The Nostalgia of Circus

I have watched circus , the real one , with lions , elephants , camels and zebras , when I was 8 or 9 years old . 

A huge tent was erected in Gudivada near bus station. 

As a part of advertisement, a huge powerful light used to be focussed on to the night sky moving from one horizon to another . 

We , kids , used to wait eagerly to watch this marvellous spectacle in the sky . Each one of us had a different explanation for the light . 

We had two bullock carts and bamboo hut like roofs on to the bullock carts. 

Hay used to be spread thick and a couple of blankets on the hay , pillows , drinking water in tortoise shaped earthen jugs , ( tabeti kaaya) , snacks like karapposa, peanut jaggery sweets, peylala Pindi ( sweetened pop corn powder ) in a huge

 can, extra hay bundles and an empty bucket , hanging under the cart for watering bullocks . It was mid summer . Excitement ran from morning itself as the plan was announced. 

Dinner was served by 6 pm itself , and our family started out , 6 of us , last sister was not born I think , I am not sure . 

Me along with 3 or 4 of my age group friends in one cart and the family in another cart . Gudise bandi . For one cart , curtains at the front and back , so that passersby will not know ladies were in there . 

Two of our farm chief labourers driving the carts , with sickles in reach, for the return trip would be in the dead of the night , 15 km , 3 hours. 

With bells on the bullocks , a lantern at the back , we kids talking non stop about the circus stories we heard , some real , some imaginary , some outlandish. 

We reach by 9 , just 15 minutes before the show . 

First two rows of soft cushion 5 rs , next row benches 3 rs . A princely sum then. A 75 kg grain bag fetched 50 rs then from the government , open market 60 rs , as there was compulsory levy procurement. 5 bags per acre , I think . 

We go in some 10 of us , right on to the front row , staff tending to the bullocks outside in the parking area . Yes , there used to be bullock cart parking area , one rupee per cart . 

And the show starts .

If for the first show , lions were the last act , for the second show lions were the first act , as a huge metal fence was erected for the lions show . 

The ring master , a 5 foot five guy , with some kind of wand in one hand and a hunter whip in another , the lash of which used to sound like a rifle shot . 

Lions , a dozen of them , trooping into the cage , sitting on benches , roaring with anger sometimes , the ring master lashing the whip in the air to control the lions and we were transported to another world . With open mouthed wonder , disbelief and for years we couldn't understand why the lions had not eaten up this little guy as breakfast or a night snack. 

And the dwarfs . Jokers , they were called . Splitting the audience with laughter with their antics . 

Elephants playing football , young girls , skimply clad , riding zebras with one leg on each one . 

And then the trapazee artists , swinging wildly in the air , for one split second time stood still as they suspend in mid air without support and amidst the hoos and haas , another one catching them and on and on . Dropping from that height on to the net below was also another wonderment . 

And there was this body builder . Who would bend steel rods with bare hands , break bricks with one head blow and to the liking of the ladies and their shy smiles , used to shake his breast to the beat of the drums .

 Later on I learnt the art of this breast movement and in the hostel was a showman for the giggling girls . 

Finally show ends . We start back . This time , no bullock galloping . Calm , relaxed walk . 

The bullocks were the ultimate auto Tesla cars , Google Maps GPS , all built into one . 

The drivers too used to sleep off , with one hand on the sickle , bullocks always on to the left side of the road , everyone falling asleep immediately after consuming snacks and around ,3 am , the bullocks stop right infront of the house and nod their heads vigorously so that drivers wake up to the sound of the bells . And each of us kids were lifted and placed on the beds in the house. 

And we talked about it the whole summer and for years . 

Later on , these so called animal lovers got animals banned from circuses and the very act lost its sheen and became extinct . 

I was one of the fortunate of my generation to watch the real circus . 

Now everyday , politicians provide the same entertainment with their circus .

The Immortal Man

On this day 112 years back a person of Indian origin was born in France. None would have thought at that time that he would be remembered so well by millions of Indians with reverence and respect even after close to 25 years after his physical death. I think that makes him immortal. He was not a godman, or a politician, a leader with mass following , or a freedom fighter who would defy the British and go to prison umpteen times. His idea of freedom from the colonial yoke was industrialization.

He is Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata , fondly known as JRD Tata.  JRD was the successor of the Tata Group patriarch Jamestji Tata, who was a cousin to his father. 

JRD started as an apprentice ( unpaid I believe ) in the Tata Group at the age of 21 and became the Chairman of the flagship company Tata Sons by the age of 34. Once when asked the secret of his success, JRD replied that since he had no university education, he encouraged those who had.

Till a couple of decades back, the Leftist political parties and anti-industrialists used to  refer Tatas in a derogatory manner portraying them as greedy.  Tata and  Birla, as a phrase had become at that time a reference to super rich, personification of inhumane approach to business and profits. How wrong it was.

Indian Govt. Follows Tatas:

Nowhere in the world an elected government had taken a leaf out of the best practices of an industrial group for the welfare of the workers. It was JRD who on his own accord had introduced 8-hour work day, free medical aid , PF , accident compensation and several other worker welfare initiatives. The Indian Government adopted the same measures and made them mandatory after several years.

JRD was the only one who introduced the concept of the worker being deemed to be “ at work” from the moment he left his home for work till he reached home “ after work”, making Tata Steel financially liable for any mishap to the worker to & from work.

An avid aviator, JRD was the first Indian to obtain a pilot license  in 1929 and launched Tata aviation service in 1932. JRD started off as Chairman of Tata Group ( Tata Sons ) with just over a dozen enterprises and after five  decades he left the group with nearly a hundred companies. The feather in the cap was the starting of TCS in 1968, when except the scientific community, even Indian industry had no idea of computers and the possibilities they bring to the table.

A Humanitarian and a True Visionary:

Even several years before Independence, JRD had founded such iconic institutes  like Tata Cancer  Research & Treatment Institute, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and National Center for Performing Arts. These institutes are the shining examples of excellence even now like their Founder.

A few of JRD’s Famous Quotes:

Ø Money is like manure. It stinks when you pile it ; It grows when you spread it.

