How should we remember the past decade in India? Should it be for its scams and scandals or for unfinished efforts at improving governance? Do we celebrate the surging wealth of a few or worry about the poverty in which the majority of Indians continue to live? It has been a decade full of contradictions. The GDP is up but the access that the poor enjoy is down. Real estate drives the economy but very few can afford to own a home. Water companies do booming business, but a scarcity looms over all of us. Inclusion is on everyone's lips, but a yawning trust deficit reigns with people being wary of politicians and suspicious of industry. And yet this has been a decade that has witnessed greater understanding of the issues at the grassroots. A new activism has taken shape, drawing on talent from across different sectors of the economy. Today we know much more about our problems from the inside than we ever did before. We also look for solutions to them in an enlarged bandwidth of society. A new and relevant legislative framework has been put in place. Several key rights have been established with laws on the right to information, education and food. A rural health mission seeks to get medical facilities to every village. At the same time, corruption flourishes. There aren't schools which provide quality education to all children and people go hungry in the absence of a reliable food distribution system. Public health care exists only in name because the facilities available to the less privileged are appalling. Some 500 million of us remain outside the banking system and are denied the financial opportunities that should rightfully be available to everyone. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
Gram Sewak, you have thrown sand in our eyes all these years,” was the headline in the only newspaper that covered the first Jan Sunwai (public hearing) in the state of Rajasthan on 2nd December, 1994. This public hearing in Kot Kirana village, Pali district, factually corroborated the angst of thousands of people looted for years. A landmark for many reasons, but most importantly, it placed official records and information in the public domain, for collective examination by the concerned in the area. For weeks preceding the Jan Sunwai, activists from the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) along with local villagers had gone from village to village sharing the contents of records of development expenditure they had managed to informally access. Frustrated with a process of petitioning the same authorities responsible for perpetrating a wrong, the MKSS had decided to quite literally take the issue to the people. The results were dramatic. The muster rolls brought into the public domain for the first time, details that substantiated stories of corruption that were common knowledge but impossible to establish. It removed the secrecy and red tape these acts are buried in, and the consequent helplessness of people to act. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
The decade 2010-2020 is the Golden Decade of India, provided we can convert the growth of the past decade into inclusive growth benefiting those left out – the Dalits, the tribals, the minorities, a vast majority of women and the youth, and special segments of the population such as the disabled. There are also regional inequalities in growth. For example, in spite of a GSDP growth rate of over 11per cent per annum for the last five years, the per capita income of Bihar is still less than one-fifth of Haryana. States in the northern Hindi belt continue to have high population (and thus political weightage), but low growth. This will have to be corrected. Millions of young people and women in these states will have to get gainful employment, and since it is not conceivable that so many jobs will be created by the formal economy, they will get work in the informal sector, either as wage workers or be self-employed. In either case, micro-investments will have to be made at the level of the household, for those employed on wages – in primary education and vocational training to ensure that remunerative wage work becomes available. For the self-employed, micro-investments will have to be made in fixed and working capital for agriculture, livestock and non-farm rural enterprises, as well as in urban micro-enterprises. In short, macro-economic inclusive growth needs micro-economic capital investments. The only way this can be done is through widespread financial inclusion. In other words, financial inclusion is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for inclusive growth. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
Erstwhile advocates of capitalism seem to be losing their faith. Their growing list includes George Soros, Joseph Stieglitz, Bill Emmott (former chief editor of The Economist ), John Gray (an economist advisor to Margaret Thatcher) and Adair Turner (former Director-General of the Confederation of Business Industry). In a report with the intriguing title, Has the World Gone Mad? Bernard Connolly, chief global strategist of AIG London, says, ‘We have lost count of how many notes we have, in the past few years, written with some reference to a crisis of capitalism. Tragically, that crisis is now upon us.' And Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, warned after the Bear Sterns collapse, “Remember Friday, March 14, 2008: it was the day the dream of global free-market capitalism died.” While many economists now say we cannot have business as usual, others say there is nothing unusual in this crisis. They say crises are inherent in capitalism. They imply that nothing much needs to be done because the market will sort itself out. They seem blind to two serious problems with capitalism in its present form. One is the belief amongst them that nothing has changed in the world fundamentally to make the present discontent with capitalism any different to past crises. The other problem is the idea that human beings are like corks on an ocean that have no choice, and must accept that they will be bobbed up and down by the invisible hand of the market. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
