In its report published in November 2006, entitled "Economist Intelligence Unit's Index of Democracy 2006", the Economist newspaper ranked India at 35th out of 167 countries with a score of 7.68 on a maximum possible 10, and in a category called "Flawed Democracy". Of 5 headline factors, the two that brought down India's score were "Political Participation" and "Political Culture".
“Participation”, according to the newspaper, entails "...the active, freely chosen participation of citizens in public life. Democracies flourish when citizens are willing to take part in public debate, elect representatives and join political parties. Without this broad, sustaining participation, democracy begins to wither and become the preserve of small, select groups."
Governance is India is improving. Hitherto largely focused on populist measures, there is a palpable drive towards effective nation-building. As an example, today, the authorities announced the phasing out of taxis older than 25 years and autorickshaws (a 3 wheel contraption unsuitable for the faint-hearted and guranteed to convert atheists. Ride one to understand what I mean) older than 15 years, for environmental reasons. The taxi-drivers' and autorickshaw-drivers' unions promptly called a strike leading to large-scale suffering of the common office goers and general public. The strike was a self-righteous claim of potential loss of livelihood and the right to protest such a loss. For the decades that their inefficient contraptions have been at work, these drivers have received subsidized fuel at the cost of the taxpayer, many of them actually cheat the public through tampered meters, are rude, drive dangerously and often refuse an inconvenient fare, and their inefficient engines have raped the environment for years. Democracy succeeds when even such a bunch has the right to protest. “Participation”, and hence democracy, fails because the general public suffers not just years of indignation but such strikes too, in silence. India has several classes of minorities: classified by religion and sect. These have been recognized to ensure access to basic human and democratic rights and preferred access to economic rights for their upliftment. The "taxpaying employed" in India are (an unrecognized and) an unfortunate minority because of their self-imposed inability to exercise their democratic rights.
Friday, 17 October 2008
Thursday, 16 October 2008
Happy Endings
Life is beautiful. While Darwin taught us that the fittest survive, I think it was Sir Richard Attenborough who said in Jurassic Park, "Life will find a way". There are at this point in time, about 6.2 billion people on earth, most of whom are finding a way out of poverty and eking a livelihood.
I'd like to mention two of these from one profession, both masseuses. I came across both in chance encounters, not going to them for their profession, but rather chatting with them as part of my education in anthropology and the fact that people pour their hearts out to me so much, to make me sometimes suspect that I don't have a face but instead, a large sympathetic ear in its place.
One was, let's call her Y from China. Y is a divorcee with a 6 year old son. She worked in a bank in the Eastern provinces of China, I forget where now. She turned to giving massages with a happy ending to tourists into Hong Kong. I remember her face when she narrated what she does, saying "I don't like it, I don't like it" with a grimace. When I asked her why she still does it, she said "I want to pay for my own house". She has a boyfriend working for the HK S.A.R. government who does not know what she does and she hopes they will get married someday. I wish her well. Another is T from Mumbai, someone who worked with a transport company in a clerical position and was lured by an advertisement promising, yes, a royal pay packet of US $ 300 p.m. She has a family of 5, her father, mother, a younger brother and sister. She did not know what a "happy ending" massage entailed (for the uninitiated - a happy ending is a hand job) and said that she does this because she would not like her sister to be in the same profession and she feels responsible for the family. She offered me her services, saying she will do a "handshake", but I politely refused and hoped god will bless her, while shaking her hand.
The lives of 6.2 billion people must be worth something. I don't know how many of these lives are motivated with the need to achieve something, in their own way, all must be. For some, it may be survival, like the children who beg at Mumbai's traffic lights and who may be getting beaten black and blue if they fail to earn. There are others who feel a sense of responsibility, like T, who I think could have just said "F" it, my father should worry about being the breadwinner. And there are others like Y who chase a dream, her own house.
With different upbringings, or social contexts or different brain-wiring, these motives in life would differ. More than 9 out of 10 movies that I have seen have had a happy ending. For T and Y, and the children on Mumbai's streets, I hope that they have a Happy ending and their Life will find a way.
