How my breakfast caused "food inflation"!!

This morning I had an egg for my breakfast along with my customary glass of milk…. And it suddenly dawned on me how this innocuous act must have added to the food inflation, as the "storyline" from the top brains and policy-makers in the government has been pointing out during recent months (guiltily, I also recalled having fish on last Tuesday :((

“What prices are going up are those of vegetables, eggs, fish that are secondary and tertiary food items. That is a reflection of the demand for these commodities exceeding supplies... That in turn, to some extent at least, is a sign of growing prosperity of our country.” - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Cannes (November 8)

“Food inflation is still going high. It’s dangerously above the double-digit figure. This is the effect of festive season demand. November onwards, the trend for the remaining four months (of the fiscal) would be available.” - Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee (November 3)

"…food inflation (can be explained by) somewhat less known Bennett's Law which says that as incomes go up, people eat less of serials and eat more of protein and which is what we are seeing in India happening today. Protein food inflation was evident even earlier, but it has been much sharper in recent period reflecting among other things accelerated increase in nominal wages.” - Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, D Subbarao (Nov 22)

“High inflation number points towards people eating healthier food, better lifestyles.” - Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia (Jan 20, 2011)

“Food habits of people are changing. Their purchasing power is up. This is causing food inflation. They are consuming more milk and eggs, so why blame the government?” - Union Food Minister K V Thomas (Oct 29, 2011)

…meanwhile, I recall reading a in a report that during last 3 years, the retail price of sugar has risen by 100%, wheat by 150%, lentils by 300% and vegetables by 300% - and one of GOI’s own report mentions that per capita availability of grains has decreased from 163kg to 161kg per annum during the past decade or so.

…though that is another “story”…

A State of - & in - Denial !!?

This clip has been doing round on the net - on YouTube, Facebook and numerous other distributed sites since last few days.


Some reaction to this clip, are mentioned in this article:

"A formal case is being registered against the YouTube and Facebook networks and investigation is on to locate the persons responsible for uploading this baseless and malicious clip" a police spokesman told PTI.

...the video has not been verified as yet and therefore "to attribute it to security forces with the intention of maligning them and spreading disaffection among the people is highly regrettable. Action shall also be taken against other organisations who tried to propagate it"

"No one has been able to authenticate the video so far," Home Minister P Chidambaram told reporters... "Until it is authenticated and the persons identified, I think it would be unsafe to rely on such a video."

"Such a thing is not possible in Kashmir,” CRPF spokesman Prabhakar Tripathi was quoted by the Indian Express as saying. “The video seems manipulated to tarnish the image of the force and police.... In this place, even rape doesn’t remain a secret.”


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAVGu_KBy70

Worth reading too, is this article Kashmir’s Abu Gharaib? by Shuddhabrata Sengupta.

Guns and Daughters

Glimpses of lives, torn in what someone has described as "India's very own civil war" - where some are drawn unknowingly into taking sides, and some make a conscious choice....

...but as this documentary by Shikha Trivedy says:

"...today there are ideas of many India at war with each other. And in any war, women are the worst off..."

...at least, there is "no corruption in corruption"!!

Last evening, I had an interesting meeting with a 'friend' who is also a local entrepreneur where I live. We had met after some months, and we chatted about many things - and he shared his travails with various govt agencies to make his venture grow... Some excerpts from our conversations (not verbatim, but as I remember them... and do convey the gist):

He: "It is very difficult to grow and expand... There is so much corruption here in these states in the East. One has to pay for anything to move."

Me: "What about your expansions elsewhere? In the western and southern states? I understand things are much better there. No?"

He: "Oh yes, much better there! I have been able to move much faster... which actually is a pity! This is my state - I was born and brought-up here - and I am not able to do much here - at least not as much as I would like to do."

Me: "You mean that this part of the country is more corrupt than those states..."

He: "Oh, no!!... They are as much corrupt and need bribes - in fact, more! - sometime they ask for more than what they ask for here..."

Me: "Then...? - this puzzled me.

He: "oh, there! - there at least, if you give them the "Speed Money", your work gets done. Over here, even that does not work."

Me: "meaning?..."

He: "Arre bhai!.. Over there, if you pay bribe, there is certain amount of honesty; they deliver what they promise... At least, there is no corruption in corruption there..."

