Giving peace a chance.

Please note that the following article is copied from Mint epaper,  for non commercial purposes only.

Give peace a chance

India’s new government puts relations with its immediate neighbours at the vanguard of its foreign policy agenda

Elizebeth Roche

New Delhi: It was an unprecedented, out-of-the-box initiative from the new Indian prime minister—invitations to the leaders of all South Asian countries to attend his oath-taking ceremony in New Delhi. Narendra Modi’s gesture was seen by analysts as an effort to redefine India’s foreign policy towards South Asia at the beginning of his five-year term after a spectacular election victory.
Sensing an opportunity to re-script and revitalize moribund ties, all governments in the region accepted the invitation. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina deputed the country’s parliamentary speaker for the event because she had a pre-scheduled visit to make to Japan.
The 26 May swearing in ceremony of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government headed by Modi had in attendance Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Bangladesh parliament speakerShirin Chaudhry, Bhutanese Prime Minister Lyonchen Tshering Tobgay, Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, Nepal Prime Minister Sushil Koirala, Pakistan Prime MinisterNawaz Sharif and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa. All, along with India, are members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc), an organization that will turn 30 years old in 2015.
Mauritius Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam, whose country is home to a large Indian-origin population, was also invited to join the inauguration of the BJP government—the first in 30 years to command a majority on its own in Parliament’s elected lower House.
“The prime minister has clearly indicated that he will look at innovative ways to reach out to India’s neighbours,” said a person familiar with the development on the Indian side. “The message (to India’s neighbours) is—we wish to be engaged with you. The neighbourhood is where our major interests are.” The person declined to be named.
According to analysts, Modi’s idea of giving the neighbourhood primacy is not new. “But what was innovative was the brilliant execution of the idea,” said former foreign secretary Lalit Mansingh.
“Modi’s invitation to the Saarc leaders to attend his swearing-in ceremony is a good initial indicator that the BJP government will adopt a more pro-active foreign policy than its Congress party predecessor,” said Lisa Curtis, senior research fellow at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation think tank. “It is likely the new BJP regime will invest more energy into engaging its neighbours with an eye on boosting trade and economic linkages as well as on countering growing Chinese political influence in the region.
“There seems to be a growing recognition among the BJP leadership that India will not be able to achieve its global power goals without addressing the challenges in its own neighbourhood first,” she said in emailed remarks.
In terms of practice, Modi, 63, is the first Indian Prime Minister to extend such an invitation to foreign leaders. In the April-May elections, Modi led the BJP to victory in 282 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha, making it the first party other than the Congress to win a parliamentary majority on its own. Together with its allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA, it won 336 with the help of its allies and handed the Congress its worst election defeat in its 128-year-old history. The Congress only managed to secure 44 seats on its own and 59 with the help of its alliance partners.
“For development, a periphery that is peaceful and friendly is important. And for this good neighbourly relations are a must to ensure that forces inimical to your interests do not hurt you,” said the person close to the development cited above.
Promising beginning
Development, bringing India’s economy back to a high growth path and good governance were recurrent themes in Narendra Modi’s speeches throughout the poll campaign.
“From India’s perspective, a strong and promising beginning has been made at the start of the new government in our engagement with each of the countries in the South Asian region and with Mauritius,” Indian foreign secretary Sujatha Singh said.
“The very invitation to the Saarc leaders, which has never been done before when a new Prime Minister has been sworn into office, itself is new. That is the starting point,” she said. “In some ways, this is a new beginning, which many of them remarked that it is the first time that an occasion like this has brought the Saarc countries together,” Singh added.
South Asia has been an unpredictable region. Terrorism, political instability, insurgencies, competing territorial claims and poverty are some of the defining themes of the region that is home to a combined population of 1.65 billion people. As the largest country and economy in the neighbourhood, it is often argued within India and without that New Delhi needs to take the lead to resolve its own problems with its neighbours as well as those which crop up in the region.
“The new government is working on the basic premise that a resurgent India, if it has to find its place in the world, will have to get its relations with its neighbours right. Through this gesture, it has illustrated that this government is going to be proactive in its foreign policy and strengthening regional cooperation with Saarc and the Asean (Association of South East Asian Nations) will be key priorities,” Mansingh said. Engagement further afield with countries in East Asia and the Pacific besides the US and Europe would follow, Mansingh said, noting that countries like the US and China were also looking to engage the new Indian government, sending officials to New Delhi.
Saarc was envisioned as an economic grouping along the lines of the European Union. It held its first summit in Dhaka in 1985 and ambitious plans for the grouping have included a common currency and open borders. But almost three decades into its existence, the grouping has little to show for itself.
Tensions between the two biggest countries in the grouping—India and Pakistan—have meant that most proposals to re-energize the body have come to nought. The latest commerce ministry figures show that India’s exports to the South Asian countries totalled $17.3 billion between April 2013 and March 2014. Imports from the region in the same period totalled $2.45 billion.