Ø No success or achievement in material terms is worthwhile, unless it is achieved by fair and honest means.

Ø Most of our troubles are due to poor implementation, wrong priorities and unattainable targets. 
 Awards bestowed on JRD were umpteen,including Bharat Ratna.
 He was succeeded by Ratan Tata.
 JRD Tata died on November 29^th, 1993 but his memory will live on forever.

GROWING UP IN INDIA

A few months back, my good friend Kali, a senior executive in a PSU, forwarded the below piece written by his friend Ramesh from Bangalore. I missed reading it then and when I was cleaning the mail box, I stumbled on it and was on to nostalgia after reading it. I was given permission by Ramesh  to blog the same and I thank him for it.

I am sure the Gen X will be nostalgic after reading it.

GROWING UP IN INDIA

This is a must Read if you grew up in India.This is about a generation of kids who eventually grew up tough and learned to make it on their own with no government subsidies, no unemployment benefits, no medical plans, no job openings to apply for, even if you had an education, no savings and for the most part, no inheritance from our parents. Most families lived from day to day and had no savings.
How true and so well articulated! To Us, the wonderful kids who were born in India and survived the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's.......... !!* First, we survived being born to mothers, some whose husbands smoked and/ordrank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate whatever food was put on the table, and didn't get tested for diabetes or any other disease! They were mothers who did not check their blood pressure every few minutes. Then after that trauma, our baby cribs and bassinets were covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We were put in prams and sent out with Ayahs' to meet other children with their ayahs whilst our parents were busy.

We had no child proof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets, not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking or going out on our own.

As children, if we would ride in cars there were no seat belts or airbags. We sat on each others laps for God's sake. Riding in the back of a Station Wagon on a warm day was always a special treat. If it was on a two scooter, mother on the pillion along with two elder kids and one or more on the front platform was not uncommon. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this! We would share a bhuta or dosa; dip a chapatti into someone else's plate of curry without batting an eyelid. We ate jam sandwiches or pickle on bread and butter, raw mangoes with salt and chillies that set our teeth on edge, and drank orange squash with sugar and water in it. We ate at roadside stalls, drank water from tender coconuts, ate everything that was bad for us from bhajias (battered and fried vegetables) and samosas but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING! We would leave home in the morning and play all day during the holidays, we were never ever bored, and we were allowed freedom all day as long as we were back when the streetlights came on, or when our parents told us to do so. No one was able to reach us all day by mobile phone or phone...... BUT we were OKAY!

We would spend hours making paper kites, building things out of scraps with old pram wheels or cycle rims, inventing our own games, having pound parties, playing traditional games called hide and seek, kick the can, 'gilli danda', 'seven tiles' and rounders, ride old cycles and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. Our parents earned less, never travelled abroad. Religion was never an issue, everyone trusted and loved each other, and came to each other's aid when needed. We never heard of or claimed our inheritance, whilst our parents were alive. We did not look for inheritance after they died too. They made sure we were alright. Never heard of pocket money!

We swam with an inflated tube which we got from somebody who was replacing their car tyres. We ran barefoot without thinking about it, if we got cut we used iodine on it which made us jump. Our parents ran after us, to give us castor oil, once a month!! We did not wash our hands ten times a day. And we were OK. We did not have Play stations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no I-Pods, no Internet or Internet chat rooms, no TV,.... full stop! Listening to music was a gather around! We did not have parents who said things like 'what would you like for breakfast, lunch or dinner'. We ate what was put in front of us and

best of all, there was never any leftovers. We polished the lot!!!

WE HAD FRIENDS, great friends, whose parents we called Uncle and Aunty, and we went outside and found them! They too took care of us, when our parents were away, and without any charge! We fell out of trees numerous times, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no compensation claims from these accidents. We never visited the Dentist! We ate fruit lying on the ground that we shook down from the tree above. And we never washed the fruit. We had a bath using a bucket and mug and used Lifebuoy soap. We did not know what Shampoos & Conditioners meant. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls. We rode cycles

everywhere and someone sat on the carrier or across the bar to school or the pictures, not cinema, or you walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them, and their parents, never let us go without a meal or something....

Not everyone made it into the teams we wanted to. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! This generation of ours has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

Please pass this on to others who have had the luck and good fortune to grow up as kids in India, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives, ostensibly for our own good, that changed what was good into bad and what was bad into worse.......

Those were the GOLDEN DAYS my friends of our yester years. !!........ 

http://dukkipati.blogspot.in/2011/09/gen-x-to-gen-z-what-difference.html 

Much Ado About Crap & Loo Rooms

The crap has hit the fan.  Along with it much pee has flown  in the country.  Nay, Nay don’t get me wrong. It is not about Anna or Baba refusing to pee or deliver the crap for the day to show solidarity with millions of poor Indian women suffering silently with cultivated constipation because they did not get an opportunity before dawn to relieve themselves on the roadside. Neither it is about millions of poor Indian men, peeing straight on a wall or a bush in the open.  Oops!! Sorry, for bracketing them in the category of “ Poor”. They each spend a day Rs 28  for all their worldly needs and how dare I call them poor. Apologies for my ignorance.

Back to the  issue of crap and pee of the privileged few that has raised much stink recently. This is about our august body, the Planning Commission  and its honorable Vice Chairman defending the “renovation of  2 toilets” ( actually they are 2 wash rooms ) in the Planning Commission’s office at a cost of 3 million rupees. And of course, precautions need to be taken to prevent other less privileged mortals in the same building from even having a look at these swanky places. So another half-a-million is spent to install access control and issue smart cards for just 60 of the privileged elite. All this info unfortunately had to be shared by the Planning Commission because of one  Right To Information ( RTI ) activist thumbing his nose into the crappy affairs of the Planning Commission. What a shame!. The government must immediately invoke the Official Secrets Act  enacted by  the Mughal ruler, Babar or the most recent one enacted for India by the British just 200 years back to punish any one who thumbs his nose into the smelly affairs of the privileged bureaucracy.

