Ten Issues - 11

1- State legitimacy and resistance : State derives its legitimacy from its institutions. Its these institutions that give State credibility and roots to live in the society of hostile crowds.

2-The ‘Viral’ Revolutions of Our Times – Post national Reflections by Aditya Nigam

3- Interview to Devinder Sharma :- On Food Crisis and Corruption. An Interview with One World South Asia: "Corruption has fuelled India's economic growth.

4- Growth and other concerns by Amartya Sen

5- Comments and Responses by the author : Socialism of 21st Century : Author Sunil

6-  An Interview with Guernica Magazine. In the wake of sedition charges by the Indian government, Arundhati Roy describes the stupidest question she gets asked, the cuss-word that made her respect the power of language, and the limits of preaching nonviolence.

7- The multi-individual society By Pratap Bhanu Mehta - An look on liberalism and multiculturalism.

8- Reluctant heroes: International recognition offers a degree of protection to investigative reporters. But, writes Lydia Cacho, being in the limelight presents a new set of dilemmas.

9- Information technology and economic change: The impact of the printing press BY Jeremiah Dittmar.

10- All Religions are not same, but Fundamentalists Are By M J Akbar : The four principles of a modern society, which is a necessary prerequisite of a modern state, are gender equality, political equality, religious equality and economic equity.

Quote of the Day: People do not like to be treated like fools, or backward infants, or extras in some parade. There is a natural and inborn resistance to such tutelage, for the simple-enough reasons that young people want to be regarded as adults, and parents can't bear to be humiliated in front of their children. One of Francis Fukuyama's better observations, drawing on his study of Hegel and Nietzsche, was that history shows people just as prepared to fight for honor and recognition as they are for less abstract concepts like food or territory. --- Christopher Hitchens

Food Food Everywhere but not a grain to eat

It becomes imperative, therefore, to strike a balance between the economic and social functions of land. A model of development that excludes one in the favor of the other loses out on the very basic meaning and purpose of development.

Public Distribution System (PDS) :

Public Distribution System in short PDS means distribution of essential commodities to a large number of people through a network of fair price shops (FPS) on a recurring basis. The commodities are as follows:- Wheat · Rice · Sugar · Kerosene

PDS evolved as a major instrument of the Government’s economic policy for ensuring availability of food grains to the public at affordable prices as well as for enhancing the food security for the poor. It is an important constituent of the strategy for poverty eradication and is intended to serve as a safety net for the poor who number more than 330 million and are nutritionally at risk. PDS with a network of about 4.99 lakh fair price shops is perhaps the largest distribution network of its type in the world.

PDS is operated under the joint responsibility of the Central and the State Governments. The Central Government has taken the responsibility for procurement, storage, transportation and bulk allocation of food grains, etc. The responsibility for distributing the same to the consumers through the network of FPS rests with the State Governments. The operational responsibilities including allocation within the State, identification of families below poverty line, issue of ration cards, supervision and monitoring the functioning of FPSs rest with the State Governments.

India State Hunger Index

The India State Hunger Index (ISHI) is a tool to calculate hunger and malnutrition at the regional level in India. It is constructed in the same fashion as the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2008 and was calculated for 17 states in India, covering more than 95 percent of the population.

It combines three equally-weighted indicators:

1. the proportion of undernourished as a percentage of the population (reflecting the share of the population with insufficient dietary intake);
2. the prevalence of underweight children under the age of five (indicating the proportion of children suffering from weight loss and / or reduced growth); and
3. the mortality rate of children under the age of five (partially reflecting the fatal synergy between dietary intake and unhealthy environments).

Full report of INDIA STATE HUNGER INDEX Comparisons of Hunger Across States Purnima Menon, Anil Deolalikar, Anjor Bhaskar [PDF file]

Please have a look on - Land Reform in India: Issues and Challenges by Manpreet Sethi [ PDF file]

Music, Mango and Samosa

Music:
Indians are exposed to a lot of rural folk, bollywood music, pop albums and bhakti songs. Few of us also ventures into Indian classical and Carnatic music also. The unique amalgam of traditional music and popular cinema sounds, being performed by musicians on stages and arenas, depicting the cultural lifestyle of Indian. I am here giving you links of street music of Indian. You may have heard thousand of western classical, rock, jazz and blues but I insist for giving attention to our own musical heritage: Street Music of India.

Samosa:
Kanpurites has good sense of business sense and one of the example is here.Its a story of branding and marketing Samosa in recent times of Lokshabha election.

"The sweet shop in focus is Satya Sweet House's one-rupee 'samosa' and rightly naming it as 'Nano Samosa'. It is the current hot favourite with the political workers of the various political parties. To ensure the smooth sale of samosas to field workers of political parties the shop has made some special arrangements. The shop has set a target to sell 6,000-7,000 samosas daily. It is supplying 1,000 samosas daily to district Congress party headquarter at Tilak Hall alone, while BJP office is trailing with a consumption 600-700 samosas per day." [As read in India Today]

Mango:
I am not great fan of Mango like Mirza Ghalib but really missing the diverse mango varieties in Hyderabad. I have never eaten Malda and Aamrpali (Bihar region), but now wants to taste these varieties. Before that, rolling again back to the Kanpur memories, a reproduction from local news of Kanpur..