We had a nice evening together, but I came back with a couple of queries in my mind:

What kind of society we have become (or were always), where:

it is so very nonchalently easy to talk about corruption and giving bribes (in whatever name)
&

we have created terms like "speed money" and phrases like "no corrption in corruption"

Don’t know, really!... Good night!

[NOTE: Over last 30yrs or so, since I started working, I have had the benefit of knowing, befriending and getting acquainted with very wide bandwidth of people - ranging from students, factory artisans, grassroot activists, entrepreneurs... to some who are CEOs. They have been nice to have remembered me over decades, and when we meet we meet as friends... With some I have differed on issues, but have always found them well-meaning, honest people with their own issues in life - as all of us have.

Some of those interactions have created dissonance in me, but I have also learned from those differences... And in any case, I have emerged wiser through those... So, in some ways, they have been my teachers to help me understand life (within and around me) - because they raised questions for me...
...this interaction was one of the many of those!]

India.. a nation divided by "Caste"! ?

...it is always useful to take a stock of what-we-are-most-critical-about... Specially when the media is abuzz with Khap Panchayat - with what-the-ground-realities-are...

And so, some news-items of the past weeks (click on the headline to read the news-items):

Maharashtra seeks Facebook ban
The Maharashtra government has asked the Centre about the possibility of blocking social networking site Facebook following such a demand from Muslim and Christian organisations...

77 per cent oppose same gotra marriages: HT survey
Even as the government proposes tougher laws against honour killings sanctioned by khap panchayats, a survey carried out by Hindustan Times in Haryana shows most people are against same gotra (sub-caste) marriages... The survey shows as many as 77 per cent of the respondents do not support same gotra marriages. The survey was carried out in Chandigarh, Rohtak, Jind, Bhiwani and Kurukshetra. Surprisingly, even in Chandigarh, 65 per cent of the respondents have opposed same gotra marriages....

Now, honour killings in Andhra
Honour killings came home to Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday night when two lovers were stoned to death by the relatives of a girl who had eloped with a man from another caste in Tadwai mandal in Nizamabad district....

After khaps, Arya Samaj shocker for lovers
After khaps, it is the Arya Samaj that has shocked couples in Haryana. A section of the sect has decided to ban marriages without consent of parents and villagers....

No.. Frankly, I don’t know where are the solutions
....but do believe that we will never find them, unless we accept that there is a problem!.....

Nira Radia Papers - Raja, Tata, Ambani connection

I had read about Nira Radia in a recent issue of Outlook magazine on Corporate Lobbying... Her name again cropped up in an article in The Pioneer about the phone-tapping issue

These 14 internal GOI's documents, scanned and posted in the link below show the outcome of tapped conversations:

The Radia Papers– Raja, Tata, Ambani connection
http://indiasreport.com/magazine/data/the-radia-papers-raja-tata-ambani-connection/

Given the industry big-wigs and the media houses involved, this scam may never achieve the kind of publicity in the mainstream media, which the IPL/ Lalit Modi issue got.

The other reason for believing this is also because I got to know about this link through a group mail from a journalist friend, who works with a well-known and respected mainstream newspaper - obviously, if he could have published a story on this in his own newspaper, he wouldn't have shared the documents to all!!

International Labour Day - The Forgotten Story

I had a vague idea about the origins of the "May Day"/ "Labour Day" (but not much) - besides of course that it coincided with some of the pre-Christian pagan festivals in Europe...

So, today when one of my senior colleague, who has spent more than four decades dealing with Industrial/Labour Relations, both as a practicing manager and then as an academic (besides being the author of "one of its kind" book on Industrial Jurisprudence, sent this mail, I thought that this forgotten history is worth sharing. I am reproducing his mail below:

--------
Today is celebrated as a "Labour Day" all over the world. Quite a few of us may not be knowing "why May 1st only"; "why not some other day"; and "why at all should there be a special day of commemoration for working class"? Here is the story in a nutshell.

Explitation by US Industry - Long Working Hours
There was no law in US in the19th century (and until even as late as 1932), which conferred a right on the working class to form a union. Secondly, any attempt of workers to organise themselves was considered "criminal conspiracy" attracting prosecution under the criminal law of US. Thirdly, the US industry was guilty of forcing the workers, including women and children to work for long hours stretching to 15 to 18 hours a day.