Since no such act has been extended for the matter in debate by the government, reams and reams are allocated for condemnation  in print media and panelists of all hues in visual media are just having a verbal diarrhea. What nonsense. These journalists and commentators seem to have no sense of understanding of how important it is to have  classy swank loos and crap pots in office, with Italian marble, Brazilian mirrors, best of the class faucets and fragrant toilet rolls.

However, we need not despair. Even though our intelligentsia and common men decried the need for such an extravaganza, our intelligent politicians immediately grasped the need for such essential items. So the Union Cabinet which met for the first time after the revelations on renovation, relegated all unimportant matters such as falling industrial output, currency slide, massive fuel price hike, economy in doldrums and discussed about the farsighted vision and approach to loos and crap pots of the Planning Commission in general and the Vice Chairman Dr.Montek in particular. Let us not be surprised if our parliamentarians in unison  vote for adding such swanky facilities in their quarters next parliament session  like they did every time to hike their pay and allowances.

The RTI activist, apart from bringing out into open the indulgence of Dr Montek and the importance he gives to luxurious way of peeing to discharge his duties, has also solved the mystery and perplexing declaration of the Planning Commission a few weeks back in declaring that anyone spending Rs 28 ( close to half a dollar) a day for every need is above the poverty line.  Dr. Montek has very vigourously defended this decision and here could be the reason.

During May and October 2011, Dr Montek made several  overseas trips, 18 nights, at a cost of 3.5 million rupees public money.  During these trips,  while crapping in the luxury of 5 star hotels, he realized that if India has to progress it should start with modernizing the most basic infrastructure, the toilets. He has fairly succeeded in this  field, judging by the curiosity and envy it generated amongst our cabinet ministers. One day recently when he has finished filling the newly installed crap pot in his office, tickled by the jet of water from the health faucet auto cleaning his arse, his brain cells became hyper active and he started seriously thinking on how to reduce poverty in the country.  As he was drying his arse with the scented satin smooth toilet paper, the revelation struck him.  Like Buddha after enlightenment, Dr Montek’s face radiated a serenity never seen before. With a contended smile, he adjusted his neck tie in the Brazilian mirror, smoothened the creases of his 3-piece Armani suit, looked around him at the toilet, grunted in satisfaction and called for a meeting of the Planning Commission the next day to discuss the vexatious  issue of poverty.  Each member in no time trooped into the wash room. While peeing,  Dr Montek in earnest talked about the imperative need to bring millions of Indians above the poverty line. Every member agreed with a vigorous shake.  Looking at the members, with a benign smile Dr Montek shared with them his brilliant idea of pegging the amount an Indian spends a day for all his needs at a certain threshold to move him from Below the Poverty Line. But no one could come out with the monetary number required for the poor for a day to survive. After much deliberation, the members agreed that the amount will be the same as the number of loo and crap pots in the renovated wash rooms. There were 28 of them. Hence, it was declared that from now on those spending Rs 28 a day would no longer be treated as poor in India.  With one gesture, more than 300 million Indians were rescued from abject poverty.

A few days later, the Union Government announced a major sop to the Now-No-Longer-Poor Indians. It has raised the subsidy from Rs 8,500 to Rs 10,000 for construction of toilets in their “ homes”.

A few weeks later, the Prime Minister has called for all Government agencies to tighten the belt. No, No not after crapping. The call was to bring in austerity at all levels.

India might lack in several things but never in humour.

FDI in Retail: Neither Boon Nor Bane

The deadlock in Parliament for a week over allowing 51% Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail was over, with Manmohan’s government withdrawing  the proposal “ for now”.  For the past week, we have heard and read Giga Bytes of information with Aye sayers proclaiming  FDI will bring in better prices for farmers and increase employment and Nay sayers  predicting it will wipe out the small kirana stores thereby increasing unemployment in the unorganized sector.                                              

To me, both are wrong.  For different reasons.

In the heat of arguments, everyone forgot that retail giants that will come in are giant transcontinental corporations  which empathize only with one thing. Profits and more profits.  It is a myth and naivety to even optimistically think these corporations will pay a better price for farmers than that is existent in the market. They will just replace the existing middlemen by they themselves becoming the middlemen and hoarders. Neither will they generate employment to the large extent being projected. In large retail chains, very few are employed in the store compared to the volumes. Even contract farming or captive farming where agreements are drawn beforehand  by the retail chain with farmers for purchase of entire produce has not worked to the advantage of the farmers as is evident from the basmati growers of Punjab, potato framers in Northern India with Pepsi and Subabul, eucalyptus growers in Andhra Pradesh with ITC paper mills. On the other hand, they impose extra burden on the farmer to bring in gloss for the produce like wax coating for apples and protective sponge net for pears.

 

The argument that these retail conglomerates will wipe out the corner store Kirana Wala is also unfounded. Already, India has retail giants for the last several years like More, Reliance, Metro, Subhiksha and a host of others but the mom and pop kirana stores never perished. They have a unique business model of extending credit, home delivery and personal relationship with the consumer. It is a common practice for these stores to give goods on credit even when the order is placed through the house maid or on telephone. In fact, it was Subhiksha that got wiped out and not the kirana stores.

India Inc. too stepped in crying hoarse that withdrawal of the proposal will be a blow to economic reforms and a great loss to farmers. Obviously, the tycoons were salivating at the prospect of  investing in the rest of the 49% equity and riding on the train of super profits. It was hilarious listening to these Armani suite wallahs glibly espousing the cause of farmers. None of the existing retail conglomerates paid a single rupee extra to the farmers than the market price.  With their clout and money power, they have become the biggest hoarders buying up huge stocks at distress price, hoarding them against all laws and selling them for windfall profits.

Rotting Food Grains at Govt. Storage Depots

The government should have announced a slew of measures for the benefit of farmers before the decision to allow Foreign Investment or Indian Investment in retail. It should have come out with plans for massive network of storage houses for grains and cold storages for perishable produce across the country.  All the produce should be bought by the government at a price fixed every two years giving farmers an opportunity to make a decent profit and impose a limit on the percentage of profit the retailers can sell the same. Also a pre-condition should have been imposed that 80% of all farm produce and manufactured goods that are displayed ( not sold ) in retail chains should be procured from within the country. This would have addressed the three most important issues that are plaguing the country, - rotting farm produce due to lack of storage facilities, distress sales by farmers leading to farmer suicides and dramatic rise in food inflation hitting hard the consumers. Instead of addressing the issue holistically, all the politicians without exception took hard stands benefitting none of the three stakeholders-  producer, seller and consumer.
Alas,  What a loss !!

