Some unasked  and unanswered questions!

India should get prepared for new roles in this century! Not look to the UK or USA for guidance. So, India has to maintain its friendly relations and talk things out and solve some of the outstanding problems with China, Pakistan and neighbours.

The 58th Independence day came and gone. There have been the usual speeches by the President and the Prime Minister. There have been media commentaries. Inside the country there is much to celebrate and much to do introspection. What we have achieved and where we are still to do much? Yes, we have become a mature democracy, the largest democracy in the world. In internal sphere India had overcome four wars, managed terrorism, still a threat of sorts riots and as one news magazine wrote “some of the world’s stupidest politicians! Readers can pick and choose their own favourites among these stupidest politicians! The poor still a large segment and they feel lost.  An uncomfortable question, no doubt!  

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Karnataka politicians are pragmatic men!

AP, Kerala, TN are in pro-active mode Now, among the most developed states, those in the South, Karnataka and AP and next Kerala too are going for new big projects to stay in the advanced states league. Karnataka has come out with a S&T policy that spells out many innovative policies to take Karnataka to the advanced status. One recommendation is to  invest one per cent of the GDP, that comes to Rs.1,400 cores to make Karnataka the most advanced state in the country.

Former ISRO boss U.R.Rao who headed the experts committee says poverty removal is the chief goal of S&T policy. Food, health, environment and economic growth are the priorities. The state has atop quality educational and research institutions and these must help. These can help to compete in the globalised world. Establishment of a science city in Bangalore is a highlight.

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Prime Minister’s many promises not much for  agriculture!

Any small landownership is seen as a political liability! It is here the problem for reforming agriculture starts.

Energy security, the President stressed. Very important. Poverty, we will eradicate, the PM asserted standing on the Red Fort. So, dignified the speech, so convincing the arguments.  We could see Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, speaking solemnly of the problems, even of a crisis in agriculture. How much artificial we, Indians become on solemn occasions like Independence day! Yes, we Indians are rather pretty subservient before authority.  Long ago we did this before the white English gentlemen! Now, don’t we do the same with our own elected or unelected leaders who can say anything and yet get out of all tricky situations like the present state of agriculture?

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Too little practical wisdom in agriculture

We have just spent a week in the village and had come back to Bangalore. What impressions we get? There is too much fancy talk about agriculture as reported in the English press. There is now news about setting about knowledge centres in the villages! As if this is going to change the farmers’ lives! The Central Government seems to have simply left out agriculture from their scheme of things! Do you hear any news from the government? From the Prime Minister? From the agri minister? Or, from the rural development minister?

All you hear about agriculture is from retired agri scientists or some routine official announcements. What we saw in the villages this time? Practically, there is no water, the ground water levels are going down. The rich and poor farmers give a contrast. The poor farmers sink in debts, they cling to their two or three acre plots. They borrow or invest from what they have in sinking one bore well. Soon they go dry! So, the poor farmers are  driven to desperate situations. The so-called rich farmers don’t put their money in farming. They invest in non-farm businesses. It is the businessmen in the semi-rural areas who thrive. The villages are witnessing the migration of the people, the educated and the uneducated, to the towns. The villages are facing no unemployment! There is a shortage of labour! More so for agri activities.

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What hopes NGO would make a change this time? President Abdul Kalam inaugurated a three-day national summit on rural NGOs in Delhi in April. He spoke with much candour and conviction. What he said is that a large number of NGOs that get lots of foreign funds don’t spend them properly. The funds don’t reach the target groups in the grass-roots. Yes, that is what the President conveyed.

What we all know for sure is the fact that all NGOs are no angels. There are rogues and scoundrels as well! Yes, there are many so-called NGO activities that  are positively harmful. From being anti-national activities to religious propaganda and also more subtly lots of brain-washing activities in the names of all sorts of new-fangled ideologies and advocacy programmes.

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Political, historical and technological factors. International scenario. These only help or hinder the economic progress of a nation. We need a more openly-debated economic policy too!

