till they receive and study two research reports currently being prepared on the issue.

Even then, I had said that even though the cost on human life and health is great because of the use of the drug, that is not the only factor that the government and the judiciary must consider when deciding on the merits or demerits of taking a decision on it.

For one, what alternative does the farmer have if not Endosulfan? Unfortunately, none, or at least none that is safer than Endosulfan. With the Supreme Court banning the production and use of the pesticide, many farmers are up in arms because they fear without the drug, the success of their crop will be in serious jeopardy. Besides, the industry is estimated to be worth Rs. 500 crore, and probably employs a substantial number in the organized and unorganized sector.

And of course, as I had written earlier, one simply can't dismiss the serious economic costs of putting an end to its use. One point raised by the Solicitor General was that Endosulfan still did not have any conclusive evidence of its toxicity, and that perhaps the sufferings in Kasargod were a result of its over-excessive use, which some other media reports point to as well.

A distinct characteristic of a free (well, relatively free in our case) society is that you can question even the person who gives the judgement. So the association of manufacturers questioned the very right of the Supreme Court in this matter to pass judgement, and thus, they said, over arch themselves into the executive domain. When the government of India has checks and balances in place to monitor and report on the use and 'alleged' effects of using the pesticide, why should the judiciary get involved in it?

The sad fact is that the government still has not conducted any thorough study till date. Had such a study been conducted, and there was some greater understanding on the actual toxicity of the drug in humans, flora and fauna, then perhaps the steps to counter it could have been started much earlier. Of course, the system in India is not designed to pre-empt anything. Its only meant to shuffle around AFTER tragedies occur. Thus, as the Supreme Court rightly said, when the issue becomes the protection of life itself, then the protection of business interests and all other interests become secondary.