Gen X to Gen Z: What a Difference !

I have no idea about when demographers started classification of generations, but the classifications fit the majority. And vast differences exist between each generation, and from generation to generation the gap increases tremendously.  First there were “veterans”, born prior to 1925 who have witnessed World War II and the tumultuous events of World history, next is “ babyboomers” born between 1940 and 1955 who would have come of age between 1960-1970. Rebellion against authority was part of their profile. They were the beneficiaries of economic boom of 60s. Then came Gen X,  my generation, born in early 60s  who were more rebellious against any type of authority and life was a constant struggle against every stereo type of authority. Usually they grew up with two or three more siblings in the house and had to share everything with the siblings from bedroom to bathroom, from soap to towel. In India, this generation like me stared at the colour TV first time when they were in budding twenties, lived with one Doordarshan channel for more than a decade and could relish the countless channels only after their forties. They stood in long lines in their 20s to book a trunk call at post offices to their homes and waited for hours to get connected. They have enjoyed the fruits of telecom revolution and the quintessential cell phone only when after their 40s. PCs and Internet were only  newspaper stories and most would have touched a key board for the first time in their 40s. PCs storage capacity was talked in MBs.Porn was only in books and in their mid 20s VCR was the most sought after personal entertainment device. Rayban goggles was the ultimate fashion statement.  Most of them would have started in their mid 20s with the prized possession of a Bajaj Scooter and caringly dusted it everyday without fail. One VIP suitcase was used  for a life time without it ever getting even a scratch protected with an olive green military standard canvas cloth cover. Eating out in restaurants was rare and when happened it was a family event and talked for weeks. Owning a car was the biggest dream and owning a house was even a bigger dream. Mega schemes were laid out to own a house. First it would be acquiring a plot of land, somewhere on the far outskirts of the town or city and then planning a savings schedule for the next 10 years to construct the dream house. America was the ultimate dream and any one fortunate enough to settle there was a demi God.

Then came Gen Y, born in 80s and by the time they came of age the next century dawned and the Indian economy was in full swing. By the time they crossed teenage, mobile phone has become another organ of the body and internet was being used by millions. Even hick towns sprouted dozens of internet cafes. Porn has moved from books to PCs and computers capacity was talked in GBs.TVs straightened out and became flat. Jazzy bikes replaced the Bajaj scooter and owning a car by  mid 20s did not even call for a comment. Signing up a 20- 30 year EMI  housing loan did not raise any eye brows. America was still  a dream but only for short term assignments or for a holiday. Cooking at home has become irregular. Curry points mushroomed everywhere.  Number of siblings fell to just one. Use of branded goods has become the fashion statement, whose price made their parents miss a heart beat.

Then came Gen Z, born in 90s usually the children of Gen X.  The decades of hard work and painful and planned accumulation of the wealth of Gen X has become the spring board for Gen Z. Nothing but the best is their motto and a thousand rupee note in their hands transforms into loose change in a jiffy. Authority is no problem for them because they have never encountered one. Friends are virtual and all talk happens only on the Face Book and any advice by teacher or parent is immediately put for validation with virtual friends. They are part of one or other virtual social groups with thousands as members. Google is THE only source of reliable  information. Cell phone is no longer just a phone and does everything except cooking. Palm sized phones boast of GB capacities. Two continuous days of eating at home calls for by default home delivery pizza or KFC. Picking up goods without even looking at the price tag attracts no comment. All decisions are taken independently without parental intervention or advice. It is not uncommon to be the only child.

What a change!! And what a gulf of differences with in just one generation!!

AP Rice Mill Lobby Strangulating Farmers

It is sad that neither media nor the government is concerned about the plight and suicides of paddy farmers in the state as they are about say weavers’ deaths. Not that the death of weavers should not be a matter of concern, but due attention should be paid to the paddy farmers suicides too. While clothes can be made by textile mills and weavers can choose other forms of work, it is the farmer who is stuck with his land and there is nobody on the earth to produce food grains except him. The reasons for the plight of farmers are two. One is the Central Government which fixes minimum support price arbitrarily without taking the actual input costs and refuses to increase it citing the fallacious reason that food prices will increase. It cites the same reason for refusing exports. Its arm, the Food Corporation of India ( FCI ), has grain stocks  double the capacity of its godowns. Crop after crop and year after year, the FCI cites the reason of lack of storage space to avoid buying from the farmer directly.

In AP, kharif crop ( July- Dec ) on average yields 100 – 110 lakh tons of paddy. In Rabi ( Jan – April ) the yields are 110- 120 lakh tons.  The just harvested rabi crop yielded  an estimated 120 lakh tons. Of this, the FCI bought directly from  farmers a meager  5 lakh tons and the state civil supplies  department bought 1.5 lakh tons at the minimum support price of Rs 1000 a quintal. Once the FCI stopped purchasing, the rice millers started purchasing a quintal of paddy at Rs 800- 850. And they bought 98 lakh tons. At Rs 200 lesser price per quintal, the farmers lost a whopping sum of Rs 2000 crore. And this is just for one crop not including the profits earned by millers by exporting rice to other states  and countries. The government in AP, whichever party is in power, dances to the tune of rice millers and so when almost all the farmers had made a distress sale of paddy, politicians are shedding crocodile tears now urging the central government to increase MSP and allow export of rice. And who will benefit from this. None except the rice millers. Each rice mill pays 30% of the milled paddy to FCI as levy and can sell the remaining stocks in the open market. The millers also get 12 kg of rice bran and 12 kg of broken rice for each quintal of paddy milled. The 4-5 kg of husk they get is used to generate power or used to generate steam to make paraboiled rice. The levy rice collected by the FCI is  allocated  to public distribution system for distribution to below poverty line people at a high subsidized rates. FCI has now 50 million tons in its warehouses, double the quantity required to meet the needs of subsidized rice distribution through PDS.