Anarchist Movement - Strike by 400,000 Workers in Chicago on May 1, 1886
This was the state of affairs which prompted a few workers called as "anarchists" to secretly organise workers in Chicago in 1886 demanding "8-hour workday". The first strike in this regard was in McCormick Harvester Company, on 1st May 1886, in which workers of other industrial units numbering some 4 lakhs joined, sending shivers down the spine of business captains and the government. Police entered the fray leading to violence (including the throwing of a bomb by anarchists at the police party with the latter opening fire killing and wounding a few hundred protestors.

Trial and Execution of Seven Union Leaders
Finally, police picked up eight men stood trial for being "accessories to murder". They were: Spies, Fielden, Parsons, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Michael Schwab, Louis Lingg and Oscar Neebe. The trial commenced on June 21st 1886 in the criminal court of Cooke County.

The trial was whimsical and wishy-washy in so far as no evidence was offered that any of the speakers had incited violence and indeed, in his evidence at the trial, Mayor Harrison described the speeches as "tame". No proof was offered that any violence had been contemplated. In fact, Parsons had brought his two small children to the meeting.

On August 19, 1887 the Court sentenced seven of the accused to death, and Oscar Neebe to 15 years imprisonment. After a massive international uproar, the state government relented and commuted the sentences of Michael Schwab and Fielden to life imprisonment. Lingg cheated the hangman by committing suicide in his cell the day before the executions. On November 11th 1887 Parsons, Engel, Spies and Fischer were hanged.
---------------

It also occured to me that for many people this history would be seen as a thing of past - a mere blot in the march of history. After all, we live in a more enlightened age, with the constitutional rights in a democracy, and the "rule of law" governing the social arrangements...

...till one comes across items like these:

2010 Games: Labourers go empty handed?


Migrant Worker Munee in Rural Bihar

...and not just in India, but across the world - numerous labour camps in Dubai, sweatshops in Third World countries...


Third World Slaves Making OUR Bargains to Buy

How Main-Stream Media/Propaganda Works

Maoists Worst Human Rights Offenders
...is the Headline of a news-item on the IBNLive (April 14th). It goes on to say:

New Delhi: Naxalites are India's worst human rights offenders, says a new report on Torture in India. But Maoist supporters maintain that the Naxals are fighting for survival.

A report on Torture in India has made the startling revelation. The Asian Centre for Human Rights says that the Maoists are the worst violators when it comes to torture. For the first time ever, a top human rights group in India has accepted and highlighted that fact.

So to find out the details I went to The Asian Centre for Human Rights site. The Press-Release of the report - Torture in India - quoted by IBNLive is titled

41.66% increase of custodial deaths under the UPA from 2000
- Government urged to hold public debate on the Prevention of Torture Bill, 2010 -

It starts...
New Delhi: The Asian Centre for Human Rights today released its report, Torture in India 2010, at a press conference in New Delhi and stated that taking 2000 as the base year, custodial death have increased by 41.66% persons under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government between 2004-2005 to 2007-2008. This includes 70.72% increase of deaths in prison custody and 12.60% in police custody.

“It is the aam aadmi who are the majority victims of torture and other inhuman and degrading treatment. However, the UPA government has failed to do address the issue of torture and other human rights violations” – stated Mr Suhas Chakma, Director, Asian Centre for Human Rights..... “If government of India can hold public discussion on the Food Security Bill, why is it treating the Prevention of Torture Bill, 2010 as a secret document? It shows that the government has more to hide as its earlier draft, Prevention of Torture bill, 2008, contained only three operative paragraphs relating to (1) definition of torture, (2) punishment for torture, and (3) limitations for cognizance of offences. The Prevention of Torture bill, 2008 was highly flawed.”... Etc.

The full-report can be downloaded here

In this 99-page report,:

33 pages are devoted to Torture in Police Custody, which includes 20+ pages on "Patterns and Practices of Torture in Police Custody" and other sections on "Custodial torture of women and children" "impunity" etc...

1 page on Torture in the Custody of the Armed Forces

3 pages on Torture in Judicial Custody

2 pages on naxalites' use of torture

Moral of the Story: There is no Moral in the Story!

Between Hope and Despair (2): Hunger amidst Abundance

I had posted an article by the same title - Between Hope and Despair... a couple of years back... and some vague mental association brought it back today.

