So, why not Rahul Gandhi too?

Rahul Gandhi had again spoken. This time on education. In Parliament. His speech was watched and applauded by ‘Mummy’, sister, brother in law and the ‘Daddy’s old pals, Suman Dubey and Romi Chopra. TN leaders, Karunanidhi “had been moved to tears by the speech and CM J mocked him (MK) for being sycophant”(Tavleen Singh). Tavleen Singh should know the goings on in the corridors of Delhi. After all she is a veteran journalist and moving in the paparazzi crowd.

Now, what ‘Rahul baba’ spoke? He said education only can empower people and he is very much concerned about people’s issues. Fine. Ms Singh writes about Rahul’s visit to Bangalore and his activities. He watched the mid-day meals scheme of the ISKCON temple, in Parliament he in fact read his speech instead of speaking (so the paparazzi political journalists giggled and winked and sneered).Let it go. Now, what he actually said? Education must be made available to the ‘toiling masses’ and the real impact of the programmes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan should be felt in the villages of UP and Bihar. “Mixing history with patriotism he also pointed out that Nalanda and Vikramshila were the Harvard and Cambridge of their time and it was important to revive the tradition of excellence in Indian education”.

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New private-public partnership initiatives could make a fundamental impact. It is nice to see V.P.Singh and Ajit Singh leading a farmers’ agitation in New Delhi. But are these leaders’ efforts worth the trouble? Yes, we need a farmers’s lobby to agitate and bring farmers’ issues always to the attention of the government of the day. It was also nice to see the Bharatiya Kisan Union chief Mahendra Singh Tikair leading the show.

Farmers need higher minimum price, India has to look after its food grains economy, and importing wheat now, after seven years is a national shame. We share the sentiments expressed in the rally.

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Arbitrary party management! Unaccountable government?

Issues for economic and social development.

The recent Rajya Sabha nominations by the Congress party and also by parties like the JDS and the BJP factions in Karnataka and other such nominations from other states show clearly there is a shift from national consensus on such matters.

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Sen’s new book seems to raise some questions about which there can be diverse arguments. Sen doesn’t tell the whole truth. Much of the misrepresentation and distortion of Indian diversity and Indian character had been done by the Britons. These distortions we Indians had come to believe, more so the Western-educated Indians themselves.
 
I am a bit embarrassed to thrown names that are too big and intimidating to the average Indian readers. I mean Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate in economics and also our Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh. The provocation for this piece was the news that recently when asked about his pastime the Prime Minister m mentioned that” just he had finished reading Sen’s recent bestseller,” Argumentative Indian”. I was not surprised to find the book a bestseller. It carries the imprint of an Indian Nobel Prize winner.

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IIM students get sky-high salaries!

So, India now a Superpower?

It seems it is time for celebrations for India! This year, the American Forbes magazine that tracks billionaires all over the world revealed for the first time that next to America India has produced so many billionaires! Not even China is near India in this league. They very language of the India’s new generation of entrepreneurs, the Indian IT professionals and the new generation of achievers, in so many fields, be it sports or arts or in every other sphere, from films to media enterprises, it looks India is fast becoming a world centre, if not a world power!

There is already this huge middle class rising! Consumer boom is visible, salaries of even the starters like  BPO workers is on the high.Rs.10,000 is the minimum salary and in Mysore there is a job mela that promises job orders on the very day of interview. Come all B.A.s and B.Com.s! Say the leaflet, jobs are for your taking, blares the voice!

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Is the government in the listening mode?

Or, is it seized of its own superiority of knowledge in this most critical sector? Farming scenario is changing for the good. Yet, the farm sector needs a  serious look from the farmer’s points of view.
 
Government should regulate banks and finance institutions to give funds to promote innovative commercially viable farming ventures by farmers and the younger generation agro entrepreneurs. Central Government must think afresh. The State governments too must come out with new set of agri financing corporations.

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Why keep the public in the dark?

Indian agriculture is at a critical stage. After years of self-reliance and self-sufficiency as ensured by the Green Revolution, we seem to be reversing some of the national consensus. The so-called second Green Revolution of which the PM and his colleagues seem to be imagining without fully working out the implications of the now Evergreen Revolution as envisaged or promised by the India-US Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture is full of fundamental questions. Why there is so much secrecy here?

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Many unanswered questions

India is an open country and there is much vitality in the system to express fearless opinion. Only this fearlessness might perhaps give India its fuller strength in times of challenge and might compensate for what deficiencies we find in the present governance.

There is an air of complacency and self-congratulation in New Delhi! After the Indo-US nuclear deal everything seems to have been settled for this government. As Kuldip Nayar points out that the nuclear deal has only opened up some unsettled issues for not only India but more so for  Pakistan and China. There are so many on-going talks, with the two countries and with China there is a border discussion at the moment and Defence  Minister has postponed his visit to China and there are anxieties about how the strategic relationships with the two countries, also with USA, will all evolve.

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The rural “pastoral idyll, a dream fantasy” farming is, yes a bloody profession today but it can regain its old value system and might become or turned to be a perennial source of inspiration.

Every morning the first thing  we do in Bangalore is to call the village, some 300 km away, and talk to our house workers, the maid servants, the farm manager, farm workers, the daily wage labour, the others who are all on  different assignments. The cows have to be milked in time, milk taken to the co-op sales point, the veterinary doctors to be attended and other routines of running farm have all to be attended to. The villagers in our blood veins survive and our day in the city doesn’t start without these preliminaries are gone through!

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