India’s total exports to the world in the same period stood at $312 billion while total imports were at $450 billion. India shares land borders with Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh besides a maritime boundary with Sri Lanka.
The China factor
The recast in ties between India and her neighbours is also expected to build up political and diplomatic capital in the region over which India’s strategic and economic rival China has been looming large. In recent years, China has made inroads into South Asia—long considered India’s backyard.
“We have a lot of advantages—historical and linkages, soft power—which we haven’t used to its potential. We need to harness this. This is something China doesn’t have though it has very deep pockets, which is helping it to gain ground in the region,” said S.D. Muni, a former professor of South Asian Studies from the New Delhi–based Jawahar Lal Nehru University.
Mansingh recalled that the BJP’s election manifesto had emphasized improved relations with its neighbours besides improving internal and external security. “Where does this threat emanate from? From India’s immediate neighbourhood—from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and to some extent even Myanmar,” Mansingh said. It is India’s immediate neighbourhood that is the source of jehadi or terrorism perpetuated by Islamist militants, entering India through porous borders and even finding sanctuaries in India’s neighbourhood, he said.
While primacy of the neighbourhood has been always listed as the top priority of the Indian government, few Indian leaders have actually acted on it, Mansingh said.
India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru did not have much time for the neighbourhood, Mansingh said. “Such was his stature, no one questioned him and he ranked among world leaders,” he said.
Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi, who later became prime minister, had good personal relations with almost all South Asian leaders. And the 1971 India-Pakistan war, which resulted in the birth of Bangladesh, established India’s supremacy in the region, Mansingh said.
However, India’s diplomatic capital with its neighbours plunged in subsequent years with the imposition of the economic blockade against Nepal in 1989 and India’s military intervention in Sri Lanka following a 1987 accord, Mansingh said.
With India opening up its economy in the 1990s and the crumbling of the Soviet Union in 1991, the then government in New Delhi concentrated on forging stronger relations with the US—the pre-eminent power in the world—and with the high growth economies of South East Asia with its Look East policy launched in 1992.
Fraught relations
“The real changes in India’s foreign policy came at the time of (then BJP prime minister Atal Bihari) Vajpayee who paved the way for India to forge strategic partnerships with countries like the US, France, Britain and Germany,” Mansingh said. India’s 1998 atomic tests, which brought it out of the nuclear closet, was also an example of the complete re-orientation of Indian foreign policy, he pointed out.
The lead taken by Vajpayee was continued by prime minister Manmohan Singh but Singh “simply did not have time to deal with the neighbourhood” though he did underscore the importance of a peaceful neighbourhood for India’s economic growth, Mansingh said. Though he realized that India’s destiny was “inextricably linked” with that of its neighbours and argued for greater regional economic integration, the initiatives his government took did not go very far and relations with many of its neighbours frayed.
Ties with Pakistan hit a low following the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which put on hold a four-year-old peace dialogue that was resumed after a 2004 visit to Pakistan by then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Talks resumed in February 2011 but stalled again following the killing of Indian soldiers in Kashmir along the de facto border between the two countries.
Relations with Sri Lanka have been on an uneven keel since 2009, when the three-decade-old Tamil separatist conflict ended in the island nation. India has been pressing Sri Lanka to bring into the national mainstream the island’s minority Tamils, whose sense of alienation spawned the conflict. Succumbing to pressure from its key ally in Tamil Nadu, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government twice voted against Sri Lanka’s human rights record.
With Bangladesh, Singh’s government was seen as unable to deliver on key issues including ratification of the Land Boundary Agreement signed in 2011. Neither was Singh able to sign a pact to share waters of the Teesta river given opposition from a former coalition ally—West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress party.
India’s neighbourhood policy received another jolt when the then Maldives government decided to terminate the $511 million contract given to an international consortium including India’s GMR Group in 2012. This came after India supported then Maldives president Mohammed Waheed Hassan, following accusations against Hassan of ousting his predecessorMohamed Nasheed in a coup.
Rejuvenating ties
With Modi now at the helm, Indian foreign policy looks ready for “re-definition,” as Mansingh put it.
According to Muni, “What Modi seems to suggest is that there will be greater frequency of interaction and contacts with the neighbourhood at higher levels.”
If reactions from the region are anything to go by, Modi’s gesture has gone down well with India’s neighbours.
“I see a chance for the rejuvenation of Saarc,” Dayan Jayatilleka, a former Sri Lankan diplomat, said by phone from Colombo. “India’s dynamic new prime minister has given the neighbourhood long overdue importance. I am optimistic for the prospects for the region... there is every possibility of a takeoff for this region.”
Muni and Mansingh agreed that the meeting between Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Sharif had been “good,” with both sharing a good rapport—auguring well for peace in the region and the future of Saarc.
According to Curtis, Modi’s “invitation to Prime minister Nawaz Sharif was an unexpected and bold move that demonstrates he is committed to trying to set a positive tone in Indo-Pakistani relations. For the moment, he has shown himself as statesman and ready to address India’s foreign policy challenges.”