Paddy cultivation is  highly labour intensive. The input costs have trebled in the last 5 years but the MSP for paddy has not increased by  more than 40%.  If we take 5 acres farmer, his input costs are Rs 90,000/- which includes from raising nursery, mechanized ploughing, plantation, weed removal, fertilizer, pesticide, reaping and to harvesting. At an average  25 quintals per acre, if he gets MSP, his net earnings are a meager  Rs.35,000 for the entire crop from his 5 acres. If rabi crop is also cultivated and both the crops are not affected by any natural calamity, his earnings per year is Rs 70,000/-, which is less than Rs 6000 a month. It is  a fact that once every 3 years, one crop at least is lost to nature’s fury. having thus lost a year of earnings and with no money for the input costs for the next crop, farmers have to go for loans either from banks or private money lenders. Both these institutes show no mercy on the hapless farmer while recovering the money. This is what makes the farmer take his life. Last quarter, State Bank of India wrote off Rs 41,500 crore as bad debts and not even a single rupee of this colossal amount  would be from a farmer.

The AP government should exert pressure on the central government to allow exports of rice on a continuous basis and stop the practice of permitting millers to export after they buy at a lower price from the farmers. The FCI should be given procurement quota for each state depending on the extent of paddy cultivated. The practice of FCI procuring a lion’s share from only Northern states should stop.  

Media Hyperbole & Free Speech

The release of Shahrukh Khan’s latest film, My Name is Khan (MNIK) has become the biggest story in print and electronic media for the last one week. All the noise started when the self-declared Moses of Mumbai, the senile xenophobist, Bal Thackery has criticized Sharukh for saying that Pakistani cricketers should be taken into IPL teams. This statement, Thackery claimed, is anti-national and threatened to disrupt screening of Khan’s movie. Sharukh refused to budge and apologize. The media went hammer and tongs hailing Sharukh’s stand as heroic and went to the extent of equating watching the film to taking a stand for independence and free speech. What a comedy !! Indian media trivializes even the most critical and sensitive issues and waters down them, in its mad race to reach one slot higher than the competition to garner advertisement revenues. Unlike Sachin or Mukesh Ambani who have gone public saying Mumbai is for all Indians, Sharukh has never made public his stand on Shiva Sena’s jingoism. Sharukh, all said and done, is a matured businessman and his loss-making Kolkota Night Riders team in IPL needs players of caliber to notch up a few wins. So he might have wanted some Pakistani players to buttress his team, which the media has ignored and made him into a real life hero. While it is gratifying to note that Thackery’s calls to boycott the film have been defied by the public openly, it is sickening to watch and read the media catch on to it as if Freedom of Speech and democracy in India depends on this one issue and exhorting public to defy Shiva Sena by flocking to the theatres screening the movie. Putting Shiva Sena in its place requires not flocking to the theatres but media blackout. A party confined to small pockets in one state needs the media platform for survival. However, for the media, ratings was the primary interest, not freedom of speech or taking a collective stand against hooliganism and intimidation. There have been numerous other instances recently of clamps on freedom of speech and never the media had this kind of sustained coverage to drive public behavior. One of the world-renowned painter, the 94-year old F M Husain is in exile in Dubai. Why was he forced to leave his home country. Because right wing religious parties and groups could see nudity of a Goddess in a few lines he sketched on the canvas. Where was the media then. Taslima Nasrin was expelled from India in 2008. Deepa Mehta’s movies, Fire and Water both came under Sena’s ire. The poor taxi drivers of Mumbai who have migrated from all parts of India were vandalized by Sena activists on the urgings of Thackerys. Since these issues do not have the same easy marketability, they were just reported. And easy marketing is at the heart of this campaign. Issues connected with India’s two loves, cricket and Bollywood, a media savvy celebrity, a comic book goon and the perception of participation by painless flocking to movie halls has made this campaign an effort less marketing for the media.
The real fight for freedom of speech and democracy should be the fight against our desperate poverty. Yet there is frighteningly little focus and interest in transparent governance, the prioritization and allocation of the country’s resources for its people. And there are serious issues at stake. The Food Security Act (FSA) is on the cards. FSA says that there are people in our country who don’t even have enough food for basic sustenance. That their numbers are so large that the States and Central Government have been slugging out for months trying to figure out eligibility criteria and a sharing arrangement that they can afford. We also have the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), which entitles each rural household hundred days of unskilled work at minimum wage. These Acts are a testimony to the fact that we have kept a large portion of our population out of the growing economy. However, not even a miniscule percentage of airtime and column space has been spared to discuss these issues. Even worse, there is no national passion for these issues. I shudder thinking of the future of this country, with two-thirds population being crushed under the burden of poverty and the apathy of the media towards critical issues.

