Agriculture is an economic and political power!
There is now a new sense of urgency to do something in the agricultural sector. That is a welcome development. But do the public also know why this sense of urgency?
The most obvious explanation is the current mood of despondency of the ruling UPA, more so the Congress party that the future of its electoral chances in the next general elections due in 2009 are dim!
There is what is now called, to use a current favourite phrase, a disconnect of the ruling party with the rural voters, more so the farmers.
Farmers suicides still continue, more in Vidarbha and now in Karnataka. This must have caused a heartburn at the PMO or at Krishi Bhavan or at least in 10,Janpath.But they all went unreported and unnoticed.
The point is that there is a strong political dimension to the agricultural sector. It was so in all major countries. The USA built its economic power by concentrating on its agricultural sector, it has been much written about, how this was achieved since the Civil War and the land-grant colleges, that later blossomed into Universities of California, Cornell and Minnesota have developed a strong research and extension capability. This capability we can notice even now, where American agriculture always goes aggressively into capacity building.

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Only 6 MPs attend Lok Sabha debate on poverty! MPs absent themselves often!

Only six members were present, to start with, in the Lok Sabha, which was to discuss the issue of eradication of hunger in the country. The attendance was less than one per cent. The current strength of the House is 540.

Jairam Ramesh (Congress) rushed to the House after hearing the quoram bell. Mr.Jairam Ramesh is a Rajya Sabha member. Business in the House collapsed due to the lack of quorum and it was prematurely adjourned. The adjournment came after the issue was raised by Dr.Chinta Mohan when there were less than 10 members in the House to discuss the issue of eradication of hunger.

The resolution was moved by Mr.Naveen Jindal, who seemed perturbed that there were not enough members to discuss this important matter. Dr.Mohan, who was sitting along with him, urged the Chair to defer the discussion as the House lacked quorum. The quoram to initiate or continue a session is 55 in the Lok Sabha (10 per cent of the strength). But the House can continue until the issue of quorum is raised by a member.
BJP and Left party MPs were upset and heard saying that ruling party MPs have left for the Uttar Pradesh elections and that they should not raise the quorum issues themselves.
Any member in the House can raise the issue of quorum at any stage, Mr.Giridhar Gamang (Congress), who was in the Chair, said. A visibly unhappy Left MP said that the convention was not to raise the quorum issue during private members’s business.

Mr. Gamang repeatedly rang the bell so that MPs moving in the lobby could come to the House. Ironically, the House was adjourned in the wake of parliamentary affairs minister P.R.Das Munshi’s assurance that the government has enough business to transact in Parliament till May 15.
Lok Sabha members have to late remained absent during Question House despite the fact that their questions were listed for oral answers.
In India is there a make-believe politics of creating some false alarms by politicians?
The governments, the international agencies like World Bank and IMF want to remain in their jobs and so they also create these myths.
Yes, the poor, the poverty rate in Orissa and Bihar is very real. Rural Orissa has 43 per cent of poor and rural Bihar 41 per cent. But this is not to be believed as it seems. Now the talk of either it has to be about rich becoming richer or the poor becoming the poorer has not many takers. The ground realities say a different story.

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Book Review: Paul Johnson
Creators -from Chaucer to Shakespeare to Victor Hugo to Picasso and Disney
Harper Collins,2006,pp300

