Beginnings of an Environment Saviour....

I was in my college library today flipping through some books, gathering material for some research that I am doing. I was all engrossed in the books when suddenly in Mark Blaug's (ed.) book on Economics of Education I found this old postcard from 1983, 5 years before I was born. So this one is addressed to some member of Kalpavriksh and is an invitation to a debate on "The Political Economy of Environment in India" at the Faculty of Arts, University of Delhi by C.V. Subba Rao. Inquisitive, I checked on further. Kalpvriksha is an environmental action group, established in 1979 and works on environmental awareness, campaigns, litigation, research, and other areas. It has taken a position on a number of environment-development issues, more often than not confronting the state through measures ranging from protest letters to street demonstrations. Now, seemingly a very active organization, the postcard dates to a time when they had just begun working for a very important cause. According to their website the organization was actively involved in protests against the destruction of the Delhi Ridge and also the Chipko Andolan amongst many other important issues.

It's amazing to see that post was once so important. Having been the Secretary of the Economics Society of St. Stephen's, I myself have been involved in organizing talks and lectures, and these days it's so easy to communicate. We would just use e-mail or SMS to spread the details. But in 1983 it was different, even the landline I believe would have been expensive. Yet, people did all the hard work to invite people to talks using the resources they had. I am sure it has been an amazing journey for Kalpavriksha and I hope that they are very successful in the work they started and are continuing to do. Cheers!

A Secular Hope

It is festive season again and with it comes joy and happiness for all. It's time to catch up with relatives, buy new clothes, start new ventures and re-kindle old friendships. In the joyous mood as we are, all of us have our plans to celebrate the next month with the biggest festivals of the country around the corner. However, this Sunday it's time for victory of good over evil again - for it's Vijay Dashami. As effigies of Ravana will be burnt across the country, it'll mark the day when Lord Rama defeated Ravana and we shall make ourselves belive that truth and justice shall always win over evil.

However, ironically, there has been an age long battle going on still in this country in which everyone seems to be loosing. The issue of who owns the "Rama janma bhoomi" (Lord Rama's birth site). Now there are arguments about who's wrong and who's right and who should own the land and all arguments seem to be fitting and none can be out rightly denied. But I'm not getting into that here and the motive is not to make this a political debate. The larger issue is that somewhere the idea of secular India is getting hurt, one way or the other. It is evident that "perfect" justice at least in this case is not possible to the extent that you'll come up with some argument, no matter what, justifying your claim. And it appears, as it does due to various events of recent times, that the idea of India is about to perish.

But today, these children, around 10-12 years in age, came to my home to invite us to celebrate Vijay Dashsmi in the neighborhood. They were basically going to each residence to invite and also collect some money to make the necessary arrangements for the event. I was surprised to see their enthusiasm and the excitement. Reminded me of my childhood. They were all lit up with the idea of burning Ravana. So in conversation, I asked them their names. To my surprise, two of them, a girl and a boy, were Muslims.

It is satirical that when the elders of these children are fighting over the so called "birth-site" of Lord Rama from opposite sides, they want to together celebrate the victory of Lord Rama, the victory of good over evil.  You know, events like these give me hope that India is still secular, that the idea of India still prevails, that at least the children in this country are not so corrupt from heart and soul as their elders, that had they been given a choice they would have wanted a community park in Ayodhya where they could have celebrated both Vijay Dashami and Id together, where they could have established an emblem of humanity defying all those who thought India won't be secular and that minorities here shall forever be dominated.

In these angelic souls I find hope. Hope that the dream which today is only a partial reality shall someday be a light to the world, the dream of the World Largest Secular Democratic Nation - the Idea of INDIA.

Is Abolishing Ragging Hurting Stephen's?

I was with some of my friends in the college "Cafe" the other day, a place which we as Stephanians have been very proud of. Well not because we call it the "Cafe" and not "Canteen" but amongst other things cleanliness, hygiene and most importantly the ambiance and the atmosphere. A place from where we have many fond memories, of discussions, of generating thoughts and also of simply "wasting" time chatting over absolutely "arbit" topics.