Indian Culture and Heritage:Introduction and Pre-historic Rock paintings

"India is, the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only." -Mark Twain

"We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made." -Albert Einstein

"If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India."
-Max Mueller

I could quote a million people, write a thousand blogs and still be scratching at the surface of the grandeur that is India. Where in the History of mankind can I start writing about a culture, which transcended through spatial and temporal boundaries. A culture which went onto become the mother of all modern civilization. To understand the origin of such a phenomenon we need to look back in time,maybe as back as prehistoric time.

Map of prehistoric sites in India

The earliest discovery of prehistoric rock art was made in India, twelve years before the discovery of Alta Mira in Spain. Father of Indian Rock Art’ Dr V S Wakankar and others have done extensive studies on rock art in India, there are over thousand caves in 150 different sites all over India.Central India is the richest zone of prehistoric rock art in India. The highest concentration of rock art sites is situated in the Satpura, Vindhya and Kaimur Hills.

As there is no language or script in prehistoric time, it has to be studied based on tools, pottery, habitats and drawing on cave walls of this time. Prehistoric paintings have been found in many parts of the world, there is very little evidence suggesting any drawings related to lower paleolithic period, but in upper paleolithic period there is a proliferation of artistic activities. The subjects of the drawings are human figures, human activities, geometric designs and symbols.

Remnants of rock paintings have been found in several districts of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka and Uttarakhand.

• Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka: Kupagallu, Pikhlihal and Tekkalkota (Neolithic, three types White, Red ochre over white and Red Ochre) 
• Madhya Pradesh: Karabad in the Raisen district, Shamla Hills next to Bhopal, Numerous painted shelters of Bhimbetka, Magazine Shelter and Chaturbhujnath Nala in Chambal valley and its tributaries.(Richest of all rock paintings in India, Paleolithic and Neolithic) 
• UP: They are Kumerun extensions of Vindhyas, Sohagihat in the Mirzapur district
• Uttarakhand: Kumaon hills on the banks of river Suyal called lakhudiyar(land of lakh caves) (Superimposition of paintings, 3 types, Man, Animals and geometric patterns in White, Black and Red  Ochre) 

Bhimbetka:

It is the richest source of Rock art in India, it is in Madhya Pradesh, 40 km south of Bhopal. Paintings here vary from mundane to ritual as well as royal images. They are categorised into seven historical periods. We are going to look into first three periods. 

• Period I: Upper Paleolithic ( linear, huge animal figures, stick like human. Colour schemes, green as dancers and red as hunters)
• Period II: Mesolithic ( Multiple themes, small paintings, hunting scenes predominate. Animals are naturalistic though people are depicted figuratively. All sections of society like women, man old and young are found. Traces of family life. Hand prints, finger prints and fist prints.)
• Period III: Chalcolithic ( interaction of cave dwellers and agricultural communities of malwa plains, metal tools, pottery etc. Many colours but white and red are main from geru and limestone. There is a distinction in paintings of living and non-living spaces. Paintings are vibrant, might of given them power.  tonal effect is realistically maintained)

There are 20 layers of paintings in some of the areas, it leads to an obvious question of why do some have so many layers at same place again and again? did it have any religious or social importance?

