Ten Issues - 21

1- Barefoot - The other side of lifeHarsh Mander -: Can anyone really live on Rs. 26 a day, the income of the officially poor in rural India? Two youngsters try it out.

2- Powerhouse on your plate! - Easily accessible and affordable, millets are making a comeback to Indian kitchens, says Shonali Muthalaly.

3- The everyday embrace of inequality :The institution of paid domestic labour produces cleanliness, meals and childcare, but it also produces and reproduces an unequal home and society.

4- Salman Rushdie & India's new theocracy :-India's secular state is in a state of slow-motion collapse. The contours of a new theocratic dystopia are already evident.

5- BCCI: Billionaires Control Cricket in India by P. SAINATH

6- 42 per cent of Indian children are underweight - Hunger and Malnutrition (HUNGaMA) report by the Naandi Foundation – were described by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a “national shame” at a release function here on Tuesday.

7- The complex contractor-maistry system, the devastation of agriculture, an ineffective food-for-work programme, debt and debilitating mass migrions - these are an explosive mix. P Sainath joins migrants fleeing the desperate conditions in Mahbubnagar, seeking a meagre living in faraway places : The bus to Mumbai (Part I) and The wrong route out? (Part II)

8- Looming disaster : Handloom weavers in Andhra Pradesh are in a crisis brought on by policy blindness and the emphasis on powerlooms.

9- Bt Cotton, Remarkable Success, and Four Ugly Facts.

10- Walking With The Comrades :- Gandhians with a Gun? Arundhati Roy plunges into the sea of Gondi people to find some answers...

Ten Issues - 18

Harvard professor Larry Lessig is one of our foremost authorities on copyright issues, with a vision for reconciling creative freedom with marketplace competition.



1- The Indian state of Bihar has long been a byword for bad governance. It was however governed particularly badly between 1990 and 2005, and has since experienced something of a ‘governance miracle’. How can we account for the 1990–2005 deterioration? Through this working paper - State Incapacity by Design: Understanding the Bihar Story, we will understand that the low state capacity is often a political choice.

2- La Grande Revolution, Encore? A comparison between France of 1787 with present USA as both had financed an overseas war with borrowed money.

3- The War Dogma: This article appears in the July issue of Agenda/Infochange for the theme on the ‘Limits of Freedom’. An insight on Dantewada and Operation Green Hunt.

4- Playing fast and loose by Pratap Bhanu Mehta : A overview of tussle on Janlokpal Bill - A morally insidious vacuum in government. A self-proclaimed civil society displaying its own will to power. A media age where being off-balance gets you visibility. A public whose mood is punitive. An intellectual climate that peddles the politics of illusion.

5- A weakness born of bad intent by Siddharth Varadarajan: - The UPA government's unwillingness to act against the abuse of political and corporate power has created a vacuum which others are rushing to fill.

6- Do you want to be watched? - The new rules under the IT Act are an assault on our freedom. A report by Sunil Abraham who is the executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society.

7- "Tragedies darken when their victims refuse to understand the causes. Intellectual failure has thus been the principle deficit; which means the so-called men of intellect are to blame". Interview with Dr. Mobarak Haider, A political activist, scholar and renowned writer of English and Urdu.

8- Demystification of myths by Nadeem F. Paracha - In the last thirty years the number of people in Pakistan who pray regularly and attend collective prayers in mosques has risen three-fold. So have the number of mosques, madressas, Islamic evangelical organizations and religious programming on TV - and yet the rates of rape (including child rape), drug addiction, public humiliation of women has steadily maintained an upward trend.

9- Why dream borrowed dreams? - One of the most seductive myths that the Indian middle class and its elite believes in is that the 21st century is the Indian Century. A deep analysis of this myth by Shiv Visvanathan.

10- Disgust, Magical Thinking, and Morality : A short article on Morality and feeling of disgust.

Ten Issues - 13

1- Dark side of giving: The rise of philanthro-capitalism --- Large philanthropic resources are being utilised to further the interests of business.