This instance, however, was not so pleasing. Junior members in the cafe were shouting on top of their voices, were sitting on the arms of the cane chairs (I have always found the chairs very "elite"), they had randomly moved the furniture all over the place and now no one has the courtesy to stand in a cue for the bills let alone respecting other members of college.

So all of us were wondering that how has the situation become so and has the legacy got lost with time? Well in some sense yes. The legacy, the manners, the courtesy, the "elitism" or simply put "the Spirit of Stephania" has always been passed down over generations informally through what people may choose to address as ragging.

Ragging or "positive interaction" at Stephen's was not as it is usually, in places around college. It was an integral part of teaching the next generation of Stephanians the "culture" that should inhabit them. For example the decorum that made the cafe, the "cafe" and not any canteen. And as we recalled, all of it, the way we conducted ourselves in the cafe, the dining hall, in college and in public was taught to us by our seniors. They corrected us when we were wrong. I accept that it was sometime a little harsh, but in retrospect I can say that all of that is truly taught us something that defines us as Stephanians.

I am sad that the legacy is no further being passed down anymore for someone can easily write to the president and the principal would not even care to listen to the other guy and chastise him as if he has done something grossly inappropriate. Healthy criticism that made St. Stephen's different is now a dead philosophy.  But this, as it is, has led to a decline in standards in college. The main corr that was always quiet and a decent place of intellectual overtones is now like some public bazar because no senior can check any first year at that. Cellphones and capri pants have become the usual attire of the dining hall. And all we can do is to hopelessly watch everything go down.

Sachin and Lara at Wimbledon

Courtesy: NDTV

Charter Cities...

Leasing cities to developed nations is Paul Romer's prescription to make poor countries richer.

Check out the link:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-politically-incorrect-guide-to-ending-poverty/8134/

It was suggested to me by Sanjay!

सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना

सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है
देखना है ज़ोर कितना बाज़ू-ए-क़ातिल में है

(ऐ वतन,) करता नहीं क्यूँ दूसरी कुछ बातचीत,
देखता हूँ मैं जिसे वो चुप तेरी महफ़िल में है
ऐ शहीद-ए-मुल्क-ओ-मिल्लत, मैं तेरे ऊपर निसार,
अब तेरी हिम्मत का चरचा ग़ैर की महफ़िल में है
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है

वक़्त आने पर बता देंगे तुझे, ए आसमान,
हम अभी से क्या बताएँ क्या हमारे दिल में है
खेँच कर लाई है सब को क़त्ल होने की उमीद,
आशिकों का आज जमघट कूचा-ए-क़ातिल में है
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है

है लिए हथियार दुश्मन ताक में बैठा उधर,
और हम तैयार हैं सीना लिए अपना इधर.
ख़ून से खेलेंगे होली गर वतन मुश्क़िल में है,
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है

हाथ, जिन में है जूनून, कटते नही तलवार से,
सर जो उठ जाते हैं वो झुकते नहीं ललकार से.
और भड़केगा जो शोला सा हमारे दिल में है,
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है

हम तो घर से ही थे निकले बाँधकर सर पर कफ़न,
जाँ हथेली पर लिए लो बढ चले हैं ये कदम.
ज़िंदगी तो अपनी मॆहमाँ मौत की महफ़िल में है,
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है

यूँ खड़ा मक़्तल में क़ातिल कह रहा है बार-बार,
क्या तमन्ना-ए-शहादत भी किसी के दिल में है?
दिल में तूफ़ानों की टोली और नसों में इन्कलाब,
होश दुश्मन के उड़ा देंगे हमें रोको न आज.
दूर रह पाए जो हमसे दम कहाँ मंज़िल में है,
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है

वो जिस्म भी क्या जिस्म है जिसमे न हो ख़ून-ए-जुनून
क्या लड़े तूफ़ान से जो कश्ती-ए-साहिल में है
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है
देखना है ज़ोर कितना बाज़ू-ए-क़ातिल में

This one is too close to my heart. So thought to have it as a post on my blog ... :)

What “Law” cannot shield its own countrymen?

The feeling was one of deep sadness and failure when upon reading the morning newspapers I got to know that Kasab had still not been punished. Further to aggravate everything, even if he gets the death sentence (which he fully deserves) it would still be almost a year when he’s actually hanged. And before that he can still appeal to the President for mercy. Until that time, the state shall be incurring costs for his food and security.