The great physician Charaka once said that no plant on our earth is useless. Mahatma Gandhi also used to stress that nature provides for everyone's need but not for everybody's greed. Modern biotechnology, particularly recombinant DNA technology, has helped to convert Charaka's and Gandhiji's visions into reality. We can now move genes across sexual barriers and thereby create novel genetic combinations. For example, rice varieties have been bred at the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) which possess tolerance to salinity as a result of the incorporation of genes from mangrove species. Therefore seeds of the future will be derived both from Mandelian and Molecular breeding. In order to ensure that the new seeds are both high yielding and climate resilient, there is need to integrate pre-breeding with participatory breeding. In this manner, we can combine genetic efficiency with genetic diversity. While modern biotechnology has opened up uncommon opportunities for meeting the challenges of climate change and global warming, we can still make much progress through traditional techniques like selection and hybridization. Since most of our farmers have small holdings, it is important that they have access to technologies which can increase marketable surplus and thereby income. In a country with predominantly small holdings with farmers lacking in risk taking capacity, it is important that varieties are preferred over hybrids since farmers can keep their own seeds in the case of varieties. In the case of hybrids they will have to purchase the seeds every season and hence there is need for an insurance cover. Nearly 80 per cent of the seeds used in the country are from farmers' seeds system. This system will have to be strengthened and scientifically upgraded. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Sometime in 2005 we were doing a simple study comparing the learning patterns in urban private schools and rural government schools. In the span of about a month, we visited around half a dozen private, fairly elite schools and an equal number of rural government schools. In a Class 5 urban school we asked the students this question: “Between sound and light, what travels faster?” About five students answered correctly. When we asked the reason why they said so, there were two answers – it is there in the book and our teachers told us so. We decided to ask the same question in a Class 5 rural school the same month. With much difficulty only one student answered. He said: “Sound travels faster.” We asked the student the reason for his answer. We were stunned by his reply. The student said: “When I switch on the TV at my home, I can hear the sound first and then the picture.” The teacher was angry with the student. But most of us were very impressed with the logic that the child gave. He had observed something, analyzed it and arrived at a conclusion based on his thinking. At that stage in his life, he had no idea how the TV functioned and why the picture took time to come alive. Since then, I have narrated the two incidents to many and asked them, “Which kind of learning would you prefer – the one that we experienced in the urban school or the one by the student in the rural school”? Most people prefer the answer given by the student in the rural government school – though the answer is technically wrong. The question before us is: “What kind of education and learning do we expect from our children?” Do we want them to be able to give the “correct answer” or give “a thoughtful answer?” ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
When I was asked if I could delineate the contours of the future of buildings and urban planning over the next two decades, I seized the opportunity without hesitation. The first thing that came to my mind was that green is the name of the game, no doubt about it. There is a war breaking out in the asphalt jungle we have known for over 50 years now. A bird's eye view of the emerging scenario tells us that there has never been such interest in the ecological impact of buildings all over the world. In India alone, green construction is projected to increase to about 1 billion sq ft by 2012. At Rs 2 lakh crore, it is nearly five per cent of India's GDP. Moreover, the struggle to reduce carbon emissions and pollution levels isn't a negligible fact for a country in search of responsible and sustainable methods of construction. It's old hat now that buildings are one of the heaviest consumers of natural resources and emit colossal amounts of greenhouse gases triggering climate change. In India, as elsewhere in the world, construction and active energy use in buildings account for about 35 per cent of all CO2 emissions. The farm sector contributes an equal quantity, while industry and commerce account for the rest. Globally, 40 per cent of all raw materials go into making buildings. Green is so fashionable that everyone is jumping on to the bandwagon, claiming astonishing sustainability or remarkably low energy consumption. But in reality, they are selling the idea – not realizing the ideal. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The materia-medicas of traditional health sciences of India like Ayurveda, Unani, Sidha and Swa-rigpa (Tibetan) contain clinically validated information of treatment principles and properties of about 1,900 plant species. There are also over 200,000 herbal formulations made from these plants, alongside their therapeutic indications. Apart from codified knowledge of plants, India has a hugely widespread tradition of folk medicine wherein rural communities use around 6,500 species of plants for human and animal health. We don't know when the clinical validation of the codified knowledge of plants was done but obviously this must have happened over several centuries. The Ayurvedic and Sidha literature has been written over the period 1500 BC to 1900 AD, Swa-rigpa after 6th century AD and Unani after 11th century AD. Given the long history of traditional systems of medicine in India, quite understandably, we no longer have any records of the validation data, except for more recent research that has been published during the last two to three decades. We however do know that there are four Ayurvedic methods (pramanas) that were used to generate clinical evidence – direct perception (pratyaksha); inference (anuman and upman); experiment (yukti) and unbiased testimony of great physician-seers (aptavachana). In Indian knowledge traditions therefore, Ayurveda is regarded as an evidence based knowledge system (praman shastra). It is perhaps a similar situation with Sidha, Unani and Swa-rigpa.