The English people of today seem to be caught in an identity crisis of their own.Lost their empire and with that has gone their assumed plumes of hauteur and bluster.The English,more than the ordinary Brits,the so-called establishment as such is still haunted by their lost lusture.so,it seems. Even now,we see their obsessions with their own importance,be it writing,letters,press and even such lofty fields like diplomacy.They seem to hold the key to everything in the world.But the outside world doesnt seem to think of them so.They clung on to an imaginary special relationship with the USA and now with the disasterous Iraqi war,both the Labour party as well as the English public opinion is again caught in an identity crisis.
This impression is strengthened if one goes through Paul Johnson’s latest book,”Creators”where most of the literary references are only to English language writers,even when they are minor ones in today’s world of letters.So,at places he makes a strained case for taking his views seriously.The total impression is that here is a brilliant mind nevertheless and Johnson remains a favourite writer of highly stylised and polished prose.
Paul Johnson is perhaps the best known intellectual writing in England today.He can be called the public intellectual in the American or French sense of the term.In England there are any types of pretensions,so too as for intellectuals who take up public causes.Of course,we have had the example of Bertrand Russell who went on to establish himself as the well-known intellectual face of the English people.
But it is very difficult to notice such people in a country like England and aslo at a time like this,after England had shrunk into a little island and English men struggle to live up to old images.Hence,the disasterous politics of Tony Blair and also the very growing troubles in England with the minorities,immigration and the fall in standards in public life.
This fall is noticed even here in this book which deals with a variety of creative people but Johnson somehow doesnt rise above his isolationist mindset.He chooses all English writers for literary creativity:Chaucer,Shakespeare,Jane Austen,T.S.Eliot.Apart from Hugo(France) and Mark Twain(USA)he has no examples in literature.
However,this is a remarkable book and a tough one too,considering the topic it has chosen to tackle.In India,I am not sure how far the book has been noticed for I have become more and more disillusioned by the fact that reading serious,first class ,original books seems not much in evidence.At any rate,such books or topics are not written about in the newspaper columns or even by intellectuals who write essay on different branches of knowledge.
Paul Johnson,in my opinion,is perhaps the greatest living writer and intellectual who can take up any topic of great importance and he can write also in such exquisite language.To read him is always a great pleasure and a source of great satisfaction both for the intellect as well as our aesthetic and emotional satisfaction.I have to confess I have been reading Johnson all my life ever since my tine at Oxford when he has also editor of the “Newstatesman” magazine,a great favourite with me and in fact reading that magazine helped me to form my political opinions and on a variety of issues.I have read,I think, almost all his major books,on the history of the Jews,history of the modern times,on Napolean,Renaissance,Egypt and on the” Intellectuals”which was published in 1988.
I am glad at least one Indian newspaper even today reproduces his Spectator magazine column,Spectator is also one of my favourite reading even now.
Now the subject of creators is a highly difficult territory and the very first chapter itself is a very fulfilling reading.At the very start,he defines who is an intellectual.”I define an intellectual as someone who thinks ideas are more important than people”.Of course this is a very simple definition.An intellectual is often one who the society looks upto him or her to take up fundamental causes,fundamental truths and advocate the truths in the light of the contemporary developments and often take stands that might go against the current dominant public opinion. That is how even writers like Victor Hugo became immensely popular,so too Charles Dickens and all writers who remain relevant even today,years after their lives and writings were done.

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In the series of defeats in the State Assembly elections  and in the critical municipal elections in Mumbai and Delhi,the latest wipeout in the major state of  UP  where the  Congress  finished fourth, the party faces the certain defeat in the 2009 general elections.Already its  major ally,the DMK had started weakening the Central Government’s morale by almost turning the Prime Minister a captive of a regional party.Thus,there is general discontent and demoralisation within  India’s oldest party.Here below is the letter from an old time Congress party activist to the president of the Congress party.
—————————————————————————-

Mrs.Sonia Gandhi,
President,
Indian National Congress,
24,Akbar Road,
New Delhi-110 001