In conclusion, we can learn a great deal about prehistoric man in India, by observing cave art and other archaeological evidence. The themes of art have varied over time, with evolution of new ways of life. Development of different social, religious and other technology enabled them to speak and write languages, which is the beginning of history in modern sense. In next blog we will study about one of the earliest civilizations in the world "Indus valley civilization", why it is considered advanced urban civilization? why its classiified as proto historic period? and many more. 

Book Review: Poor but spirited in Karimnagar; Field notes of a Civil Servant

As a guy who is from Karimnagar, and who witnessed Smt. Sumita Dawra's administration first hand. i wanted to read this book since it was published. There are a few things which persuaded me to read this. As an aspiring civil servant, i wanted to gain experience to become better acquainted with grass root level administrative process, and there is no best way than to learn it from my childhood role model.

I firstly bow down to the commitment of all the sincere civil servants like Smt. Sumita Dawra, who have dedicated their lives to make things better. This book has gained my respect for its pragmatic approach and for the experiences author has shared. Though I do have some ideological differences with some of author's  points, there are a lot of things I would appreciate. I should say that this book is a compelling read for people who want to know real India. All this humdrum about politics has made me think how people are "Educated illiterates", including me! how much of what we discuss and debate is futile and how there are people right now, burning midnight oil for a better India.

Coming to the book, It might not the best book for policy making, but i can assure you that this book has a lot of merit in connecting dots between policy making and reality. A benevolent administrator meets, macro level policy making through her experience as well as case studies, summarizes this book in a single line.

Book has eight chapters, every chapter has three sections - identifying the problem, providing the context and the author's solutions for those problem. The book starts with an introduction of Wicked problems. how the fields of poverty alleviation, education, health care, agriculture, water and sanitation and urban governance, are stuck in wicked issues. How solutions based on greater community involvement, decentralisation  of administration, innovation, feedback mechanisms, proper accountability and an able leader can change the fabric of stagnant country.

The narration of experience of author as an administrator are inspiring and moving simultaneously. Especially in the chapter three, Epidemic and Malnourishment in Karimnagar, author's recollections, reminded me of why I wanted to prepare for civil services. This chapter shows how different sections of society live different realities.

Finally I would definitely recommend this book to people who are preparing for civil services and other people in general. I am giving links to buy the book. If you have any personal thoughts please drop them in comments. I will try to review more books, which I find interesting as well as important.

Thank you,
Shiva


http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/senior-ias-officer-sumitra-dawra-pens-a-collectors-copy/article3732494.ece
Flipkart:
http://www.flipkart.com/poor-spirited-karimnagar-field-notes-civil-servant/p/itmddt4qbperntb7
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.in/Poor-But-Spirited-Karimnagar-Servant/dp/9350291509

Authoritarian party and Democracy: Criticism of party politics in India I

People often think that they only have choice between bad and worse in the elections. Hence in the group of bad, they vote for least bad. hence end up in 5 years of rut!

Our two time Prime Minister came from upper house, Rajya Sabha. Why do you think, he never competed for Lok Sabha seat in last 2 terms? is it because the party as well as he did not have confidence in people's capability to elect a wise man? Do you think the he/party kept him away from elections to protect his  integrity? Do you think the quality of leaders elected through through direct elections  do not meet the requirement of people? Is there a gap between what people choose and what people's requirement is? If there is a gap, who decides what the peoples requirements are and who( Prime minister in this case) should be selected to meet them?  Who gave power to party to do all this?

All the above questions point towards the level of autonomy a party has in our political system. In a vast country like India, perfect democracy is not possible. It needs to provide a considerable amount of autonomy to various institutions. Autonomy means power, as Lord Acton quoted "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." This corruption has directly or indirectly lead Authoritarian Party system. Let us understand its development in historical perspective. 

To understand the development of Authoritarian party system, we need to first understand even basic conflict which persisted since Independence. Should elected government be accountable to people or party? this debate resulted in ambiguity which provided a path to the current form of party system.