2-Noam Chomsky interviewed by Ajaz Ashraf and Anuradha Raman in Outlook magazine, November 1, 2010. The man NYT called “arguably the most important intellectual alive” finds the media in Pakistan more vibrant than it is in India.

3- Elections come and go. But the immigrant issue goes on forever [PDF]: A quarter century post the Assam Accord, political parties in the state still seek votes on the issue of illegal Bangladeshi immigration, reports Tehelka Reporter Kunal Majumdar.

4- Stan Ovshinsky’s Solar Revolution : His inventions from 50 years ago enabled cell phones, laptops, and flat-screen TVs. Now, at age 88, he’s aiming to make solar power cheaper than coal.

5- Why Do Some Countries Win More Olympic Medals? Lessons for Social Mobility and Poverty Reduction :- Not everyone in our country has equal access to competitive sports. Many are not effective participants on account of ignorance or disinterest, disability or deterrence. This analysis considers two separate arenas for enlarging the pool of effective participants, one related to sports and other to social mobility. A paper by Anirudh Krishna and Eric Haglund.

6- Scorched Earth Tactics Return To Chhattisgarh : Eric Randolph question whether the security forces really understand the basic tenets of counter-insurgency theory.

7-10 ways the government plans to keep peace in Kashmir is a mix of stern and soft measures to keep the stones away by Tehelka Reporter Iftikhar Gilani.

8- Experiments with facts by Ramachandra Guha on Joseph Lelyveld’s Great Soul ;

9- Reading and Race: On Slavery in Fiction By Edan Lepucki. A runner up of 3QD prize.

10- The price of prosperity By C. K Lal : Limits to freedom in any imperial domain are drawn where the sovereignty of the political and judicial systems begins – in highly institutionalised societies, sovereignty lies in the system rather than in the people.

Quote of the Daya : Here’s a brief passage from Hayek 1976 essay “Socialism and Science” posted a few days ago in the comments by Richard Ebeling:  “A society in which everyone is organized as a member of some group to force government to help him get what he wants is self-destructive. There is no way from preventing some from feeling that they have been treated unjustly — that feeling is bound to be wide spread in any social order — but arrangements which enable groups of disgruntled people to extort satisfaction of their claims — or in the recognition of an ‘entitlement’, to use the new-fangled phrase — make any society unmanageable.”

Ten Issues - 5

1- Who pays the price for paid news? : In mid-June, the Election Commission of India directed Chief Electoral Officers of all states and Union Territories to enforce the law against "paid news" during elections. The institutionalised racket has been running into hundreds of crores of rupees. Ammu Joseph brings you up to speed.

2- Lokayukta stand on illegal Bellary mining has put Government of Karnataka in trouble. Santosh Hegde, the Lokayukta (ombudsman) for Karnataka gives first hand account to Tehelka Magazine.

3- Why you must read this censored chapter: Raman Kirpal reports, When the truth about the flouting of tribal rights in the Red Corridor struck home, the government dropped a whole chunk of damning material from a report it had itself commissioned.

4- Living with the Enemy: Applying the ideas of Holocaust survivor Jean Améry to present day Rwanda, our author argues that reconciliation after genocide is just another form of torture.

5- How Goldman gambled on starvation: Speculators set up a casino where the chips were the stomachs of millions. What does it say about our system that we can so casually inflict so much pain?

6- Why You Shouldn’t Leave the Web to the Web Guys : Here are a few simple rules that will help you get the most out of your web development and digital strategy.

7- “10 Ways to Run a Banana State” ; Kopach, a columnist for the independent portal Okno.mk, published a list translated at Global Voice Online.

8- Size of the Public Domain : The basic take away from the analysis was the finding that, based on library catalogue data. A take on copyright issues.

9- Narayana Hrudayalaya: A Model for Accessible, Affordable Health Care.