Dear Mrs.Gandhi,

Sub:state of the Congress party-regarding

I hope you must have read today’s Hindu newspaper’s edit page article by Harish Khare(May 24,2007) on”A party’s need for renewal and three options”
I thought I should draw your attention  to it and make my own comments on the same.
I am mature enough to know well that poltiics is a tough game and there is no reason for any emotions or sentiments and it is all about the compulsions of the numbers game.As such, you, as the Congress party president,are left with very few choices and in fact left with no choices but to follow the logic of numbers.This must everyone will concede.So,we are having a coalition government,now completed three years and with what little achievements are not bad achievements if only looked at  in that  light.But seen in the context of the some of the related developments and compulsions of their own,the Congress party has only very few friends among the allies and many waiting in the wings just to hop on to other coalition arrangements as the next general elections near.Now with the UP election results we have very much to cheer about.
So,the article  in question deals with some issues the party has to face squarely,if it is serious about reasserting its primacy in the Indian scheme of things and if the party is to continue its 122 years legacy forward.
These are also tought questions as I see them.
The newspaper  article puts forward some useful suggestions and also offer some useful insights as to how the party can go about it.I wonder whether the AICC or some among  your colleagues,either in the party or in the government,discussed with you so far  about these issues.
If so,I am happy,if not I am not too disappointed!For poltiics is always like this,anywhere else.But as one interested in politics from my student days when I had the great privilege of seeing Pandit Nehru during his annual visits to Santiniketan and later in England where I was in Oxford during the 1959-61  and later when I visited New Delhi and later still when briefly worked at the AICC under Kamaraj,my interest in the Congress party,its history and its historical ideological development,I am extremely concerned about what is happening in the Indian National Congress.
So,the point here is that as Mr.Khare points out that there are three options.One ,how the party is an open organisation,open enough to inspire and draw newcomers.Is the party now such an open party,open to draw newcomers,new generation,educated youngsters or even open enough to draw party men from other parties,ideologues who might be attracted by the party’s,say,secularist credtentials or other features,such as econmic reforms?Also,the party must have an elective element,as I have also pointed out earlier.
Second, the renewal of the family matrix.Here too,nothign will be lost if we are a bit more open and more honest by admitting ,say Rahul Gandhi’s interest in politics.As such we can also promote him in a more open manner.I am sure the country might accept such a push if it is done openly.But the present situation in thre party seems to me from this distance,is that in the name of promoting the Rahul Gandhi interest,somehow you have gathered or enouraged too much deadwood.Too many mediocre persons are given too migh jobs,both as ministers as well as party workers.
Even a minister like Mani Shankar Aiyar or some others,havent perfomed strictly at their portfolios level.Such persons also daring to create embarrassments must be eased out.Dedicated men and women are there aplenty.You must constitute such a search committee to scout for talents to bring them into the party fold.There are any number who would join the party as supprters without expected immediate open rewards.This talent pool is fast depleting for the party and this only would drive the party into irreparable loss.If everyone is fast feathering his or her own nest then what chance for the part for renewal?
Third,the point raised by Mr,Khare is about the efficacy of the family mystique.The tragedy is that in superficial or even genuine imitation every other ally is imitating the family dynastic politics in a  blatant manner.The DMK has done it in a most uncivilised manner and yet the DMK seems to be counted as a more dependable ally of the Congress.The DMK is not a dependable ally and only if you keep a close tab you will find the DMK is just exploiting your helplessness to further its own very narrow and even divisive politics.Yes,I am aware your choices in TN are getting narrowed and also,if I amy say,getting wasted as well!
You have to take some bold and subtle iniaitives in the state.It is to this point  that Mr.Khare also comes at the end of his article.
I hope you go through his piece once more.Here I quote the relavant passage:”The strategic objective of a modern organisation option should be identification of a group of 20-30 -odd men and women,sharing common  dreams and visions,producing an infectious chemistry down the line.Sadly,the present Congress lacks even this minmum degree of ideological and personal choerence”.
This is the most daunting challenge.If the party,I hope not,in the next general elections  fares badly,then whom we would be blaming?
Surely,the PM wont be there to help the party.Surely the handful of seniors you are banking on and backing them(I neednt name them here)wont be there either.Not the major allies, the regional caste and divisive allies.They would all  look for the next combination that would fetch them more ministerial berths.Of course this is the compulsion of the numbers game I alluded in the begining.
Yet,the party’s long history proves that in times of major ideological or historic battles left the party seriously divided or split,there have been so many such occasions,in 1907,1920-21,1936,1941,1945,1947 and after Independence too,it is often the core dedicated ideologically commmitted few individuals who  rally round the party and the leaders.
I hope you constitute such an inner ideologically committed men and women of ideas and ideals.This is a search that can be your pastime.It cant be done in a day,I understand but nevertheless,it is the duty of the president of a great party like the Congress.That would only create a proud legacy.
Thnnking you,