Leadership of party versus Government

Pre-independence era

This era was marked with party democracy at all levels of the cadre, critical decisions were taken based on majority consensus, every idea was discussed among the members of the party. This can be examined through examples of Constituent assembly though being a one-party body, took everyone's ideas and criticism into account while making constitution, It even included non party members like B.R.Ambedkar. Similarly, the decision to start Non-Co-operation movement was taken with 1336 votes for and 886 votes against Gandhiji's resolution. During Second World War, Gandhiji's stand on cooperation with the war effort was rejected by Congress. 

Nehru era

As Congress was the only major party which dealt with this problem in the initial years of Independence, lets discuss about it. In November 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru resigned from party presidentship, and joined the interim government on the grounds that the roles of leader of a party and leader of government could not be combined. His successor J.B.Kriplani, however demanded a greater role for Congress Working Committee(CWC) a larger role in the working of the government, and all the government planning should be taken in consultation with them.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Nehru, Sardar Patel and other prominent leaders did not agree to it. They argued that proceedings of Government are secret and cannot be divulged to party. They argued that, party should give ideological direction in long term policies and goals but should not interfere in governance. Eventually J.B.Kriplani resigned from the office. In 1950, another conflict broke out between Right wing conservative Purushottom Das Tandon and Nehru because of difference in ideology and former being elected as Congress president. Nehru, who couldn't imagine right wing outlook prevailing over upcoming government, threatened with his resignation to get Tandon out of presidentship, there was an other conflict between them which remained unresolved until now, that is party's control over elected government. The two conflicts above show how Nehru analysed the varying degree of acceptability of party's intrusion into governments functioning. After demise of Gandhi and Patel, though Nehru was the sole strong leader in congress, he didn't let authoritative tendencies take over him, he respected everyone's opinion.  I believe that Nehru's threatening for tandon's resignation is the first step of party's transition from democratic towards authoritarian structure, even then democratic tendency of party survived  until Nehru's demise in may 1964.

Post Nehru era: Shastri, Indira and Syndicate

Lal Bahadur Shastri

Nehru in his final fearing degeneration of party democracy because all the cabinet ministers were forming aristocracy and loosing roots in public, with K.Kamraj, came up with a plan which came to be known as Kamraj plan. It was supposed to make six cabinet minters and others to resign and join party cadres for its revival. Unfortunately Nehru died before he could come up with new cabinet. Even then Nehru was so confident in party's democracy that he didn't announce a successor. K.Kamraj, became the next part president, he formed the syndicate. Syndicate was a strong sub group inside Congress. They made Lal Bahadur Shastri the new PM of India. Initially, he was completely under control of syndicate but after sometime he asserted his power in Indo-Pak war of 1965.

Article to be continued 

Democratization of internet

The following article is from economic and political weekly,  and has been produced here for non commercial purposes.

Whither Internet Democratisation?
The "NETmundial" conference in Brazil on democratising internet governance was a vacuous exercise.

The internet today is ubiquitous the world over as a mode of communication and diffusion of knowledge, and an arena for commercial business, among other things. Its massive expansion, largely in a free and equitable manner, has much to do with the effort of various communities of people engaged in building a digital commons over and beyond the pioneering efforts of departments of the US government that built the internet in the first place. Issues of governance have inevitably come to the fore, and much was expected from the conference, “NETmundial”, held last month, which sought to build upon prevailing ideas concerning multilateralisation of internet governance.

At present, it is the agencies of the US government that control the nuts and bolts of internet architecture, primarily the domain name system (DNS) and the root zone server which controls the naming and addressing protocols for domains all over the world. The US government has over the previous decade and a half resolved to loosen its hold – through the aegis of US commerce department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) – over the DNS and the root zone server. The work of maintaining the two have been contracted to the not-for-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), headquartered in the US. On 14 March 2014, the US government reiterated its intent to undertake the transition to – what it has called – a “multi-stakeholder model” of internet governance.

Previously, the “multi-stakeholder model” was shorthand for privatisation, basically leading to corporate control over the internet’s key resources, but over time it has intended to include various civil society representatives and organisations. In its present intended configuration the model is now pitted against what others have argued for – a “multilateral model of governance”. The latter has pitched for a UN-like grouping of nation states having a say in internet governance through a multilateral international organisation.