10- The Narcissism of the Small Difference: In ethno-national conflicts, it really is the little things that tick people off. Check conclusion of article here only :

One of the great advantages possessed by Homo sapiens is the amazing lack of variation between its different "branches." Since we left Africa, we have diverged as a species hardly at all. If we were dogs, we would all be the same breed. We do not suffer from the enormous differences that separate other primates, let alone other mammals. As if to spite this huge natural gift, and to disfigure what could be our overwhelming solidarity, we manage to find excuses for chauvinism and racism on the most minor of occasions and then to make the most of them. This is why condemnation of bigotry and superstition is not just a moral question but a matter of survival.

Thought of Day : When an ordinary farmer unable to feed his family commits suicide, it is not even a footnote. When a model, no matter how faded, kills herself, it is in headlines on all television channels. That is corporate media for us.

Ten Issues - 1

The first step in solving any issue is accepting the presence of the problem. A man convinced against will is of the same opinion still. So let us broadened our opinions about issues here -

1- Before the home ministry raises new paramilitary battalions, it needs to ask why the old ones are quitting in droves. raman kirpal reports on a brewing crisis : Soldiers of Misfortune .

2- Taking offense an be a competitive sport. Islam is forefront runner in this game : Not Even in South Park?

3- Opposition to reservations for women in Parliament have centred on at least four points. Step by step Vaijayanti Gupta rebuts the arguments and re-iterates the case for reservations. Women’s reservation Bill – the 2010 story .

4- Need tribal voices for their rights to counter corporate propagandist nationalism. The Fall Out Of Dantewada By Vidya Bhushan Rawat.

5- David Mumford reviews Kim Plofker's Mathematics in India ;

6- In this interesting paper [PDF], Lant Pritchett argues that India, despite its economic strides and democracy, is a "flailing" state:

7- Micro-foundations of Inclusive Growth [PDF]: The aim of this chapter is to go beyond these short-term and sector-specific concerns to broader questions of policy making in India and, at the same time, to focus on the relatively neglected subject of the micro-foundations of macroeconomic policy.

8- Remedial Education : Research by J-PAL affiliates has shown that providing remedial tutoring for children who have fallen behind academically can improve learning outcomes. Evidence from their study has contributed to the scale-up of NGO Pratham's Read India program in 19 states in India. In 2008-09, 33 million children benefited from remedial education through the Read India program.

9- Dropout engineering a hundred orphan dreams. Society needs person like Rajesh Singh as their role model. Thanks Vivek Padmanabham for the weblink.

10- Selections from Dalit Writing ; Let me close 10th section with an old Indian tale which maybe has some insights. A father used to read his child bedtime stories. One day the child asked the father, ‘Dad, how come in all the stories you read, the hunter always bags the tiger.’ The father thought for a moment and replied, ‘When the tiger learns to write you will hear that story.’

Thought of the Day: Conversations have three levels : people, incidents and ideas. The lowest form of conversation is about people. When we go up one rung we reach incidents which have a slightly larger spectrum than talking about people. But the conversation which really matters is when we talk about ideas, because they are universal and live beyond time and space. - Javed Akhtar

Let's make life interesting !!!

I don't know what to write today. The blank spaces between mine words have more meanings than this whole blog. Now, few words for world around me. When we win a match against Pak in Hockey World cup, certainly times appear good if we look at confident India. Then, three continuous defeats expose our inability to change and do vocal politics.

After acute crisis majority of people returns to sense, and then again going numb with time. The “His troubles, his miseries & his problems will fall on my head if I support him” is part of our whole system in the country. In a talk the famous historian Antony Beevor gave at the Galle Literary Festival recently,he made an interesting point. While bemoaning the lack of historical accuracy in much of the media, he said we had entered a “post-literate phase”. By this he meant that images had superseded the printed word as the vehicle for disseminating history. Consequently, TV and movies now determine which historical narrative is believed.

Personal Life: 'Let's make life interesting' and be more social in interaction with others. That was my motto of change. I had written in my diary one months ago that "Its so tough to push yourself for something you have never done. Preaching others about discipline and simplicity is much easier task but following it much tougher. I am trying to tame myself in discipline and a minimum level of presentableness. I am trying to change and each moment of transition is pain ." I failed somewhere in the transition and caught between my desires and goals like Trishanku. I was lacking will power but not motivation. Still, its consequences are devastating.