Read a news-item Food-shortage forcing children to eat mud today. Some excerpts:

"Under an unusually hot April sun, skinny, hungry children silently poked around on the dusty edges of a stone quarry in Ganne village, 45km east of Allahabad and a 12km walk from the nearest road.

“It tastes like powdered gram, so we eat it,” said Soni, 5, a listless girl with a protruding belly. It’s a learnt experience. Older children such as Soni wait for the excavated moist mud. The younger ones imitate them.

With most families reduced to one or two daily meals of boiled rice and salt—with a watery vegetable on a lucky day—the mud is a free but deadly option at the 20 stone quarries sustaining the poorest villagers.

Eating the mud worsens malnutrition and disease, but these families are not eligible for subsidized food and other state programmes, though each of a family of five earns about Rs400 a month; UP’s official poverty line is Rs435 per person per month."

What an irony, when another news-item informs us: Food grains rotting away in Indian godowns, streets:

"India has godowns to store 16 million tones when it needs almost three times that. What that means is wastage in these times of shortage.

Agricultural scientist Ashok Gulati said, "The total storage capacity is 28 million tonnes .. this leads to losses of 10 – 15%. Translate this into value... that is 6 million tonnes of grains damaged, unfit for human consumption ... it amounts to Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 crores annually."

...and one also comes across news-items like these:


along with one like this:


I have experienced this irony in the microcosm of life I live in - the XLRI Campus. Here we have a reasonably well-off educated community, secluded from the rest of the world, and even families of "domestic help" living in the out-houses are much better off than their counterparts elsewhere. Their kids go to schools, play in the campus with other kids, they have TVs at home - some even have air-coolers fitted in their windows....

About two years back, on an early morning, while in my balcony, I saw these two small girls diligently and furtively looking for something from the ground below. I found their innocent seriousness and concentration quite delightful - and trigger-happy as I am, clicked a photograph.

Suddenly they looked up and saw me, and became diffident and apprehensive. When I smiled and asked them what were they looking for, they became slightly relaxed. One of them mentioned a name, and then explained that it is a wild weed. What will you do with that, I asked.

I still remember her matter-of-fact reply, "Amma will cook it for our meal."

just about 100 meters away, in the students' hostel mess, everyday a huge amount of un-eaten food is thrown away, wasted...

As the 12 Myths about Hunger mentions:

"Abundance, not scarcity, best describes the world's food supply. Enough wheat, rice and other grains are produced to provide every human being with 3,200 calories a day. That doesn't even count many other commonly eaten foods: vegetables, beans, nuts, root crops, fruits, grass-fed meats, and fish. Enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person a day worldwide: two and half pounds of grain, beans and nuts, about a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk and eggs- enough to make most people fat! The problem is that many people are too poor to buy readily available food."

Dantewada, Naxal Attack and "Restoring Administration"

The attack by the Maoists/Naxals on the CRPF in Dantewada, Chhatisgarh on April 6th has caused much high-decibel outrage, anger and pathos across the media, political establishment and urban discourse... "surgical strikes", "coordinated multi-pronged approach", "fitting reply", "SriLankan Solution to LTTE" etc., seem to be flavour of the day...

One of the stated objectives of the "Operation Green Hunt" is that it will "clear, hold and build", i.e., clear the ultras, hold the place till governance and development can be brought in - and thus bring the local tribals into the fold.
(Note: "Operation Green Hunt" is a term which the government says is a media-creation - and perhaps it is - though large-scale deployment of CRPF and para-military forces has been done. Those who have been deployed find this denial that the operation exist, by the government strange, and even demoralising - check: Chidambaram says no, but troops believe ‘Green Hunt' exists, The Hindu, April 10).

Noble and logical as this aim to "Clear, hold and build" may seem from a distance, its success clearly depends on the capabilities of the forces to achieve the first step, i.e., "clear" in the first place.

Before "restoring the administration" of the cleared area, there is also the issue of the 'governance'/'administration'/'capacity' of the deployed forces - a point which is mostly ignored in the jingoism about the might of Indian forces... so here are some reportage, which I could pick up - which are less visible/ less discussed - and so may complement the picture...