The US, with support from many of its OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) allies, has steadfastly refused to allow a transition of this kind, fearing loss of inherent control of national law and national government agency regulation of the internet. This has led to grievances over the US’s retention of the internet’s major governing resources. Since last year, it has been clear that the US government along with large and predominantly monopolist internet corporations have conducted mass surveillance over the internet of people even beyond the US’s borders. The US government has also declined to curb the anti-competitive practices of the monopolistic corporations command­ing various aspects of the internet. It has pushed the veneer of protection of civil liberties guaranteed in its Constitution and its purported role as the leader of the “free world” in refusing to cede any ground to proposals related to multilateral governance of the internet. A multilateral approach has been deemed necessary by many as it is well understood that sovereign nations have the best wherewithal to address issues such as cyber warfare/cyber-terrorism or to bring into place restrictions on unfair practices that establish monopolistic control over the internet’s resources.

It is in this regard that Brazil among others has initiated a dialogue between those advocating a “multi-stakeholder approach” and those for a “multilateral approach” to internet governance. “NETmundial” was intended as a step in this direction. It sought to build upon the ideas for multilateralisation of internet governance as these have evolved from the Tunis agenda for the Information Society conducted by the World Summit on the Information Society in 2005. The conference was held in the context of Brazil’s move to counteract US domination over internet resources, which had made possible Washington’s “boundless” and intrusive surveillance programmes. It coincided with the signing into law by Brazil’s Parliament of a bill of internet rights that protects the civil liberties of internet users in the country. This law includes the provision of “net neutrality”, a principle that equalises access to any website for the ordinary user. It is noteworthy that a US federal court had in January this year ruled against “net neutrality” in favour of a communication services corporation. In this context, it is worrying that articulation of the need to preserve “net neutrality” was expressly lacking in the outcome document of the conference’s deliberations.

While the outcome of the conference was a “non-binding” set of principles, efforts to reach a workable consensus that protects the “free-ness and openness” of the internet and permits democratic “multi-stakeholder” control over the internet’s governance system were only partially successful. With continued scepticism emanating from the US and its allies over the need for other states to participate in the transition to a multi-stakeholder model, the use of language favouring strict copyright laws and inter­mediary liabilities amounting to decentralised policing by intermediaries over users, the outcome document has belied expectations. The US continues to remain non-committal about how it seeks to implement its intent of bestowing internet governance upon a global community of multiple stakeholders. Without a discriminating and discerning differentiation of roles and responsibilities between stakeholders such as global corporations, civil society organisations and sovereign nation states, and allowing for a more decentralised structure of internet Governance,  the proposed transition accounts to a vacuous exercise.  

Issues of contemporary India: Environmental degradation-I

I already wrote a small article about soil degradation and Desertification. you can check it out at http://upsctarget.blogspot.in/2014/01/issues-of-contemporary-india.html

Environment or nature is everything that surrounds us. The traditional egocentric approach towards usage of resources has degraded environment to such a level that the plush green forests, which come into our mind when we think of nature do not exist anymore. Environment or nature, what is left of it is among us. We use it every day, for paper, for electricity, our clothes and most of all the basic requirements for our mere existence air, water and food. Every economic structure is based on concept of limited resources and their distribution, but no one care about who is giving those resources. Our nature has a unique ability to recycle certain resources, some are manually recycled and replenished and some are completely exhausted without replacement. hence hampering the natural balance.

Some of the effects of human activity are completely irreversible, because of us many species of plants and animals have been extinct and many more on the verge of extinction. But why should we even care if some species are extinct and the environment we live in is changing(degrading)? If we do care, are we even responsible for it, or is it just the phase of earth's evolution? What is causing it? how can we stop it? What has been done to stop it? what needs to be done are some of the questions faced by people all over the world.

Why should we care?. let us look at Biological cycles like carbon cycle, water cycle, nitrogen cycle and phosphorous cycle. All have one thing in common, they are in harmony, and they have a certain amount of tolerance towards any change. But beyond the tolerance level, the cycles collapse and cause problems to our  very existence. Now are we responsible for it? recently there have been a lot of news about global warming, melting of ice caps and other environmental effects, but are we even responsible for them, or is it just a part of earth's hot and cold cycles. A lot of theories popped up which do suggest that some of it might be earth's transitional effect. But most of the effects are man made, since we are responsible for causing damage to the source of our existence. We need to take up responsibility to stop and undo some of the damage we have caused. "We need to protect the environment so that it can give us protection".