The Acid Test For Indian Society

A week back three youngsters in their budding twenties poured acid on two unsuspecting girls causing serious third degree burns in Warangal in Andhra Pradesh, India. The reason for this heinous crime was one of the girls had spurned the overtures of one of the culprits. Both the girls are battling for life with one girl, doctors say may lose vision permanently and both the girls, if survive, will need multiple plastic surgeries. It is no wonder that the entire town came out in rallies and expressed sympathy for the girls. However, what was surprising was every section of the society, including the students, demanding the police to catch the suspects and encounter them which meant shooting them to death. Instant justice in this instant world ! A day later the three suspects were caught, interrogated, confession extracted, paraded before the media in the late evening and Lo and behold ! all the three suspects end up dead in the middle of the night on the outskirts of the town. The official version was police had taken them to a location where the suspects said they hid a stolen motorcycle but when they reached the spot, the suspects tried to attack the police and so were promptly shot to death. This usually is the standard official version for most of the deaths in the police shootouts. As news spread, there were celebrations in the town, people praising the police for swift action and awed college students pestering the police officers for autographs. Even in state capital, the educated elite were openly praising the police for this instant justice delivered. To my horror, even the state government released a statement that indirectly meant that any such acts will invite similar response. A few sane voices and their feeble protest at this form of delivering instant justice were drowned out in the cacophony of jubilation. We have been witnessing similar jubilation and approval across the country whenever such incidents take place. In the wake of sympathy on the plight of the girls and the hatred on the perpetrators of the crime, we seem to have forgotten that we are in a civil society governed by the laws of the land and judiciary. While it is true that many of our laws do not reflect the modern realities and need to be comprehensively changed, it is as reprehensible as the crime itself to eulogize custodial deaths. Instead of bringing pressure on the governments to amend the laws to make the punishments more stringent and revamp the judicial process for quick trials, we seem to have taken the easier option of condoning and even demanding instant justice. We should not for a moment forget that this makes every individual policeman, the investigator, the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and the executioner. Is any one person or a group capable of playing all these roles without bias.
Have we as a part of the civil society forgotten the brutal Bhagalpur blindings in 1980, where the police blinded about 30 undertrials with cycle spokes and then poured acid into the eyes. Most of them were petty thieves, waiting for the trial to commence. Can we condone the act in the name of instant justice since the case would have taken a long time to conclude in the usual process? Or for that matter, the police shooting of a business man to death last year in Delhi due to mistaken identity. It could be you and me tomorrow in the place of the businessman.
I ask those of you who have openly come out in support of the police shooting to death the three suspects, shall we as a society dispense with the judicial system altogether and give rights to the police to deliver instant justice. A thief can have his hands amputated, a person accused of murder can be hung to a lamp post and eve teasers stoned to death in public. There are societies where such forms of public punishments are in vogue. We call those states barbaric.
Despite the passing of the Protection of Human Rights Act in 1993 and establishing a National Human Rights Commission, incidents of police brutality continue to take place in various parts of the country. This is because of the silent approval of the public.
The acid test for the Indian society is whether in the near future it opts to pressurize governments to amend the laws and make punishments more stringent, revamp the judicial process for speedy trials, demand better policing methods and respect the Human Rights or continue to encourage models of instant justice. There will lie the answer to where as a nation we are headed.

Banner Anger

The anger against politicians for not taking the November 26th terrorists attack on Mumbai seriously was uniform across the country. Here are some of the banners giving a glimpse of the anger, mailed to me by one of my friends, Kali Krishna.

India's Heart Broken, But Not The Spirit

We Indians have faced several terrorist attacks in the past, some brutal as 1993 Mumbai blasts. We have had live coverage of the attack on our Parliament building itself. But the images of November 26th 2008 attack on Mumbai will stay etched in the memory of Indians for a long time. The images of indiscriminate firing from a van into thick crowds, the bodies strewn all over the street after an explosion, the injured at VT railway station dazed and bleeding profusely being helped by people, the funeral of the three top cops who were killed in action and the imposing red coloured dome of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel spewing out fire and smoke will stay with us for a long time. The terrorists have chosen the places of attack to have maximum death toll and coverage. While the taking over of Oberoi Trident Hotel and Nariman Point were to take hostage of maximum foreign nationals, it is evident that the taking over of Taj hotel and causing explosions in it, was no doubt to hurt the national pride of Indians.
It is now part of the Legend of Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, the patriarch of the Tata industrial Group, who has commissioned the Taj Palace Hotel building in 1900 after being refused entry to the now-defunct Apollo Hotel, which had a strict Europeans-only policy. The hotel was deliberately built with its rear to the harbour in an apparent snub to the British Monarchy, who entered through the harbor. Now the terrorists have snubbed all Indians by causing massive destruction to the hotel.

As the first pictures of the live coverage of events at Taj and Trident were beamed across a nation, it was a shock to watch the complete chaos. There was no unified command and policemen were simply running helter skelter, with everyone talking on mobile phones. On Mobile phones !! It was apparent that there was not even a unified communication system in place. As usual the combined forces of the Army and Navy along with NSG commandoes brought order to the chaos and fought hand to hand to kill the terrorists. But by then the damage was done. Over 200 dead and 500 injured.


As details emerged slowly, more shocks were in place. After getting information on a shootout at CST by terrorists, the top three cops of Mumbai together went in a van. Together !! And became sitting ducks. With all due respect to the dead, this singular act of travelling together to face the terrorists shows the lack of processes and professionalism. More shocking was the news that the NSG commandoes had flown all the way from Delhi but had to cool their heels at the airport for hours together as there were no further instructions. Detailed plans of the Trident and Taj hotels were found with the terrorists but the commandoes did not have one. We saw the Taj burning for hours on without any sight of a fire truck. One came in after three hours. It took our Prime Minister 20 hours after the attacks to convene a cabinet meeting. It took 60 hours to eliminate all the terrorists.

The worst shock was allowing the visual media to beam the live images of the commando action. Someone has forgotten that the terrorists too might be watching TV and alter their plans accordingly. Even the helicopter dropping off commandoes on the roof top of Nariman Point was also beamed live.

No sooner than the operation ended, the blame game started. The central intelligence agencies say they have forewarned the state which neglected the warning. The warnings usually are something like this, “ Terrorists belonging to X, Y or Z group are planning to launch an attack from land, sea or air on important landmarks and busy public places in the next three months.” Which state will heed to such warnings, when on an average, small or big, a dozen terrorist attacks take place every month in some state or the other in the country.

Revolting it was to watch the politicians give sound bytes, blaming the ruling party and the ruling party defending itself and pointing out similar attacks in previous government. With crass insensitivity, even before the dead were laid to rest, our politicians jumped in to take political advantage of the incident. We Indians act like Ostriches, burying our heads in the sand so as to not see the obvious. Ringed all around with six countries – Pakistan, China, Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka- whose animosity and in some cases blind hatred towards India is open and whose support to several terrorist groups in India is an established fact, terror is here to stay for a long time. What we need is not statistics to determine under which party’s rule more were dead. What India needs is a strategy at the highest level to tackle terrorism. It might evolve this time, because the attacks on 26th were also directed at the mighty and powerful, who have been insulated from terror all along, as the terrorists always hit only the general public travelling in suburban trains, or shopping in crowded bazaars. There will be enormous pressure from this group on the governments to act decisively and plan thoroughly for the future.