I want to return to old life of loneliness. I don't want to continue this life of extrovert and express my feelings completely. I tried to change and people misunderstood me. When you believe in open society, it reflects in your nature. People listen less, understand minimum and assume more. I am again back against wall alone. I want to drink Vodka and kill my consciousness some time. One person trusted me and believed that I can change. I changed but it is appearing futile now. I will again go back in my cave of silence and solitude. The world didn't need me, its better for me to keep mouth shut and die. I create myself in the mirror of others and now annihilating same personality. The death of the heart is the saddest thing that can happen to you. And, I died yesterday...

Thought of the Day :One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die. -Franz Kafka

Read few links for knowledge:

1- How an artist was shorn : Husain sees through an idol, giving it a form that may outrage some, but is not inconsistent with India’s aesthetic explain Salil Tripathi.

2- A university's tryst with rural health: The story of an anti-HIV/AIDS programme in Tamil Nadu's Namakkal district may hold many lessons for the health professional and policy-planner.

3- Allah’s Left The Building: Meant for Muslim welfare, Wakf lands are being sold for a song by its trustees.

4- Mr Chidambaram’s War: Arundhuti Roy opposes military action in Maoist affected areas.

5- Of all the voices that opposed the introduction of Bt brinjal, one was most significant — that of 84-year old T V Jagadisan, the former MD of Monsanto India. Interview with Tehelka reveal his view point.

Unoriginal Vichaar

When I read the stories of Deep joshi, Venkat Krishnan, Sandeep Pandey & Kiran bedi, it helped me realise that these were ordinary guys who fell in love with something, worked hard at it and came through excellently. I hope that someday I will do something on my own merit, and earn the right to meet them. Till then, learning is the way to go.

Death of Nationalism: CPM is known to have extreme intolerance to any struggle that is not led by them. They will label those struggles as foreign funded or a Maoist uprising, how much public support behind the struggle becomes irrelevant to them. Congress is the mother of all regional parties in nepotism. There are only kripa-patras (sychophants) and chamchas (yes-men) left in the so-called socialist and regional outfit. 'Elections are fought to win and not to lose' , a nepotism supporter proclaim. 'But what of socialism? The lumpen brigade of socialist parties cannot be trusted to usher in socialism. Patriotism is the love to your country, not the refuge of scoundrels like BJP. Nationalism will have fulfilled itself and lost it militancy and would no longer find these things incompatible with self-preservation and the integrability of its outlook. Its the era of transcendentalism by eliminating boundaries of region, religion, color and caste. I dream that a new spirit of oneness will take hold of India.

Message: While awaiting for joining at CSC, Abhishek Arora sent me a sms one day. And It is the best SMS ever received by me---
Hum kuch iss tarah dosti nibhaenge, naukari na mili to bilkul nahi ghabrayenge
dono stationpar chai ki dukan lageynge, tum chai banana, hum chai chai chillayenge.

Mail: This one is from my mailbox (sender name kept secret) about youth icon Sania Mirza (no disrespect, but she is too hot)---
Kashti toofan se nikal sakti hai, Taqdeer kisi bhi waqt bhi badal sakti hai,
Hausla rakh, channel na badal, Sania Mirza kisi bhi waqt jhuk sakti hai...... 


Weblinks:

1- Blogs cannot change India: Atanu Dey

2- Interview of Lord Meghnad Desai

3- Capitalism and Humans Nature

4-Why Operation Green Hunt will fail ?

Today's fortune: To know the road ahead, ask those coming back. Otherwise, Those who forget history are condemned to relive it.

Vichaar Shoonya + 2

On the profound truth which is a hybrid of reality and mythology, There's no one truth & On telling stories ;

What Have We Done to Democracy? - by Arundhati Roy

Does the Internet spread democracy? - by Evgeny Morozov

India’s Maoist dilemma: the case of Lalgarh by Aaradhana Jhunjhunwala

A Former Street Kid Sizes Up 'Slumdog Millionaire'

Rashmi Bansal's Talk at IIT-Kgp covered by a blogger.