Environmental protection does not just mean, bunch of activists going and hugging a tree in forest to save it. It starts in every house hold with each and every action.  We need to reconsider everything we use in our daily life, consumerism, as such is at question here. The capitalist attitude to promote consumption, people's desire to have more and more babies all are at question. When our existence is at stake especially because of our existence, there is something  inherently wrong and suicidal. There is no limit to our imagination but there is a limit to resources and any over exploitation of these resources is detrimental.

I remember as a kid, I used to believe that everything is possible. I used to think that if i had will and imagination I could be a superhero, maybe I would have like batman at the cost of my body, and perish. With age I understood that there are limits which i cannot break or i should not break. I'm not saying that the youthful me was wrong in any sense, I just say with maturity I understood the tenets of survival. Apply the same to entire human beings, we aspire to defy the laws of nature, we like to get fat while riding our super fast cars, not that there is anything wrong in it (especially when I myself am getting fat) but maybe we as a whole need to understand our surroundings better and start living better.

Next blog I will get into, the ideas which circulate in academic circles to understand the tenets of our survival, some of which came into light. What are organisational efforts taken by India and other International organisations.

Thank you
Shiva :)

Contemporary issues of India: Gender Discrimination-I

Each and everyone of us is a perpetrator of gender discrimination. I, like everyone else was blinded by misogyny and patriarchy inherent in our society.  I'm appalled by the systemic discrimination our society accommodates when finally the dense fog has lifted over my eyes.  We have been victims of desensitization and aloofness about gender discrimination.

Lets understand this by some examples with some News headlines,

Gurgaon Police had ordered not to employ women after 8 pm, if they do, then they need to give security.

Engineering college has made it mandatory for girl students to wear decent dresses

Haryana MLA says revealing dresses and pub culture are responsible for rise in crimes against women

Sena storms into pubs hits women, alleges cultural drain

Shoot daughter if she elopes- UP top cops advice

Youth attacks a minor girl with acid for rejecting him

Wife goes to court for alleged violence in marriage

IIT graduate expects gift(dowry) of one crore

How many of you think all of them or at least one of them is right news?
Did any of the news irk you?

As a matter of fact all the news presented here is covering sexism in society to varying extents. If you think at least one of the above news is legitimate, you are inherently a perpetrator of sexism. If we look at the general statistics, 

• The Adult sex ratio since independence to 2001 has dropped to 933/1000 and has marginally increased to 940/1000 in 2011. 
• Child sex ratio is even worse which has been dropping continuously and is lowest since independence at 914/1000 in 2011. 
• Only 3% of women are employed in higher managerial jobs.
• 20% technical and non technical jobs with 25% share in income.
• 10-12% parliament representation. 

All of the above are just few illustrations of permeating discrimination against women in society.Now a lot of people might ask what is the harm in Gurgaon making a law for protection of women from predators? to answer that question, we need to first answer certain implicit questions like, where did these predators come from? Why do we have a higher rape aggregate in India? Is stopping companies from employing women after 8 pm the right way to stop crimes against women? Who is responsible for rise of crimes against women? Is it rapid westernization or the culture of mini skirts or simply the perpetrators of these crimes against women? Who is really contributing to the rise in crime against women? 

let us first analyse some structural problems in our society.

Protectionism Vs Empowerment

Quite often in Indian context, people see no difference between both. Government of India and its laws like Dowry prohibition Act(1961), Protection of women from domestic violence act(2005), The Muslim women Protection of Rights on Dowry Act 1986, termination of pregnancy act 1976 and a lot more focus mainly about protection than empowerment. If we ask an average father what he would do to keep their daughter safe...you might hear a few of the following responses.

a) Stop the daughter from going out late night
b) Make her learn self defense
c) Raise voice against government for its inability to provide security

Some of these responses are more common than the other. Both, the responses a and c are protectionist whereas option b is empowering. If we see the Gurgaon's case, gives the same impression. Instead of making society conscious about their inherent gender bias, they chose to degenerate status of woman further, making them a commodity which needs protection than empowerment!