For the time being Indians are heart-broken but strong in spirit as evident from the reopening of the Leopold café as a defiance within two days after the deadly attack on it. As news of its reopening spread, thousands descended on the café to show solidarity. Unable to manage the crowds, it had to shut down after two hours. Incidentally, the café is owned by a Muslim.
I pray to God to give strength in their hour of grief to those families who have lost their near and dear in the carnage. I salute the armed forces for their bravery and sacrifice.

Gals, Guys, Gays, Biceps & Buttocks

When does one realize that one has aged and out of touch with the world around. Well, when one doesn’t know how to react to a situation that appears normal to everyone around, but extra-ordinary to you, it is then you have aged. This revelation dawned upon me rather forcibly a couple of weeks back and reaffirmed a few days back. A couple of weeks back, I got into the office lift on a fine morning. A twenty-some girl also got into the lift and as the doors were about to close there was a flurry of activity outside and the door opened again. Another twenty-some girl came breezing in and in the same breath asked the other girl “ Did you get it done”. This girl started giggling and to my thorough panic and embarrassment lifted her shirt a few inches up to reveal a gold ring on the navel. Both of them immediately fell into an animated conversation and stepped out at their floor. I was completely flummoxed. Not with the act of showing off one’s navel’s accessory but for the fact that both these girls cared two hoots for my presence and didn’t even give a glance. I was thoroughly embarrassed for having invaded their private space—the office lift.
A couple of days back, another set of two girls and a guy in the twenties were having a chirpy conversation with a torrential non-stop flow with an equal mix of Hindi and English, which this younger generation seemed to have mastered. I was just a pace behind them waiting for the lift and tried to claw out some meaning. They were talking about a movie Dostana and “how John and Abhi pretended to be gays , locked their lips in a passionate kiss and how one of their mothers accepted it and John is sooooo cuuuute with his exposed butt”. What ? Butt ?!! Buttocks !! cannot be, I must have heard it wrong, I thought. At that moment, the guy turned his back to the girls, pulled the trouser down a good length to reveal his upper half of the butt. I was incredulous and could not grasp what he said and nearly got a fit when one of the girls gave a friendly whack at his butt and said, “ John’s is better.” As they were getting out of the lift, one girl turned halfway to me and gave that half smile may be indicating that all these Pats on Butts were common in their group and I was simply out of place. With an effort that would have got accolades from the very best poker players, with a dead pan face I smiled back in the same reassuring measure as if I witnessed these PoBs every day of my life. None of the others even glanced at me while walking out of the lift. I realized then that my aging was official.
As I mulled over this incident, I realized that the movie is the same whose poster I gawk at everyday while driving to the office to have my eyes full of the perfectly lipped ( no, no not a spelling mistake ) Oomph oozing, bikini clad Priyanka. My vision was so focused that I barely realized the two hunks on either side of her. I was in wonderment that two leading actors did not hesitate to act out as gays and even locked the lips. Amazing! More amazing is how causally these youngsters took to the movie and the concept. And above all butt bearing on the screen ! Over the years, I have watched the progression of the screen heroes move from biceps to triceps to six packs and flaunt the body sculpting in a song or a fight. But imagine someone going with a trouser half falling off, flaunting his butt. From now on, the screen hunks may also do all sorts of workouts to have a butt that is better shaped than his competitor. We may see a new breed of physical trainers and gyms with special equipment even for general Janatha. Anything is possible with these youngsters.
Same is the case with the latest Airtel mobile phone commercial with Sharukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan. With “I miss you so much”, groans by Saif boring deeply into the sockets of Shah Rukh’s eyes in the bath room and bed room, they give a gay touch. Actually, SRK is helping Saif to record a voice message to Kareena with a deep painful resonance , which he finally extracts from Saif with a blow at a strategic place. How times change ! And how much of change from Generation to Generation.
Sometime in mid 80’s, a Bombay Journalist has come out openly in an interview about his sexual preference which has created quite a stir. At that time even the elegant word Gay ( actual meaning is carefree / happy ) was not widely used and even the Press used to stick to the cruder version of Homosexual. Well, one evening I was nursing my drink in Hyderabad Press Club along with a friend when suddenly one of our common acquaintances walked to our table with a stranger. I got up, shook hands with the acquaintance and as he was introducing the stranger I began shaking hands with him. At the very moment his name and city were mentioned, I had this irrational urge to pull my hand back, rub the palm on to the trousers and just somehow not be there. However, with supreme effort and with a normal face, I completed the hand shake and indulged in polite conversation for a couple of minutes. Both of them noticed that they were not being invited to join the table even for a cursory drink and left. And that was me then, the liberal of the liberal belonging to Gen X. Any guy from this Gen Y would not have flinched and might have even hugged and kissed him.
I am astonished at this Gen Y gals, guys, gays for their obsession with biceps and buttocks and their amazing ability to convert instantaneously any space into their own private space.