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Republic Day is due this month. It symbolizes the day we renew our pledge with our Constitution. This dreamy author embarks on a wishful, fanciful tour about the actions required at all levels to make our cities truly inclusive, livable and be engines of growth. On the eve of Republic Day, the President's speech could kick-start the thought-action chain by reflecting on the future of our cities. “….. Urbanization is inevitable and there is not a minute to waste in fixing our cities, be it mega or smaller towns. Our Constitutional Amendments, Article 73 and 74 dealt with the way forward for our villages and our cities. While the panchayati raj system under the 73rd Amendment has worked reasonably well, the spirit of the 74th Amendment has been lost in our cities. Five years ago, the JNNURM was the first recognition that cities can find their destinies with assistance from the Central Government. It has been marginally successful and the scope to be more effective is considerable if Central, State and Local governments reformed themselves for the greater good of our children's children. We should envision a future for our cities say in 2021 and ‘fold the future in' (as the late, respected Prof CK Prahlad used to advocate) to decide what is needed to match the reality of 2011. All Indians ought to indulge in such an exercise on Republic Day.” ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
As we enter the second decade of the 21st Century, the increasing pace of technology advances will dramatically impact our lives. The Internet ‘cloud' is becoming more powerful and reliable, able to store and transmit large amounts of information and performing immense computer transactions and processing. Plugged into the cloud is a new form of computer applications, called ‘services.' These services will provide targeted functionality that satisfies our computing needs at that moment, in our current environment. The services will be delivered to our device of choice, be it a personal computer, mobile device, entertainment system, or public computer. In essence, we will become more connected to real-time information and communications. This is the path that leads us to “continuous services and connected devices.” Our mission in Microsoft's Accessibility Business Unit is to ensure access to these services and devices by all people, while respecting their unique level of physical and cognitive abilities. Naturally, there is a wide variety in the level of people's abilities. One person may experience a persistent disability, such as permanent vision loss. Another person may experience vision strain at the end of a long working day. The value of making technology accessible is that it can be used by a broad set of people, in a way that meets their unique requirements. And that technology adapts as the person's abilities change – which can result from changing health, aging, or merely being in an environment or situation that reduces vision, hearing, mobility, speech, or increases cognitive load. Therefore, the market for accessible technology expands to people with mild impairments, occasional difficulties, the aging population, and the mainstream population in various situations. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
Public policy and private interest in infrastructure has happened in what one would call trunk infrastructure and urban infrastructure – roads, SEZs, power, highways, metro rail. Somehow there hasn't been enough focus on elements of what we broadly call rural infrastructure. In rural infrastructure, the key constituents are rural roads, rural electricity, water supply, drinking water, sanitation, irrigation, cold chain and mandis. These capture broadly the domain of rural infrastructure. Now, while a lot of action has happened in attracting private capital into non-rural infrastructure (the PPP model has been extensively used) the same thing has not happened in rural infrastructure. Rural infrastructure is by and large still driven by public expenditure, managed and maintained by public agencies. There is very little “private” in the rural context. Now, within PPP there is an interesting format called the Annuity Scheme. Broadly, in private participation in infrastructure, there are two models – BOO (Build, Own, Operate) and Annuity. What happens in BOO is that the private entity takes the market risk. In simple terms, that means that you build the road and you are expected to recover the cost of the road by collecting toll. The fact that you are collecting toll exposes you to the market daily. And you earn a living by collecting money from the market like telecom companies take monthly bills, road companies take toll, airports take a user development charge and so on. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Ragpickers have stepped up their campaign to prevent private companies from taking over garbage collection under a waste-to-energy project in New Delhi. A public meeting held at the Constitution Club on 10 December, expressed concern over an estimated 250,000 ragpickers losing their traditional means of earning a livelihood. The meeting was also attended by a representative of residents of Sukhdev Vihar, a neighbourhood in the Okhla area, where a plant will use 2,000 tonnes of garbage daily to produce 16 MW of power. Sukhdev Vihar residents are worried that incineration of garbage at the plant will lead to the emission of harmful gasses and endanger their health. The residents are already in court against this plant and a medical waste incinerator set up earlier in the area. The meeting was organised by the All-India Kabadi Mazdoor Mahasangh and the Toxics Watch Alliance. It was supported by other NGOs such as Toxics Links and Hazards Centre. The former member secretary of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), B. Sengupta, was present and questioned the choice of location for the plant. Delhi is said to generate between 6,000 and 8,000 tonnes of garbage daily. Traditionally, ragpickers have collected the garbage and sifted the recyclables before the garbage is taken to landfill sites. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