Yours sincrely,

V.Isvarmurti

Title of the book “Payanmuraith Thirnaivu Nutpangal
Literary criticism: some practical insights,applications.

Author: Prof.Antony Cruz,
Professor and Head of the Department,Tamil studies,
St.Joseph College(autonomous),
Trichinapalli,India

This is a brief and yet a highly accomplished exercise in literary criticism covering some unsual fields in literature in the Tamil langauge.
Just in 150 pages,with 15 chapters,the essays collected here deal with topics and fields that are not covered by many other academics.The first chapter itself is a highly  sensitive issue of  sexualism and the feminist stands on such forbidden issues like gay  sexual deviations.
The rise of feminism and the women rights awareness and the current women  studies as an academic discipline in the latest literary and cultural theories like post-modernism etc are new to the average Tamil reader or the average Tamil scholar.As such,it is something of a daring approach to tackle the great theme of love and sex as viewed from the ancient Tamil classics.And as everyone knows,it is Thirukkural that alone is unique among the world language classics that devotes a whole one third of its entire text for the issue of love and sexual relations as man and women see it,the subject was dealt with some many centuries ago.In 10 pages there are about 17 references and from diverse sources.That shows the close reading the author has devoted to this highly sensitive and yet an important theme.The text is written in  such transparent prose that any new reader from outside would find the reading a highly concentrated task..The second chapter is on the grammatical composition based on the Wren and Martin Grammar  by a learned scholar of repute,the late Paavaanar,a Tamil professor of last generation. 
Some of the best and most readable pages are the three  chapters that deal with the letters writing as an art and piece of literary crativity.Here is a full coverage of some of the best letter writers who were also great men,poets,scholars,patriots and practising poltiiciains.The notable are the ones by the poet C.Subramanya Bharati,V.O.Chidambaram Pillai and the one by the Tamil scholar Paavaanar and  the present Dravidian Chief Minister and literary personality.There are again a large reference here,some 40 sources.A very learned piece of composition,these three chapters.
Chapter six is about the difficult task of translation and the issues involved.This is again a very negelcted field and there is a great need and urgency to establish special departments in universities and in P.G.courses that would enable a vigorous translation tradition in the Tamil literary field.More languages and loiteratures,comparative literatures would certainly contribute to make the Tamil literature more accessible to the non-Tamil readers.
Chapters seven,eight and nine deal with again a unique Tamil feature,that of the Tamil mystic poets,the famed Siddhars,a sect that,like Sufism,strived for fusion of many faiths and they were at once,mystics,poets as well as guides to a more disciplined  monastic life system.This theme is also a new field that needs further studies.
Another path-breaking  attempt is bring the new information technology and its offshoot,Internet in  the application for teaching and spreading Tamil language learning through Internet learning.The very Internet medium is driven by English language and as such to attempt to write about this new technology in Tamil itself is a difficult task.Yet,with an open mind and with some dtermination and mental discipline the author has succeeded remarkably in this difficult terrain.This brief essay can straightaway be included in all school textbooks for the school leaving certificate examination.This is a timely essay and the author deserves all support and encouragement.
There is one brief literary criticism on V.Isvarmurti’s new collection of Tamil poems,”My world,my worldisness and my truths”,a collection that tries to cover a vast universe of experiences and introspections.The author has tried to touch upon the more difficult parts of the collection,namely,science and universe,science and philosophy and such metaphysical and scientific worlds.Again,a new approach to a difficult field of poetry making in Tamil.
The book,though small in size is rich in content and would serve as a useful text for any P.G.courses in hgiher studies in liteary criticism.Certainly a worthwhile piece of publication by the New Century Book House,Chennai. 