Obama Creates History In A Nation That May Soon be History

My first reaction to the US presidential election results was “Thank God! McCain did not win”. This World is not ready to tolerate another uncouth, ill tempered person who is completely ignorant of world affairs a la George Bush. Neither were Americans. Barack Hussein Obama, whose Muslim father was from Kenya and mother from Kansas has assured himself a place in American history, by being the first non-white American winning the US Presidential election. By electing Obama, the New Age American people have proved that they have come of the age of racism. John F Kennedy during the last year of his life 40 years ago predicted that a black person could be the President of the US in 40 years. He was ridiculed then. He is proved right now. The reasons for Obama’s easy win are numerous. The US and the World has witnessed 8 years of unprecedented hypocrisy, blatant lies and the US administration acting like a subsidiary of big corporations. The poisonous foliage called Bush has brought down the prestige and credibility of America to abyss. The last straw was the implosion of economy. The American public has put behind them their color prejudices and voted decisively for the 46 year old Afro American.
U.S. politics has never seen anything like Obama. The 46-year-old senator from Illinois had a change-oriented message that resonated with voters and a personal history he calls a uniquely American story. In spite of initial media ridicule about his race, name and antecedents, Obama has surprised even his worst detractors with his tenacity and youth following. His emphasis on need to change has resonated well with the beleaguered America. Obama will be the first Black man to walk into the White House as its master.
So what will happen after Obama takes over on January 20th , 2009. Nothing drastic will happen. At least not in his term or terms. Why not, one may ask. Obama has played well to the gallery by emphasizing on need to change without specifying what and who needs to change. The public who have been sick for the last several years with the Bush administration and its policies and paranoid of their future after the unprecedented financial crisis assumed something else will change which would be for better. Very few of them have realized it is they who have to change. Let me list out a few items where change is necessary and see if this is possible in the near term of say 20 years from hence.
1. The US government living off its treasury bonds by selling them to foreign nations should change. Its current debt is close to 3 trillion dollars and a lion’s share of it is from dictatorial countries in Middle East and China. At any given point of time, these countries can bring down the dollar to such a hyper-inflation stage that the US will buckle on its Knees.
2. The Americans living off on debt with utter disdain for borrowed money just for a wee bit more materialistic comfortable life should change their life style in line with their actual incomes.
3. Americans constitute 5% of the world population but consume 25% of the total energy. This needs to change.
4. Americans consume 900 billion calories of food every day, some 200 billion more than needed. Enough to feed 100 million people. They need to change their eating habits.
5. Americans throw away 200,000 tons of edible food each day. Because the food industry provides umpteen varieties of the same food item in the name of consumer choice, which are thrown out when they near the expiry date.
6. About 80% of the corn and 90% of oats are fed to livestock. 60% of available land is used for beef production. About 100 liters of water is required to produce one KG wheat where as 10,000 liters of water is required to produce 1 KG of beef. Agricultural priorities need to change.
7. Americans are just 5% of the World population but own one-third of world cars and produce carbon emissions equal to the rest of the world. This needs to change.
Now we know why nothing will change in the near short term or near long term. For any drastic change to happen suddenly in societies, countries and the World a cataclysm of event or events should happen. It could be as simple as oil producing nations refusing to deal with dollars and insisting on a more stable currency like Euro. This will lead to demand for dollar collapsing and since the dollar doesn’t have the backing of Gold standard, it could simply turn into worthless paper.
when one reads world history what strikes forcibly is that the people living in those times could never believe that the end was near. No Roman had believed during the height or decline of the mighty Roman empire that it would cease to exist. No English man believed, even in modern times, that the mighty British Empire where the Sun never sets will be bankrupt and crunched to its original pea nut size in a matter of a couple of years. No country or power is an exception to this nature’s law.
I only hope that Obama will at least lay the foundation for this change and the future leaders and future American generations will change the destiny of this once great country for better. If that doesn't happen --------
Amen !

Politics for Power on Power

As expected the Opposition has continued to cry foul on the Nuclear Deal notwithstanding the 45 nation Nuclear Supply Group has given a green signal for nuclear trade with India. The main point for the Opposition is that India cannot conduct nuclear tests in future. But no one clarifies why there is a necessity for us to conduct tests in future, when we have already conducted two in the past and world wide a self moratorium on tests is on. The nuclear bomb technology is so perfected that more tests are simply not needed. This is nothing but politics for power on nuclear power.
India is in dire need of electricity and is currently has a shortfall of one lakh Mega Watts, almost 10% of the entire production. If the country has to grow at the current rate of 8 to 9 % year on year, experts estimate that it needs an additional million MW by 2020. And we have run out of options. Chances of increasing the hydel power are slim due to large scale submersion of fertile lands, displacement of people, and stiff opposition from environmental activists. Our coal reserves last just for another 50 years and most importantly coal based thermal power plants pollute. The carbon emissions from the coal based power plants are high. Currently, every new plant that is coming up is dependent on imported coal, a drain on the forex reserves. We have very few natural gas reserves and in Andhra Pradesh, 4 gas based power plants have not yet been commissioned for want of gas linkage even after a decade. The wind and solar power have its own limitations. We have no option except to go for nuclear power. The current Prime Minister had the courage to look beyond his term, into the future needs of this country. Bravo!
The USA gets 25% of its power from nuclear power plants. The French gets 80% of their electricity through nuclear. India gets just a meager 3% from its nuclear plants.
With a growing economy, a population explosion, increasing energy demand, limited availability of conventional sources, and a strong consensus for environmental protection, India is harnessing energy ranging from jatropha biodiesel to atomic power. This is the only country in the World to have a separate ministry for non-conventional energy sources.
Efficient, reliable and environmentally sustainable energy supplied to each household at the least possible cost is a dream of Indian government. While successive Central governments have been seeking energy security by 2012 for India, the current government went further to prescribe “Energy Independence” by 2030.
Though commercial primary energy consumption in India has grown by about 700 percent in the last four decades, India’s present level of energy consumption, by world standards, remains very low. The current per capita commercial primary energy consumption in India is about 350 Kilograms of Oil Equivalents per year (kgeo/yr) which is well below that of world average of 1,690 kgeo/yr. By 2010 per capita energy consumption is expected to increase around 450 kgoe/yr. Compared to this, the energy consumption in China is 1,200 kgeo/yr, Japan is over 4,050 kgeo/yr, South Korea is 4,275 kgeo/yr, and the US is 7,850.
We have a long way to go. And nuclear power is the only way.

There are 15 nuclear power reactors in operation in India. Most of them are operating at 30 to 40% of their capacity for lack of fuel. In addition eight more nuclear power reactors are currently under construction, and another 8 mega plants on the drawing board. We need equipment, fuel and other related things urgently. The urgency the government is showing to clinch the deal with the US and NSG is commendable.

Contrary to misconceptions, Nuclear energy is a clean energy with no emissions except water vapor. Nuclear technology has vastly improved over the years and another Chernobyl is not a distant reality. The nuclear waste that is generated over the years can easily be stored, buried deep in the desert. When we can conduct actual nuclear bomb tests deep down in the desert, we can easily store a few hundred drums of nuclear waste in the desert.

This government, especially the far sighted Prime Minister deserves kudos and the opposition all the boos.