There is a superficial belief that Dr.Manmohan Singh is an economic expert. He is! Also there is this belief that economic experts can promote economic growth. This belief is not proved! More so now, under Manmohan Singh! Economists can explain some economic factors. But to bring about the economic progress we need bold leaders, visionaries, leaders with peoples’ mandate. Even here we can see China is different from Russia. China is fast growing. Russia is struggling. India is progressing, no doubt. But it is not doing things as it should be! In a sense, a light-weight Prime Minister is a handicap. Any leader must believe in some  visionary set of beliefs.

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Decline in Values? Compromise with Evil? Yes, everyday we find that our society, polity and even much of our education and culture are faced with so much of compromises with values. What we hold as dear to our sense of truth and morality. Yet we have learnt to, live with life as it goes on! Each generation, of leaders and the common people, have to live by a core set of values, stand up to an activist mind-set. A sense of moral outrage against the powerful and the influential to buy and sell our own fate is what  can be considered as the new liberalist moral and political creed  for the present generation.

Every generation and every time of fundamental change, like the present one, inside and outside India, need to have some core system of beliefs and a world outlook. Call it an ideology or an ism, a country or a society cant live by the material success or outward peace and a seemingly contented society or a social order. India seems to be going through a relatively stable progress, in terms of political stability and an economic growth phase. But there are also concerns over the sort of core beliefs by which the Indian society and polity seems to move on.

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There will always be globalisers and anti-globalisers as long as there is an unequal world.

Eric Hobsbawm concludes his survey of the end do Communism in these following words: “We do not know where we are going. We only know that history has brought us to this point. However, if humanity is to have a recognisable future, it cannot be by prolonging the past or the present. If we try to build the third millennium, on that basis we shall fail. And the price of failure, that is to say, the alternative to a changed society, is darkness” (The Age of Extremes, page 584).
 
The  Microsoft  Chairman, Bill Gates, was in India for four days, his fourth visit to India  and he spoke glowingly about India looking futuristic with enormous human skills. The last 10 years had been the best so far in Indian history. Microsoft will invest 1.7 billion dollars in the next few years; also the Gates Foundation has committed huge sums for combating India’s health problems.

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A series of scandals ! Yet Indians deny themselves all truths! 

What about the  special Indian traits? Our attitudes? Our character?

Why we don’t talk so much about our Indian weakness for double talk and double standards?

Each  nation  and  culture  has its own  special traits, attitudes and character. US President George Bush talks and uses a language that would sound quite offensive or even not in keeping with his high office! A year ago he sounded confident and told one of his political aides: “Brownie, you are doing a heck of a job”. This became a national punch line and widely quoted in the media. Americans being what they are, whatever they do, whatever blunders they commit, go uncriticised and unchallenged. Rather, we Indians start imitating much of the Americanisms, the speech patterns and their own idioms. What is journalism’s job? One practitioner says it is to describe the world, expose and explain and interpret. Not to change the world! May be this is the job. But in the Indian context, our journalism is doing all these things and also believes it is exposing the misdeeds of politicians and also revealing the truths of what is being done by our politicians, ministers, elected representatives, the criminal-politicians nexus etc.

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Exciting things are happening in evolution research.  Evolution of man is not simply to be explained, in my humble opinion, in biological sense alone. I was glad to read a latest survey of the evolution in the December issue of The Economist magazine (December 24th 2005). The survey titled “The Proper Study of Mankind” covers new theories and techniques that have revolutionised our understanding of humanity’s past and present, says the author of the survey.

No day passes these days when there is no news about evolution. In fact, more and more news and developments concern one or other aspects of evolution. There is a furious debate in the American schools community about the need to teach evolution. The Christian fundamentalists want the Biblical theme taught in place of the biological/Dravidian theory of man descending from the ape! This debate is now portrayed as Evolution vs Intelligent Design. Even George Bush, who otherwise shows himself off as a devout Christian and Church-goer had to back foot from his enthusiasm to support the fundamentalist lobby.

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