Why  Manmohan Singh is seen as a poor performer?

That a professional economist can’t make  a successful Prime Minister is proved beyond doubt by the three years of  Manmohan Singh government. The report  to the people put out by the UPA chairperson ,Sonia Gandhi, is proof enough.

There will be few takers for this report and its various claims. The BJP has simultaneously come out with its own criticisms, though there would be reservations about the BJP’s claims also. The middle ground would be somewhat more in keeping with the growing scepticism about the ability of the government to deliver on even what it promises in the next two years before it faces the next general elections.

Surely, it looks the current political trends might prevail. The UPA might meet with an inglorious exit and the next permutations and combinations is anybody’s guess.

Mr.Kuldip Nayar, the veteran journalist, is a crusader of sorts, besides being an experienced journalist and an advocate of many a cause. One of his causes is the reform of Rajya Sabha, the upper house, of which he was such a  distinguished member. In a recent  column he had once again raised the issue of the legitimacy of the Prime Minister seeking a third term from Assam, the state he represents but not a state where he is or was a domicile. As per the original Constitutional scheme of things, the Rajya Sabha was a council of states and it was the states that are represented by members and this means that ordinarily the member must be a resident of the state concerned. In this case, after the Supreme Court of V.K. Sabharwal as chief justice bench ruled that the domicile qualification doesn’t  matter any more. As Nayar puts it with its telling irony that Manmohan Singh present3ed the Supreme Court the ration card, electricity bill plus his rent receipt, all made up and contrived to  meet the legal qualifications under the relevant law. This was obviously a blatant misuse of authority, misuse of the spirit of the Constitution and a whole series of illegitimate act.

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What is a political reality is now entangled in a complex judicial web!
It is time Mr.Arjun Singh, the HRD, minister makes way for a new comer!
Indian education caught in a man-made crisis!

Indian education system is something gigantic by world standards. It  caters to a billion population. India is also a young country. That means education matters a lot to a lot of people.

One aspect is the numbers, the quantitative factor. We have to provide education right from the start to the end of a professional career for lots of aspirants who now constitute the aspirations middle class. Second, there is the quality of Indian education.
On both the counts India  has done well, as far the statistics goes. But the statistics don’t go far enough.

There are now newer issues that have clogged the system with lots of backlogs, airpockets, social resistance, the case and the class and the new marketisation of education as a commodity. So, education is no more a concept that can be defined in any clear and simple academic terms. We have of course many well-meaning experts and genuine educators, idealists and experts in every branch of education.

But what is being missed today is that both on the quantitative and qualitative terms we have lots of broader vision. We have got stuck in some man-made crises.

One is the lack of progress on numbers in terms of the Millennium Development Goals. We have to push the education for all scheme more vigorously. This can be done only by the government, government machinery plus, may, be some private sector participation, NGOs and what have you. The Public-Private Partnership is a new concept that has to be imaginatively applied and result achieved.

SarvaShiksha Abyan is a great concept. But what is the progress? What is in store for the concept in the 11th Plan?

Of course children education is also closely tied up with ICDS and other midday-meals and other health and social sector spending, more on girl children.

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Our own leaders are not setting good examples!Changing values for this generation!

Mira Nair’s film, Namesake, based on the novel of the same name by Jumpha Lahiri created a minor stir. It captured the present generation’s plight caught in an alien land! This generation in that sense is paying a heavy price for seeking the new moksha abroad!

What about those of us who are left behind? We have to suffer silently, on the state of affairs in our own country? Silently bear witness to the fall in values, worship our false heroes and tin gods who parade themselves on public stage as leaders? Not elected nor having much credibility? What price our democracy? Our value systems, age-old belief systems too?