After a long and herculean struggle, the people of Kasaragod district succeeded in getting the Kerala government to ban the deadly pesticide Endosulfan. In the meantime, 400 lives have been lost according to government figures, hundreds have been maimed and a much greater number are bedridden. So imagine our surprise when we recently found that the Union Ministry of Agriculture appointed yet another fact-finding committee to establish the link between Endosulfan and mass ill-health in Kasaragod. Even more shocking to us was the holding of a conference in Delhi just weeks ago sponsored by a pesticide manufacturer. The conference was inaugurated by the President of India and presided over by the Union Agriculture Minister as chief guest. Do you need a better example than this to understand with whom the sympathies of our political leaders actually lie? Here is the true story of Endosulfan and our agony. Reality and denial: In 2001, when we realized there was a link between Endosulfan and mass ill-health in our district we approached the agriculture minister in the Left-led Nayanar government in Kerala, the late Krishnan Kaniyamparambil. We showed him an album full of tragic pictures of victims. Our simple request to him was to stop the spraying of Endosulfan over cashew plantations. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
This year's NCPEDP - Shell Helen Keller Awards were given away by P Chidambaram, Union Home Minister, on a typical wintry morning in Delhi. The auditorium was full, an indication said the minister, that there were islands of humanity in an arid desert of indifference. Now in its 12th year, the annual awards, jointly organised by the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) and Shell India, recognised 10 individuals who had become role models for people with disability and companies which had provided equal rights and opportunities to the disabled. “It's been heartening to see the awareness that has come to the disability sector thanks to efforts like this,” Chidambaram remarked. He said the upcoming census, scheduled to be conducted in February 2011, will play a big role for India's 70 million plus disabled. “This time the sector has seen tremendous cooperation from the Census Commission. There is a serious and genuine attempt towards enumeration of people with disabilities,” said Javed Abidi, Honorary Director, NCPEDP. “Authentic numbers will mean significantly better resource allocation for disability issues.” “Every year it humbles me to see the nominations that come in. They are increasing in number and quality,” said Vikram Singh Mehta, Chairman, Shell Group of Companies which has been involved with the awards for over a decade. Disabled persons who are role models These awards are given to disabled persons who have been actively promoting employment for disabled people and are a role model for others. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
After travelling through 20 states the Kisan Swaraj Yatra ended its journey at Rajghat in New Delhi on 11 December. Farmers and activists invoked Mahatma Gandhi's gram swaraj ideal and took a pledge to protect the food and seed sovereignty of India. Then they crossed the road and held a meeting at Gandhi Darshan. That long forgotten slogan of the 1960s: Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan, rent the air. The Kisan Swaraj Yatra began from Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat on 2 October last year. Organised by the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), a forum of 400 farmer and activist groups, the yatris visited 100 districts to create awareness about ‘self-reliant' agriculture and warn against pro-corporate policies which harm the interests of farmers. The yatris ended up talking to 25,000 people. “Eighty per cent of them were farmers, small, marginal and big,” says Kavita Kuruganti, co- convenor of ASHA. “We also spoke to agricultural scientists, political representatives and urban consumers. The problems most farmers face are roughly land-grab, lack of water and land degradation. Their livelihood security is under severe threat.” Speaker after speaker condemned chemical farming, genetically modified seeds, the Krishi Vigyan Kendras and the government's pro-industry policies. Jal, jangal, jameen, beej hamari hain, shouted the protestors. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ About Us | Site Map | Privacy Policy | Contact Us | ©2007 Civil Society....................................... .Webmaster Vishwanathan ( vishu4@rediffmail.com ) |
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