Slain CRPF jawans never trained to fight Naxals (One India)
"Army chief General V K Singh said on Thursday, Apr 8, that the 76 CRPF personnels who were killed by Maoists were never trained in jungle warfare to fight the Maoists... Responding to the query on the Dantewada massacre, Army Chief said that what had happened in Dantewada was the result of internal deficiencies."
Read on...
(Note: this has been denied by the Ministry of Home Affairs - so one is left with the choice whether to believe the words of the 'training agency', which is Army, or those who send the forces for training.)

On Naxal trail, they haven't fired in a year (The Times of India)
"It's war. And every officer and constable of Jharkhand police deployed in Maoist-hit areas is well prepared for it. Right? Wrong. In the last three years, most of them have not fired a weapon at a paper target — far less a Maoist bent on killing them.

Brandishing AK-47s and Insas rifles, they are good at inspiring awe among children and villagers, but how are they in combat? "In a crunch situation, I don't know how my men will react or even if they fire, whether they will make the bullets count," admitted an inspector."
Read on...

No medical evacuation plan for paramilitary forces (The Hindu)
"Around the world, medical experts are agreed on the concept of the “golden hour” of evacuation in which the maximum lives can be saved. “All trauma patients, particularly in warzone situations, must be evacuated to a tertiary medical centre within 60 minutes if they are to survive,” said retired Admiral S.K. Mohanty, who served as a surgeon in Kashmir during the Kargil War...

...“In Chhattisgarh, we are lucky if we get information about an attack within the golden hour, let alone evacuating people in 60 minutes,” said a senior police officer. “The lines of communication are poor and the telephones don't work.”
Read on...

No water, food or medicines. Now, go fight 'biggest threat'(The Times of India)
"For six years, the government has cried hoarse about Maoists being the single biggest security threat to India. Yet, the Indian state is sending its footsoldiers into battle on an empty stomach, without adequate drinking water and medical facilities.... "We are losing lives in a battle that can be sorted out. There are many ways in which our force can be better utilized," said the jawan."
Read on...

Anger spills over in CRPF camp (The Times of India)
"People are issuing statements, expressing grief over the incident, but how many have tried to see the condition we work in," yelled a jawan from inside the camp. "Media are flashing fabricated reports about senior officers making visits or camping at our site. No one has actually turned up," he added.

He said politicians were finding faults with them. "They say it was a mistake. How can they pass such a judgment sitting in Delhi?" asked another jawan. Another jawan joined in to take a dig at the politicians.
Read on...

The Solution??... There must be many serious changes which must be being contemplated, but when one comes across examples such as this one, one wonders...

Now, motivational classes to boost jawans (The Times of India)
"The Dantewada massacre of CRPF personnel at the hands of the Maoists has given the paramilitary forces in this state the opportunity to go for motivational classes and interpersonal exercise to boost the morale of the jawans... Senior CRPF officials said they would soon ask the authorities concerned to hold motivational classes to pump the morale of the jawans engaged in the anti-Maoist operation in the border districts of the state connecting West Bengal, Orissa and Chhattisgarh.... Measures, including yoga, motivational classes, inter-personal meeting and sports comprises the broad exercise that goes into the building of a high morale of the jawans during their normal stay in the base camps."
Read on...

Commenting on and analysing this lack of capabilities and preparedness, in a rather incisive article "India's Maoists and Dreamscapes of 'Solutions'", Security Analyst, Dr Ajai Sahni had pointed out last month:

"...under the Centre's projected operational plans, that is, 28,000 or 42,800 CPMF personnel, as the case may be, for six worst-affected States with a total area of 1.86 million square kilometers and a total population of over 446 million. This is like trying to irrigate the desert with dewdrops.

Of course, the Centre's 'operational strategy' seeks to concentrate this Force in areas of specific Maoist dominance, to 'recover' these areas, and 'bring them under civil administration'.

....What is fascinating in these narratives is their exquisite simplicity and their utter divorce from reality. It would, indeed, be quite miraculous if the state could even 'restore civil administration' to vast expanses of rural India where the Maoists have no presence whatsoever, but where virtually the entire apparatus of governance has vanished. At least some of these areas are little more than a stone's throw from Delhi.

The problem with these various 'strategies' is that they aren't 'strategies' at all. These are borrowed ideas with no reference to capacities, capabilities, resources and the conditions of the ground."

***