The veteran CPM leader Jyoti Basu is past 90 and still going strong. This gives us pleasure and we wish him a long life. Such sentiments are part of our culture, our tradition and value system. Indian culture respect age and wisdom. With age and wisdom come certain role models.

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Shameful Flight,The Last Years of the British Empire in India, by Stanley Wolpert pp 231,OUP, 2006

This book by a serious scholar of India’s modern history,an authoritative writer on Gandhi and Jinnah,has now produced a book that would give us,Indians of the older and younger generations, a new perspective and a thoroughly balanced account of the historic conditions that led to the tragic partition of India in 1947. Perhaps, a careful reading of the book,now in the new century,after half a century of time span,also with India’s leaders totally cut off from the emotional bondings that come with active poltiical participation or even cultivating some polticial ideological beliefs would,realise that after all Jinnah is not the only villain.Nor,Mountabtten is the other villain.How to assess the role and the capacity of our own heroes,Gandhi and Nehru? May be the younger generation might judge the issues more dispassionately!Who knows! Anyway,here is a masterpiece of a book,written in the style that brings out the gravitas that mark the greatest tragedy of modern India! May be this book might prove to be the one last book that would remain as an authoritative interpretation of India’s tragic partition. This is an extraordinary book,well-researched and comes out after almost a life time of research on the principal players.Stanley Wolpert is a well-known name in modern history writing and his clebrated classics,” Gandhi’s Passion,Nehru:A Tryst with Destiny”,”Jinnah of Pakistan” are all now standard books on the subject.This book too comes with very serious research and study of the rare documents of the period.He had met some of the principal players,notably Mountbatten and others. This book will remain for long the definitive reference to the difficult topic.There is so much to write about the tragedy of India’s Partition.But I am confining myself to some of the small things that came as a shock to me,the inner most thoughts and secret messages,the use of vulgar words and expressions against one another in fact constitutes how everyone was determined to keep India together and at the same time how at least a section,notably led by Churchill were determined to see India was divided,not into two nations,even one or two more for the Princes,for the Sikhs too!
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“”When will that shore appear from which at last we see..How all this came to pass and for what reason?”

Reading poetry has been my pastime for long.All my life! Now it has become a passion for me and now it has become a serious pursuit.My tastes and temperament had shaped and changed me to read lots of poetry as a pastime.I have no scholarly interest or academic discipline.Thus,what I enjoy is keep going back to my old favourites and also looking out at the new poets. I have been reading poetry,all sorts of poetry,from all around the world for all my life. But in subjects like poetry that touches one’s emotions and passions and even deeply touches one’s inner recesses of the mind and soul poetry seems to give me a fulfilment,as no other arts have given me.In the high school itself I was a sort of budding poet and an artist of sorts! I won prizes for both.But I never took myself serious as a poet or a painter.Yes,my education took me to very different influences and my exposure to poets,actually living,also added to my interest in poets and their works.That is my experience in poetry. May be there are other arts,music,painting and visual and performing arts,dances,Indian as well as the Western ballet and theatre ,yes,I have had some exposure,rather rudimentary in some fields but my interests continue.One’s life’s circumstances limit the opportunities.Yes,being in a city like Paris or London could make all the differences.But being in India has certain limitations.Even in Bangalore where I spend most of my time these days,I have had few opportunities beyond my chosen routines.Thus,I often see Western musicians performing in Bangalore,more so in recent times,more in diverse genres,more rock and less of course the old classical things with which I had some familiarity.Yet,I dont get the time or the right time to go and watch these havily advertised commercial scale artistic activities. Of all these arts and artistic activities,poetry stands out.That is,poetry you can enjoy and appreciate in your privacy,your chosen ambience.Those poetry volumes, dusty,crumbling pieces of papers,Eliot,Yeats and many others give me the most secure feeling of familiarity.So,poetry remains my favourite reading pleasure.

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