Agri sector in Bengal disappointing!

Bengal has to go a long way before it can transform the agri sector into a commercially thriving sector for any new agro entrepreneurship. Just to compare Maharashtrian agri sector with that of Bengal is like to compare two different worlds!

West Bengal was once the richest State but it was a very long time ago. Not now.  One of the not so welcome outcome was the total neglect of the countryside, the villages became homes for periodic famines, the State is said to have had 22 famines and the worst was in 1943.The years preceding the Independence saw the great Calcutta killings, communal frenzy and when India was partitioned the great migration was from East Bengal. Even after the creation of Bangladesh  the perennial problem is the migrants from Bangladesh and the city itself even today a very intolerable mix of people, from all neighbouring states like Bihar, Orissa and also from other states as well as poor and the not so poor.

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Retreat from Revolutionary Rhetoric!

Charting a New Capitalist Path!  

Yes, there is a new air of great expectancy in Bengal.  A new optimism and a new sense of purpose in all walks of life. But this expectancy, this confidence is still in the hearts and minds of some people at the top. May be in the  minds of Chief Minister Mr.Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and some of his colleagues!

Alighting from the plane and coming out of Dum Dum was a great experience this time. Here I come, rather come back, after 20 long years!  Also I come back to my old haunt where I had spent some of my carefree years as a student at Tagore’s Santiniketan. Yes, I had been back in West Bengal many times. But this time, I come back with so much change in me too!  This time I come with new eyes and new ears! I am seeing things, seeing the world in a new light. As an entrepreneur and as an economist (yes, I dislike the expression businessmen and in Calcutta they have so much dislike for business and businessmen, but here I am to communicate with the readers in some clear and non-complicated language!)  I see thing, the world in black and white! Yes, your are either for creating wealth,  or helping to contribute to the persistence of poverty! So, Calcutta this time I saw in a different light. Of course in a very positive and sympathetic light.

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Why our leaders made themselves invisible?

Sonia Gandhi wrongly advised!

I terribly felt let down when on the day India celebrated Vande Mataram’s centenary, our leaders chose to hide themselves from public view! What message we sent out?

India needs a robust type of leaders! Yes, when the President of India, the Prime Minister and the Congress President chose not to be seen when the country sang the Vande Mataram, what else one should feel? Except to feel let down. It is a great tragedy that India seems to be going through a phase of a crisis of leadership. We don’t have leaders who really think for themselves. Who really think they should stand solidly with the people, with the common man. Otherwise, I was glad to see school children, more so the Muslim children in many places sang the song.

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My China connection is long and enduring!

China is not an easy country to know and understand!

What Narayanamurthy doesn’t tell!

Yes, there is the latest news about India-China mutual suspicion persisting. No one tells the whole truth. That is diplomacy and in our national interest, everyone will tell you. That is okay. But what I am coming to tell here is something much more than all these thoughts.

I have just now come back from visiting Santiniketan; this is my fourth or fifth visit after I left the place in 1959. At Santiniketan there is the famous Cheena Bhavan where I studied Chinese language for four years under the legendary Chinese scholar and a close associate of Tagore, the late Prof.Tan Yun Shan. I needn’t go into so many details but it is enough to tell that Tan was also a close associate of Chiang Kai Sheik, also of Mao and Chou En lai and many other great leaders of China.

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Government-funded vs. private-funded education systems!

All have become “exploitative”! Lost their value focus!

Every time the education debate comes alive, there is this much-talked about promoting a common school system. The big names are all here: experts like Yash Pal, Krishna Kumar, Anil Sadgopal, social activists like Aruna Roy and others. What they say? Make education largely government-funded and the neighborhood schooling would promote equality, irrespective of caste, class and other discriminations. It was the common schooling still for the vast majority in the countryside.

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Are we all not becoming small men?

Yes, certain thoughts seem to keep coming!

Indians have some months or even days devoted to some rituals. August 15. January 26. October is reserved for Gandhi Jayanthi. And what is more funny is the fact that each passing year we seem to be having men and leaders to celebrate these days for us, the citizens, the subjects, the mass! The leaders in turn seem to be becoming smaller and smaller in stature!

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Let us de-bureaucratize the delivery of public services!

Menaka Gandhi in trouble!
 
Accuses Sonia Gandhi CBI shouldn’t be doing odd jobs!

There is news that Maneka Gandhi, former Minister under the NDA and the current Member of Parliament has been booked by the CBI alleging that she committed irregularities in distributing funds to NGOs. Now, we don’t want to go into the merits of what the CBI has done. What we are interested here is to point out certain things that are becoming familiar in the scheme of things in Delhi. More so mixing partisan politics with individuals, who are seen as doing good things for society, be they as Ministers or voluntary agencies, NGOs or other such individuals who outside office and authority still are doing very significant public service.

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The Hindu carried out a survey about the youth aspirations and where they are moving forward. It gave new insights and new thoughts.

Here are some of the basic findings.

First, the urban/rural information divides. Newspaper reading habits had grown up dramatically. 55% read newspapers and this 74% for the urban readers. On the other hand, book reading habits seem to have taken a beating. There is a clear sign that books are not read as widely as we would have imagined. Only 7% interviewed say they read books, for even urban readers it is just 14%.This is not a healthy sign. There is in fact a book publishing explosion and book festivals are now a universal phenomenon. Yet, in India it is see that books buying and reading is not as healthy as it should be.

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Heroes of yesterday and today!

My visit to Bengal this time came after a very long gap. So, what I learnt this time while I spent a few days in Calcutta city and also when I paid a visit to Santiniketan, after a day out, driving through the Bengal countryside, what I read afresh from a number of books I got hold and what I learnt as new information and new thoughts enriched me beyond anything else I might have done those few days out of my usual routine.

I saw my old haunts in fresh light. I saw my old heroes in a new critical perspective. Gone are the days, it seemed, when I saw Tagore, Subash Bose, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda and many others, the writers and intellectuals of a later generation, the likes of Nirad Choudhury and Prof. N.K.Bose(the critical defender and interpreter of Gandhi)and many others…all seemed to me in a totally different angle.

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Just now we read that one Indian, that too a civil servant, Arvind Kejriwal, had been awarded the prestigious Magsaysay award for community leadership, for fighting for the Right to Information Act. To fight corruption in India is not a joke anymore, as everyday we witness the growth of corruption. Not a day passes in India without reading about corruption where the big fish brazenly makes merry.

One more latest news that made headlines for some days on the TV channels is the taking of hefty bribes for admissions into the Delhi’s prestigious public schools, the schools were even named ,the Delhi Public School, Mathura Road came in for some exposure and the Principal caught on the hidden camera conversing with touts for arranging the bribe. So too one more Delhi school where the same sort of middle men playing the role. Read the rest of this entry »