I'd like to mention two of these from one profession, both masseuses. I came across both in chance encounters, not going to them for their profession, but rather chatting with them as part of my education in anthropology and the fact that people pour their hearts out to me so much, to make me sometimes suspect that I don't have a face but instead, a large sympathetic ear in its place.
One was, let's call her Y from China. Y is a divorcee with a 6 year old son. She worked in a bank in the Eastern provinces of China, I forget where now. She turned to giving massages with a happy ending to tourists into Hong Kong. I remember her face when she narrated what she does, saying "I don't like it, I don't like it" with a grimace. When I asked her why she still does it, she said "I want to pay for my own house". She has a boyfriend working for the HK S.A.R. government who does not know what she does and she hopes they will get married someday. I wish her well. Another is T from Mumbai, someone who worked with a transport company in a clerical position and was lured by an advertisement promising, yes, a royal pay packet of US $ 300 p.m. She has a family of 5, her father, mother, a younger brother and sister. She did not know what a "happy ending" massage entailed (for the uninitiated - a happy ending is a hand job) and said that she does this because she would not like her sister to be in the same profession and she feels responsible for the family. She offered me her services, saying she will do a "handshake", but I politely refused and hoped god will bless her, while shaking her hand.
The lives of 6.2 billion people must be worth something. I don't know how many of these lives are motivated with the need to achieve something, in their own way, all must be. For some, it may be survival, like the children who beg at Mumbai's traffic lights and who may be getting beaten black and blue if they fail to earn. There are others who feel a sense of responsibility, like T, who I think could have just said "F" it, my father should worry about being the breadwinner. And there are others like Y who chase a dream, her own house.
With different upbringings, or social contexts or different brain-wiring, these motives in life would differ. More than 9 out of 10 movies that I have seen have had a happy ending. For T and Y, and the children on Mumbai's streets, I hope that they have a Happy ending and their Life will find a way.
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Living in the past
As we move home yet again, I was clearing up boxes of paper accumulated over the years. The mandate to me was simple, halve the volume as we are moving to a home half the size of our current one (which incidentally is about 2/3rds the size of our last one).
Nostalgia ran through my head as I reminisced about the large sit-out areas on our last house overlooking trees, whose names I wish I had learnt, in a pristine area of the city. Moving to a crowded suburb of Bombay, some of this was already forgone. And moving to another crowded area in Bombay, more would be.
But back to the boxes which contained articles, presentations, concept notes and much creative work of the past years that I had accumulated in perhaps weak narcissist moments that refuse to go away. With a heavy hand reluctantly disobeying a heavier heart, I managed to retain my econometrics achievements while trashing some organization design blah-blah. Trivia such as "in 3500 years of written human history, only 277 have not seen war" was shredded in favor of "covariance (x,y) = E (Ux - Uy) - xbar ybar" and suchlike.
After a resounding success at my mandated result, I now wonder what might be the plausible use of retaining whatever material is retained. Do I want to impress someone, say my daughter, a child of 6 who no doubt has a firm opinion on my character, my temperament, and a fair assessment of "my worth". The rest of my family? they are older than 6 and ostensibly less impressionable. The rest of the world? who will need to be invited home, offerred a nice drink and when drunk out of their wits, papers slunk into their hands which they may not make sense of...
Naah. Forget about the past, I says. Let me diligently write the future on a blog which will, like water, find its own level. Hopefully, someday Google's data servers will not need to run into a smaller home and I don't get a notice to delete some of the posts. Should that happen, however, just tapping the delete button will be a lot less heavier on the heart than shredding reams of handwritten paper.
Nostalgia ran through my head as I reminisced about the large sit-out areas on our last house overlooking trees, whose names I wish I had learnt, in a pristine area of the city. Moving to a crowded suburb of Bombay, some of this was already forgone. And moving to another crowded area in Bombay, more would be.