Fair amount of people in our country will advocate this a demonstration of the fact that the Indian Law is above all and does justice to everyone. But I do not see how it does justice to its own countrymen. We take over a year to convict a murderer who was caught on video mercilessly killing innocent people. I somehow cannot get around the fact that we need to even give him some trial. The fact that he’s a foreign terrorist and has murdered “Indians” should be enough to “feed him to the wolves”.

By delaying the process of convicting a criminal what are we portraying? Somehow is it that anyone can come into this country, commit an act of terror and then we’ll treat him to good food and secure accommodation. Why? Why should the taxpayers of this country even pay for his food. In some sense we are ourselves not sending hard signals to those sitting in Pakistan and hence encouraging them to treat us as weak and commit terror attacks time and again.

Can’t we learn anything form Israel and MOSAD? After the Munich massacre those guys literally hunted down all those responsible and murdered them with equal brutality, no matter where they were in the world. They have replied whenever it was required. And today, their enemies fear to attack them. Some people would say that I’m advocating violence. Well I’m not. All I’m advocating is the protection of my countrymen at all costs. And I’m not attacking at first. Be my friend and I shall be yours. But no one gives anyone the right to attack the citizens of this country.

One of the very noted journalists in this country wrote in his coloumn in the Hindustan Times, that we are targeting the muslims in India unnecessarily when there are protests against Dilip Kumar’s acceptance of award from Pakistan or Sania Mirza marrying into that country. My opposition is not against the muslims of this country. (When I wrote on Google Buzz against Sania’s marriage, which raised certain eyebrows I never even mentioned the word “Muslim”.) Let us take it case by case. The easier one first: Dilip Kumar’s. Well India was at war with Pakistan when they gave him the award in 1998. So you have a state that has been eternally responsible in killing your citizens in some form or the other. And they are very proud of the fact that they not only shot Indian soldiers, but they aimed and shot their eyes. Common, do you have no consideration for the families of these soldiers? Compare this situation when recently Amitabh Bachchan delined an award from Australia because Indian citizens were racially targeted there. To me Bachchan has character and Dilip Kumar is simply not an Indian. You do not bridge gaps when your countrymen are being killed and murdered specially those who lay down their lives at the front not caring about their own families.

Israeli PM Begin once wrote in a letter to President Regan, "My generation, dear Ron, swore on the Altar of God that whosoever proclaims the intent of destroying the Jewish state or the Jewish people, or both, seals his fate." This is the conviction of the Israeli’s and what do we do? Accept awards and marry into the country that is responsible for killing our citizens!

To the argument that not all the Pakistani’s involved in the terror attacks here. Well they are. They have a constitution that they themselves adopted. They themselves made a choice to stay in that country. They do not accept and neither feel sorry for the attacks in India. And that they do not do anything to stop the process is reason enough to hold each Pakistani guilty and responsible. For this I can’t have any feelings but that of revenge for all my people. Even if every one ends up with a “blind eye”, it should not be the case that only Indian’s end up with blind eyes. So yes Sania Mirza and Dilip Kumar are traitors and we are being extra soft at this moment. Our reaction and answers should match that of Israel if we hope for peace anytime soon in this country.

Question?

I wonder if you have noticed around you that small children are the ones who question too much. It’s simple because they are too inquisitive about things they see around them and hence they question. Some careful observation should also reveal that they sometimes question the well established stereotypes. What happens to children who questions too much? In all likelihood, the child will end up getting a good thrashing from either the teacher or her parents for being too “naughty” or “argumentative” or “undisciplined”. What is worth looking at is that it is not the case that the children are “undisciplined” or “argumentative” but that either the parent or teacher does not know the answer to the question or they find the question against the established social norms. I remember myself being told to be respectful towards my elders and just accept whatever they say because “elders are always right”. That’s so laughable. Why should they be right? Aren’t they not humans? And if they know everything they shouldn’t all of them be awarded the nobel prize? According to me, one who is scared of answering questions is one who’s wrong. You do not have to know the answer to each and every question, no one does but at least one can accept that. But instead they’ll accuse the child of sin. I mean lots of times it is so funny to listen a school teacher telling his student that she’s wrong and the teacher wont give any reason but that “the book” and the teacher himself has to know more by some rule of Heaven. It’s simply insane. What happens over time is that they end up killing the spirit of questioning in the child without realising the gravity of the crime they themselves are committing.