"There is hardly anything tempting about summers but for the succulent mangoes. As the sun beats down mercilessly,the only good thing is arrival of aam in the city. Kanpurites wait till the end of May to dig into their favourite varieties -- Langda, Chausa and Dussehri. Before that, they have to settle for the more readily available Alphonso, Badaam-Safeda, Totapari and Gulab Khaas.

And if mango is the king of fruits then Alphonso is the king of mangoes. Alphonso mangoes are known for their superior quality and their sweet taste. The northern belt, especially UP, is known not only for its varieties of mango but also for the legends associated with it. Legend has it that the Nawabs of Awadh and people in Bihar planted thousands of mango saplings in their area and hence, the maximum number and variety of mangoes are from this region. People of this region have also experimented with methods of hybridisation and grafting to produce new varieties. Another legend associated with this variety of the fruit says that the famous Langda variety of mango was a result of a chance seeding near Benaras." [Times of India]

Wah Kanpur,Ahh Kanpur!-1

I had not taken birth on the land of Kanpur but my heart belongs to here for ever. I have fist arrived on the soil of Kanpur on 9th July,1994. I was on the verge of completing 9 years of my life. Half of the previous life was passed in the hills, Nanital and remaining half was spent in the small town, Salempur. Kanpur was contrast to them in all ways...

Kanpur is shown in the films very few times despite its metro nature in Hindi heartland. I had watched 'Bunty and Babli' just because it has 5-10 scenes filmed in the Kanpur. And in the 'Dhadak Dhadak' song,when AB jr. is standing on the train top at the background of railway bridge on Ganga river, the cult movie become 'paisa vasool' for me. I recall with this scene about the train on narrow gauge (now converted into broad gauge) piercing Kanpur through middle and Doodhiyaas both in and out of train rushing back to kannuj, farukhabad....

And now on screen has come the clincher - Tashan. No film has used a city so intrinsically in its screenplay as Tashan does for Kanpur. Bachchan Pandey (Akshay Kumar) and his antics as Raavan, crimes as an electricity thief, dialogues as a collection agent, sighs as a Roadside Romeo and most stunningly, his language are so Kanpuriya that its unbelievable!

And after a high-voltage fight scene, Saif pays homage to the city of Kanpur in a perverse sort of way by saying – “In logon ke beech mujhe zinda rehna hain, to mujhe akalmand banna padega, khatarnaak banna padega, Kanpuriya banna padega…”

I heard a string of decorative words in my first season at the school. Kanpuriya people blend slang so fast with full flow of pure hindi that kanpuriya dialect become most sublime language in the world. For example mumbaiya word 'Raapchik' can be exclaimed in continuous streak of four different words prevailing same sense: Behtareen, Chaukas, Sateek, Jhakaas.

Koi Sagaa Nahin…
Gulzar’s one (self-acknowledged) act of plagiarism is the famous line from the 'Bunty Aur Babli' title song… (Aisa) koi sagaa nahin, jisko (humne) thagaa nahin. This, in turn, is the super-famous punch line of the super-successful 'Thaggu Ke Laddoo' of Kanpur. Known far & wide for his laddoos, Thaggu got his name from his grandfather, who started the shop and was particularly ashamed of using sugar (a videshi product) against the call of Gandhi. In an allusion to Gandhi’s verdict that anybody using foreign-made sugar is actually robbing (thago-ing) the nation, he called himself Thaggu – and the name stuck till date as a super brand! Intensive research is currently on to figure the origin of the other famous product of his – the Badnaam Kulfi. Thaggu’s confidence in his products shows through one more of his punchlines… Mehmaanon ko mat khilaiye, tik jayengey!. To know more about communist poori and apradhi aata, log on to Laddu Special.

You can also get 'Makhan Malai' at Meston road. It is brilliant and worth to taste..Not to forget south indian restaurant opposite to the IIT gate or Lucky Restaurant at Awadhpuri on G.T. road. The last stop of the Veggie Express has been identified in the city of Kanpur is Gyan Vaishna: A sattvik eatery, situated right next to a traffic junction (which, in turn, is very close to railway crossing) at Jareeb Chaukee. So, even if you do not get run over by a train, auto or bike while trying to enter the restaurant, you will find eternal bliss in their ghee-laden preparations of aloo gobi, daal tadka and fresh rotis. And they some how manage to gauge your fullness. So after a while, the benign waiter smiles and provides tissues and water - without trying to hard-sell their mithais. Priceless!!!

.............I love Kanpur...............