A conversation overheard

A friend and I were discussing such things as Earth Hour 2009, Climate Change, Lifestyles et. al. when I was reminded of this.  Around the middle of the 4th Semester, I went to Bangalore for a small workshop in IIM Bangalore, on OpenStreetMaps.  I stayed very close to Forum, India’s largest multiplex, in Koramangala.

While coming back from the institute on the first day, I sat next to a young lady and a girl aged three or four, in the bus. Looking at their clothes, it was easy to guess that they were poor. The girl’s hair hadn’t been washed for a long time, and they were probably returning from work. As the bus went past Forum, the girl, asked a question in Hindi, “Woh kya hai?” (What’s that?) The lady replied, “Usey mall kehte hain. Jo ameer hote hain, woh wahan cheezein khareed sakte hain” (It’s called a Mall. Those who are rich, can buy things there.)

The girl, amused, asked, “Achha, toh kya jo ameer hote hain, unko aam roshni mein dikhta nahin hai kya?” (Okay, so are the rich unable to see in normal light?)

The Spam I Get

Hunk Sends a Teddy. Now why would any hunk want to do that?

Five Questions to Independece Day

Written on 15th August, 2009. The first two lines were posten on facebook, that very day. The full poem, here goes.

Trysts with Destiny, and pledges were many.

Oye Independence Day! Did we redeem any?

The charming statesman, that eloquent speaker.

You heard him 18 times. You liked our first leader?

And your twin! Pakistan’s Independence day.

Do you talk to him often? Tell us, what does he say?

You must write to him, you must. As you must answer these questions.

Do you get pained, that you must come every year, without cancellations?

You would have heard the two nation theory, back then.

Are there two India’s today also? Or are there ten?

I don’t want to press for answers. It might sound funny.

But I really want to know. Did we redeem any?

Surprise!

Hindustan Times.

New Delhi edition.

October 03, 2009.

News for the previous day, October 02, 2009.

Page 11 – Nation.

The RSS decided that the best way to celebrate the International Day of Non-Violence must be to  organise a worship of weapons.

A tweet by the affable Shashi Tharoor, in which he proposed that the birthday of the Great Soul be celebrated by working harder on that day, rather than by enabling a long weekend, was appreciated by the opposition.

The UPA chairperson, while celebrating 50 years of Panchayati Raj in Rajasthan, claimed that the voice of many villagers is still stifled.

And the central government finally realised that many cases of women abuse go unreported, specially in rural India.

But wait. Stay put.

Look carefully. An ad by the Times of India, in the Hindustan Times. How in this world?

Another one – The TOI’s claim – Come face to face with the other India. As if!

Decentralisation in South Africa

Presentation to my DS batch, for HS 318 Decentralisation and Governance. The book, Decentralisation and Local Governance in Developing Countries edited by Pranab Bardhan and Dilip Mookherjee was one of the main texts for the course, and this is the summary of the last chapter, Decentralisation in South Africa by Martin Wittenberg. My presentation, after which is Wittenberg’s essay.

People’s Vehicles

When India was launching a ‘people’s car’, popularly called the Tata Nano, South Africa was doing this.

Think about it. We want a car for ‘everyone’. Development is not all that good.

Shame on you, India.

And thanks to the South African government, for giving some hope in these rather dark times.

Openness and Closeness: Terror, Injustice and Globalisation

An assignment for HS 312, Globalisation and Change. Abstract follows, and the full text can be downloaded.

Abstract: This short essay takes a critical look at arguments forwarded by Quan Li and Drew Schaub in their paper Economic Globalisation and Transnational Terrorism: A Pooled Time-Series Analysis to assess their claims in a broader perspective, paying particular attention to those aspects of globalisation and terrorism that they ignore in their study. It is found that while their study is largely robust and gives a fair conclusion, its narrow research design does not provide much insight into terrorism or global politics, a fact that they themselves acknowledge. I pay particular attention to claims on poverty and terrorism, which, though peripherally related to the course on globalisation, are important issues to be dealt with.

Keywords: Terrorism, Globalisation, Injustice, Political Research

Full Text

Smitu Kothari

Smitu Kothari died today. I did not know him personally, but have occasionally read his work, and much that I think about social movements and people’s struggles is informed by his writings.

I do not know much about him, hence will direct readers to this interview where he talks about his work.

The first time I read him was when he wrote a reply to Ramachandra Guha’s article, “The Arun Shourie of the Left” where Ram Guha offered rather useless criticisms of Arundhati Roy’s involvement in the Narmada Bachao Andolan. Kothari’s reply, appropriately titled ‘Who Can Speak for the People’ was the one which put the issue in the correct perspective.

I leave you with a speech made by Smitu Kothari, called the A History of the World Bank, made for the Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank in India (For some reason, I am unable to embed it here).

Energy and Human Development

“Finding firewood for cooking is the problem. Very soon we will have to go to the town to buy firewood”

- Vijayalogada, a Woman, Sri Lanka[1]

“Gas heating is a great joy for us – it was very difficult to stoke with wood that you first need to gather and fetch from far away”

- Takthakupyr, a poor elderly man, Uzbekistan[2]

“Of course I wish I were in school. I want to learn to read and write… But how can I? My mother needs me to get water.”

- Yeni Bazan, 10 year old girl, Bolivia[3]

Communism 2.0

Have you ever wondered what would it be like to live in Soviet Russia or one of it’s many offsprings? Or do you, by any chance believe that the only time mankind reached Utopia, it was there, it was there, it was there?

In that case, head straight to the Ganga Mess in the IIT Madras campus, and you would know what life was like. Have a look at the average lunch hour queue. The average time spent by a person to get food would easily more than the time spent eating it.

PS: The credit to the pics goes to Ducky. I had asked him to take them with his phone, and then happily forgotten. Until yesterday, when I recieved a mail from him, attaching the pics. Thanks, Ducky.