The ability to question is the key to innovation. It is a sad story that today in India research and innovation is way below world standards. And somewhere very intricately, the fact that we do not have the ability to question is responsible for it. Just to put things in perspective: look at the following graph.

Source: SCImago. (2007). SJR — SCImago Journal & Country Rank.
Retrieved April 29, 2010, from http://www.scimagojr.com

The Indian contribution to world research journals is way below that of the United States. Further, as of 2008 China’s contribution was more than four times that of India. Except TIFR and IISc can you tell if there are any world reputed research institutes in India? The IITs have been around for almost 6 decades now, are world renowned for training engineers but still have not been able to establish themselves as world class research institutes. I do not agree that money is the only factor. You might requires huge sums of money for research in sciences but in social sciences there is apt funding in this country. Yet according to Prof. Debraj Ray (from the New York University, who heads its PhD admissions committee and whom I’ve happened to meet personally), the general perception abroad is that Indians are very well trained but not good researchers. I’d leave it upto you to introspect the reason.

We feel proud at having disciplined children. Children who talk too much and ask too many questions, question which we feel they “should not” be asking, who refuse to accept our “orders” are immediately out-casted. Please introspect and realise that we are doing them and ourselves great harm. We are killing creativity. We are stopping development of new inventions which might change the world. Imagine if no one had raised their voice against “Sati”. Today we know that it’s a crime but back then it was “respect”. Times have changes yet our idea of “respect” has not changed. Questioning anything can do no harm. All that can happen is filtration of baseless concepts. “Elders” should realize that it will not make them any less if they “accept” that they do not know something and encourage their children to find what they are looking for. And it’s a fact, no one knows “everything”. And it is no good to become dictators and judges of your children and students. Let them question you. If you know everything and are “always right”, what are you afraid of?

The Pale Blue Dot

This narrow-angle color image of the Earth, dubbed 'Pale Blue Dot', is a part of the first ever 'portrait' of the solar system taken by Voyager 1. The spacecraft acquired a total of 60 frames for a mosaic of the solar system from a distance of more than 4 billion miles from Earth and about 32 degrees above the ecliptic. From Voyager's great distance Earth is a mere point of light, less than the size of a picture element even in the narrow-angle camera. Earth was a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size. Coincidentally, Earth lies right in the center of one of the scattered light rays resulting from taking the image so close to the sun. This blown-up image of the Earth was taken through three color filters -- violet, blue and green -- and recombined to produce the color image. The background features in the image are artifacts resulting from the magnification.

From Carl Sagan's public lecture at Cornell, October 13, 1994:

We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam. The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

The source is Prof. Debraj Ray's Home Page

Is Development Dividing Us?

India is today seen as developing and shining. It is seen as the emerging global economic power. The country that we see emerging before us has shining metropolises with McDonalds, fancy malls, flamboyant cars, expensive clothes and India is the most important market for this all. And we’d quickly jump to the conclusion that we are progressing in the right direction and that all this would eventually pull every one out of poverty. But from where I see it, our country is jumping into a pit from where it’d be hard to come back. We are developing a country where the “urban middle class” is progressing for sure, but this is also one country where near 80% of the population lives below Rs 20 a day, a country whose hunger is comparable to that of Sub-Saharan Africa. Surely a nation where poverty forces 15 year old girls into prostitution cannot be developing by any standards. And all this is making permanent damage to the society. It is such societal neglect and oppression that leads to violent outbursts which we often call ‘Terrorism’. The fault I believe is our own.

That India is growing at miraculous rates is very easily perceived as an indicator for a prosperous future. Much of this perception and inference is based on growth theories which would predict that economies (conditionally) shall converge over time. But what worries me is that the span of “time” is not certain. It has definitely not happened till now. Standard economic theory would also tell you that during the course of development as countries move from being agro based economies to the phase of industrialization the inequality first increases and then declines. All this looks very attractive on paper but we never realize the cost that comes during the transition phase – the phase of increasing inequality.