Thought of the Day:
“You see with your eyes, you hear with the sense of your hearing, you feel with your sense of touch, and all these senses are nothing but functions of your mind which is nothing but a thought which in turn is just an idea… so if you close your eyes and go to sleep the world ceases to exist and when you wake up it comes back in different shapes and forms to every living being on the earth.” – Arthur Schopenhauer (The World As Will and Idea)

Mera Bharat Mahaan

Frederick Douglass had written over a century ago. “Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them … . The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

Naxal problem is making up a civil war like situation in India. And we are talking the losses in the terms of loss of life in encounters. The big picture is going beyond our imagination and tales of exploitation of dalits, labours and adivasis is echoing the real India.

Shoma Chaudhary examines the tricky and dangerous terrain of Operation Green Hunt, the offensive against Naxals, might blow up in our faces: "Dalits and adivasis comprise a staggering one fourth of India’s population, yet are disproportionately destitute and low on the Human Development Index scale. Worse, they suffer the most humiliation and indignity: the proverbial insult on injury. Our country represents a show where 77 percent of Indians live on less than Rs 20 a day while 5 percent enjoy lives that border on obscene excess. For most urban Indians, the lives of tribals and dalits has no meaning, no face, no flesh. Our books no longer write of it, our films no longer evoke it, our journalists no longer cover it. It’s not just the poverty; it’s bumping into a face of the Indian State you have never seen before: brutal, illegal, rapine, pimped out to serve the interests of a few. "

Study CPI Maoist booklet on Salwa Judam Movement for understanding the root cause of the movement termed as Naxalism. Still want to know about hidden reality of Salwa Judum movement, for the seekers of truth: The Inconvenient Truth -- the real face of Corporate governance. And below written is my naive idea about our 'Swades' with little reasons and more emotions.

The struggle for social justice is against those that produce resentful domination in power distribution in society. Sociopolitical change is best when organic—rising from the bottom rather than imposed from the top—the odds of assimilation improve dramatically. Populations that are better informed and better connected to opportunities, in societies where information and access are widespread tend to marginalized between few people. India has low social mobility, and say that in villages in two Indian states where 300 children had graduated from high school, only four had found well-paying, white-collar jobs. Advancing information and enabling access are as much a critical part of enhancing development success. The sacrifice of human beings on the altar of abstractions or the subordination of the realities of individual happiness or unhappiness in the present to glorious dreams of the future has stopped us from achieving our dream of just and liberal society.

History and journalism is the inquiry through medium of story telling of past and present respectively. Journalists living and reporting from the grassroots are more vulnerable than those based in the cities. Things are pretty savage at the grassroots level and the fear of police and the vested interests is quite high, a fact quite neglected by armchair journalism by news channels in India. Journalists who investigate and uncover the truth take enormous personal risks – This is precisely why local journalists need greater support and protection to continue their good work.

The chaos in the society is always caused by group of persons who had hardly travelled, and relied for information on policy documents and the reports of media personalities sitting interviewing elite or middle-class contacts in big cities. Hence, their narrow idea of the world never captures the whole scenario. Despite the Internet and the revolution in communications, there is still no substitute of foot soldier work needed for journalism. The medium of Internet is used for distribution of information but there is always need of 'primary' who can record the voices of dissent or support of each person of the society. India today is diseased with propagandist journalism. Corroded with corruption, the death of idealism, communalism and deep casteist divisions which has resulted in a steady degeneration...

The young generation of seventy's inhabited a Nehruvian world. After a few wars and riots, India was witnessing a decline of idealism, there was disillusionment with socialism. Baba Amte, J.P. ,Vinoba Bhave and others are now gone in the past. Their followers like Shyam Benegal, Vijay Tendulkar, P Sainath, APJ Kalam and Mahasweta devi are on the verge of last years of their lives. I am looking into the empty space where there are no heroes or protectors to idealize life for. The youth icons are now Shahrukh or Sania. Its not the insult of star actor or player but showcasing of their dwarfness in comparison to previous set of role models. Practical mentality how good can be, have never been as inspiring as idealistic personalities.