In a patriarchal society like India, everyone who takes lead role in a family from fathers, brothers, husbands to the government, everyone prefers protectionism as opposed to empowerment, consciously or sub-consciously to meet their ends(although male lead role itself is a form of discrimination, we will get to that later!)while giving their boy child every possible opportunity to develop and grow into an individual adult. A woman on the other hand is traded like a precious ornament which needs to be safeguarded, from one hand to other. What difference does a girl see between an ancient society and a modern one when very little has changed in perception of woman as property as opposed to an individual?

Further reading in coming blogs

Yours
Shiva :)

Issues of contemporary India: Desertification

These days everyone seems to be interested in making the world a better place. They want better governance, better utilisation of resources. They want to make Government and other organizations to take reponsibilty. But I'm going to ask one question, How many of us are ready to accept responsibility and do something for a better world?. Its easy to blame others for what is happening, it is hard to own responsibility and do something about it. I'm going to write a series of blogs on different issues destroying contemporary India.

Desertification

The defiinition in Wikipedia is

"Desertification is a type of land degradation in which a relatively dry land region becomes increasingly arid, typically losing its bodies of water as well as vegetation and wildlife. It is caused by a variety of factors, such as climate change and human activities. Desertification is a significant global ecological and environmental problem."

Now, I know most of the people who are reading this are unaware of the fact that 1/3rd of all the land in India is at a verge of Desertification. No one seems to care about it, though it is as important as climate change and whose effects are immediate and drastic. A report submitted to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) by the Environment Ministry in fourth week of April 2013 described that one third of India’s geographical area is undergoing the process of desertification despite of the efforts made by it to combat the problem. But  what are the effects of desertification? is it really serious? whose responsibility is it anyway? what is causing it? What can we do to stop it?, these are some questions we are facing today. 

India's growing population and dire need for food production to meet the population, exerts an enormous pressure on land. The socio-economic and cultural effects of desertification are disastrous.With 60% of the population depending on land for income directly or indirectly, it would be of huge economic consequence. Social effects like unrest, poverty and cultural effects like migration may be of dire consequences. So desertification needs our immediate attention. 

Out of India's 328 mha total area nearly 69% of our land area is arid, semi-arid or dry sub-humid. A moajor part of these areas is prone to desertification. In report to UNCCD, MoEF has analysed land usage pattern in India with the help of ISRO concluded that 106 mha i.e 1/3rd of area is undergoing desertification. 

The causes of desertification are vegetal degradation, water erosion, wind erosion, wind/eolian degradation, frost shattering, salinity/alkalinity, mass movement, water logging, rocky areas/barren land, man made, frost heaving and others. 

      Process wise distribution of the area under land-degradation for India

Lets look at the causes one by one. 

Vegetal degradation: it is observed mainly as deforestation/ forest-blanks/ shifting cultivation and degradation in grassland/grazing and scrubland. This happens in both warm and cold areas. 

Water erosion: Sheet erosion/rill network/ shallow gully erosion fall mainly under this category. It comprises mainly of agricultural land. 

Wind erosion: mainly happens in the close proximity of deserts mainly because of lift and drift effect of wind

Salinization/ Alkalinization: Mainly in cultivated lands because of excess ground water usage, soil erosion, usage of different insecticides and pesticides. 

Water wasting:  happens due to rock, regolith and debris movement down hill due to land slides, creeping. 

Man made: though most of the above causes are indirect effects of man made causes. There are a few direct causes like Mining, brick kiln, industrial effluents, city waste and others

Desertification map of India

If we see above pattern, almost all the causes of desertification are man made directly or indirectly. Indirect causes like global warming, deforestation, unregulated cattle grazing, excessive usage of pesticides and insecticides, over exhaustion of ground water and many others, while making a mess directly by mining, industrial  effluents, city waste, improper drainage and others. There is no easy solution for stopping desertification, the first step towards it should be efficient utilization of resources by every individual, economic usage of ground water, awareness of renewable and bio-degradable sources of consumption and others. It would be hypocritical of us, if we just accuse the Government and others of not maintaining India in perfect health, when we the people are causing the problems and not doing anything about it.

regards,

Shiva :)

Reference

http://www.jagranjosh.com/current-affairs/desertification-affects-over-onefourth-geographical-area-of-india-report-1367145703-1

http://www.moef.nic.in/sites/default/files/desert_atlas.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertification

http://www.wrsc.org/attach_image/risk-human-induced-desertification