The last 50-60 years has not shown us convergence of any sorts and if we may just care to ponder a little deeper into this... its a lifetime! So on what basis do we claim that we are developing for the good? Specially when a lot of this so called “necessary evil” is permanent damage. A household once put into the darkness of poverty, at least in my opinion, has almost negligible chances to come out of the vicious cycle. And yet we talk of no reservation and equal opportunity when we are the ones putting families into the death knell and denying them the very opportunity that we ask for.

Let’s put things in perspective. I personally do not buy too much from Amartya Sen but one thing that he did put down on paper stands out essential and very common sense, just that with all the westernization we seem to be loosing of it all. In simple terms increasing inequality should increase poverty. After all a society where everyone has access to a maruti car vis-a-vis one in which some can buy just bicycles and others Hondas is better off even if the aggregate incomes in both societies is the same. There shall be a degree of stability and more happiness in such a society. Just consider two brothers with one chocolate each compared to a situation where only one sibling gets all the perks. The consequences are just a micro and over-simplified picture of what is happening around us. This concept of relative poverty is one that is used by most European countries and if we were to use a similar approach for India we would surely be performing miserably.

Seeing India in this light, the growth that we are looking at shall increase inequality to a very great and perhaps irreparable level. In the name of industrialization, we are snatching away land from the tribals, which I might remind you is un-constitutional. What country is it which uses its own military against its own defenceless citizens? Have we ever thought why the Naxal Movement is so strong? We talk about carbon reduction, global warming and eco-friendly systems and spend millions of dollars on huge conferences. And then it’d appear such ironic when we’d try to take land away from the tribals who live in perfect harmony with nature for so called development.

Land acquisition can be given a lot rationality and in it the cost is most often forgotten. In China, for example, farmers refused to give away their land even when they were offered two residential apartments against it. Reason, well not that they would earn less but because they’d become socially inactive landlords. They preferred staying active farmers. Just shows how important self respect is for the human beings.

One of my professors at the Delhi School once asked a question to a renowned pro-market economist. He said that instead of giving the farmers the present discounted value of their land while acquiring it, why not pay the present discounted value of the investment a company makes to it and the remaining capital to the society. Its the same logic turned on its head. The economist, well did not have any answer.

See, my views are not leftist or anti-industrialization. All I’m trying to say is that in any actions we take we should not forget some members of the society. So right now, if development means McDonalds for some and hunger for others I am against it. If development means food, health care, cheap medicine, equal right to education to all... then that is the direction I’d want the country to progress. There is no need to grow too fast if in growing slowly we can take everyone along...

Greetings...

Perhaps each one of us when in kindergarten are taught to greet everyone around us with the gesture appropriate to the time of the day. I had a late realization though that people around me, including me, have very conveniently forgotten this basic courtesy. I go to the Ridge behind college every evening to run. A few days ago I came across this old man, in rather shabby clothes, who was sitting on this solitary bench on the side of the track and feeding dogs. At first sight, he appeared somewhat insane through his mannerisms. I was listening to my MP3 player and did not bother enough to pay attention any further. However, when I went past him, he wished me saying "Ram ram". I was a little surprised as to why would some stranger wish me and very quickly came to the conclusion that the poor chap must be mad. I was however, taken aback when he said... "arey bhaiya shaam to raam raam to bol do" (At least in the evenings you can reply brother.) I felt a little guilty and replied back with courtesy.

I realized however, that we the so called educated masses, feel too heavy to even greet each other. Basic courtesy and gestures that bind us together as human beings, instills love around us have been forgotten. Actually, it should not take us anything and it is absolutely not necessary to know someone to greet him. Just the sheer bond of humaneness should be enough. It is from forgetting these little gestures have we created so much hatred amongst us. We as humans have forgotten our real-self and the easiest solution we find to anything is one of hatred and violence. The sense of brotherhood has got lost somewhere. We do not know each other since we do not want to. We like being strangers. We would not be if we could just stick to the simplicities of life. All that takes to kill hatred and spread a little love is a smile and a "Good Morning..." One doesn't need to shell a couple of thousand bucks on a Kingfisher flight to hear that. Just imagine how the face of the world could change if each one of us could just "GREET".