An escapist culture of consumerism is fast replacing the tradition of mass struggle and writers, cinema and media is obsessed with the loves and lives of the urban middle-class. There is a loss of ideology in the wake up call of globalisation and India Shining. Handful of people are there working for the people but the sense of closeness among community is dissolving with time. The distances has reduced but the alienation among people is spreading. The rise of individualism with the fall of social values is changing the scenario. The feudal mentality, caste superiority feeling and religious divisions are coming to surfaces from the deeply rooted consciousness of new generation. The 'dalits' are searching for new myths and symbols for reworking of community histories and mythology. This ecstasy of rising and shining India should be shown the face of ground realities of India. And this need lot of work at ground level by media and citizen journalists. For, to quote from Mahasweta Devi's essay The Seventies and After: "These are bad times, these are the times to work. "

Salaam IPL or Salwa Judum

Two News affected me in this 24 hour.Just want to capture the big news in summary and small news in descriptive way. Feel free to read and choose importance of them.

Deccan snatch title in tense finish.

My views: The fortunes have reversed. Desi team and videsi captain strategy works for winning this year also. Previous year 2nd last team is runner up and 1st season's last team gets championship of IPL season 2. Akon with Katrina instead of Gilly and jumbo after the match disappoint me. But the most discussed name among all of us was of fake IPL player blog. He has showed the power of blog and anonymity to the media giants in gossip/news coverage. For fun, surely KKR will be hoping to win tournament next year after this turnaround of DC. For more usual stuff, follow the grand story coverage on cricinfo.

OR

Supreme Court grants bail to Binayak Sen:

It took just 30 seconds. And five words: “Bail is granted on personal bond.” But these numbers pale when confronted with another, 24 — the number of months for which Binayak Sen was in jail, before the Supreme Court granted him bail on Monday. The initial charges against Sen were weak and prime witnesses turned hostile during the trial. Yet Binayak Sen remained in jail for over two years. Even convicted criminals got bail faster. Curious about Dr Binayek Sen, know about his identity on wikipedia only.
From the rediff reporting 3 paragraphs:

"The Binayak Sen case is primarily about the rotten state of affairs in the rural hinterland. It's about higher poverty levels; shortage of food and lack of nutritional planning for the chronically undernourished; it's about missing healthcare; lack of protection for the vulnerable; it's about rampant exploitation of the forest dweller and tribal peoples. The districts where Maoists or Naxalites [Images] are active, and it's true of not just Chhattisgarh, as we all know have the worst social infrastructure, and thus offer the best breeding ground for extremism and violent conflict.

The case is also about one vision of development colliding with another that is backed by the might of the state. Bastar and adjoining districts of Chhattisgarh are home to the highest concentration of mineral rich deposits in the country and is one of the reasons why these areas have become high-intensity conflict zones. Is resistance to land acquisition by industrialists a major contributory factor to the violence in the state? Few are aware of the extent of the problem in Chhattisgarh. Thousands of tribal people have been uprooted from their forest habitations -- close to 650 villages in the forest areas are reported to have been cleared in an operation reminiscent of the ways wars were fought in Southeast Asia -- and have been housed for the past five years in refugee camps that are run by trigger-happy and lawless elements who are supposed to be fighting the Maoists.

If this is how democratic states function surely we need a reform of India's democracy? But these and related issues are seldom raised in the general clamour for reforms that have picked up in crescendo post the election verdict. One and all, media pundits who have been setting the reform agenda for the new government are screaming for reforms that are focused exclusively -- and predictably -- on financial sector liberalisation."

Still want to know about hidden reality of Salwa Judum movement, for the seekers of truth: The Inconvenient Truth -- the real face of Corporate governance.