But back to the boxes which contained articles, presentations, concept notes and much creative work of the past years that I had accumulated in perhaps weak narcissist moments that refuse to go away. With a heavy hand reluctantly disobeying a heavier heart, I managed to retain my econometrics achievements while trashing some organization design blah-blah. Trivia such as "in 3500 years of written human history, only 277 have not seen war" was shredded in favor of "covariance (x,y) = E (Ux - Uy) - xbar ybar" and suchlike.
After a resounding success at my mandated result, I now wonder what might be the plausible use of retaining whatever material is retained. Do I want to impress someone, say my daughter, a child of 6 who no doubt has a firm opinion on my character, my temperament, and a fair assessment of "my worth". The rest of my family? they are older than 6 and ostensibly less impressionable. The rest of the world? who will need to be invited home, offerred a nice drink and when drunk out of their wits, papers slunk into their hands which they may not make sense of...
Naah. Forget about the past, I says. Let me diligently write the future on a blog which will, like water, find its own level. Hopefully, someday Google's data servers will not need to run into a smaller home and I don't get a notice to delete some of the posts. Should that happen, however, just tapping the delete button will be a lot less heavier on the heart than shredding reams of handwritten paper.
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
Indignant today
What a way to start a blogging life, with indignance....Today I was perturbed while reading the economist newspaper, one I revere very much. In the "Leaders", it said that more of government intervention is required, even at the cost of the taxpayer etc....
Now I am not the Dick who Fuld the world, au contraire, I lead the honest taxpaying life, believing that the taxes I pay while forgoing my aspirations of owning a Ferrari will improve the economic and social well-being of my countrymen. So to say that my ilk should sweat the next couple of years in uncertainty while the investment banker &$@#*%ds who have accumulated the Beamers and beachfronts will laugh at their bailout, is f&%^$#@ injustice. A whole lot of them should be tried not unlike war criminals, and sentenced to the severest punishment that can be conceived.
And, when socialist intervention is the order of the day, these Dicks' assets should be siezed and auctioned off to pay the national burdens incurred in the economic rescue plans being written now and such Dicks should live in penury, possibly imprisoned.
While on my way to work, I did not have my car and driver today. In Bombay (Mumbai)'s October heat the day's indignation heightened when I thought that my taxes of last year could buy me at least a Merc C-class as a second car. The indignation was worsened when I saw a girl who could not be more than 4 and a younger boy squatting on the road, nearly naked in the dusty, grimy and squalid Mumbai, knowing fully well that my taxes were not changing lives....
The happiest thought of the day was that my daughter who had wrangled from me the promise of buying her a new toy (a housekeeping set - broom, mop, etc!!!) without a collateral bargain to fulfill from her side, mentioned that she would donate ten of her existing toys to an orphanage. There's still some hope for this world in the future.
Now I am not the Dick who Fuld the world, au contraire, I lead the honest taxpaying life, believing that the taxes I pay while forgoing my aspirations of owning a Ferrari will improve the economic and social well-being of my countrymen. So to say that my ilk should sweat the next couple of years in uncertainty while the investment banker &$@#*%ds who have accumulated the Beamers and beachfronts will laugh at their bailout, is f&%^$#@ injustice. A whole lot of them should be tried not unlike war criminals, and sentenced to the severest punishment that can be conceived.
And, when socialist intervention is the order of the day, these Dicks' assets should be siezed and auctioned off to pay the national burdens incurred in the economic rescue plans being written now and such Dicks should live in penury, possibly imprisoned.
While on my way to work, I did not have my car and driver today. In Bombay (Mumbai)'s October heat the day's indignation heightened when I thought that my taxes of last year could buy me at least a Merc C-class as a second car. The indignation was worsened when I saw a girl who could not be more than 4 and a younger boy squatting on the road, nearly naked in the dusty, grimy and squalid Mumbai, knowing fully well that my taxes were not changing lives....
The happiest thought of the day was that my daughter who had wrangled from me the promise of buying her a new toy (a housekeeping set - broom, mop, etc!!!) without a collateral bargain to fulfill from her side, mentioned that she would donate ten of her existing toys to an orphanage. There's still some hope for this world in the future.
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