Dirty Politics and Corrupt Society – ToI Contest

Here is my entry to ‘World Cartoonists Day’ celebration contest by Times-of-India –

The theme was ‘Politics with the times…’ or ‘We, the society…’ and I thought why not do something that would be about both? After all, politics and society can hardly be separated. Watch this space…

Congress Sinking Ship – Shehzada is King of World

Just been to the voting booth, polling-station#192 at Andhra University to be precise, voted and got inked… err, pressed some buttons for all one can say in India is exactly this for there has been quite a hue and cry and controversy of rigging the electronic voting machines (EVM) which are yet to be resolved. Digression apart and a standard disclaimer is that I could be way off base here but the pulse of the public at the booths and queues is that Congress is a sinking ship and I just could not stop myself from doing this for it was just too easy and low-hanging for me to ignore it –
I would not dismiss and shrug it off as ‘good riddance’ because the truth of the matter is that while Congress might not get into power in the center, it could still get into power in some states. In fact, I can say for certainity that Congress will win in Amethi inspite of the well documented ‘Amethi Model of Development’ which is honestly a misnomer by Arkalgud Anantaramiya Surya Prakash for there is no “development” to speak of in Amethi since the Nehru family adopted it as its flag-bearing puppet namoona dummy stronghold. What does this remind me of?
Ah yes, a virus. it is almost like Congress is a virus and as we all know, a virus never really dies and cannot be truly eradicated – it just stays dormant for a while and when the conditions are again right, it raises its ugly head, infects and goes on its merry way to spread disease, worms, filth and all that ensues in its wake. Be as it may, even if Congress sinks without a trace in this and forthcoming governments, the dynasty with its shehzada will live long and prosper like kings on the loot and plunder amassed and by brandishing and exploiting the pirated Gandhi name for generations to come and go, forever for eternity. Tsk, it takes all kinds to make this world.

Veering Away from Politics, Try – Word Play

As a matter of principle and in the interests of keeping my sanity, I tend to veer away from politics, especially India politics, for it is like the fatalistic song of sirens (hey, a nautical reference), or rather the cacophony of ugly fat corrupt neethi jaathi viswaasam leni neech kameene somberi bevarse haraam khor shehzade pigs (sorry, pigs) that many a sailor, or rather the illiterate ignoramuses sad excuse of sheeple called Indians has been lured to waste inexplicable inconceivable unimaginable unrecoverable amounts of time and many a ships have crashed on the never-ending jagged useless rocks of maggot poo that media tends to portrait as democracy, particularly, the cheap nautanki gutter circus called India democracy. According to Wikipedia, the Greek mythology lore on Sirens says that the song of the sirens is irresistible but since they reside beyond unpassable reefs and rocky coasts, shipwreck was a given and the sailors preyed upon by the sirens like cannibals or left on the coast without food and water to rot into stinking corpses. Either way, the allegory has a simile to India politics, or poltics in general, and is it any wonder that I try with all my wee physical and disturbed mental might to veer away?
But I suppose that boat has sailed (hey, another nautical metaphor – my mom is right, I am special and so are my teachers – I am a smart cookie after all) and so, while my boat is crashing into the rocks and am coaxed by the sweeper to MLA/MP/ZP campaigning in a beemer to vote, let me just say that am voting for change and hopefully, progress. It could be any party or candidate. I shudder to advise especially to bonafide idiots who have by and large voted time and again for a dynasty and monarchy to rule for 60+ years directly or indirectly or by proxy of this hopelessly wretched country but while I do not really care if any of you vote or not, but if you do like am going to even if its only because it is fashionable, here is a plea to vote for change and hopefully, progress and while at it, try to veer away from politics whose operative word is ‘tics’ which even animals would attest are blood sucking, disease spreading, scalp itching, skin irritating, ear infecting, greedy bloated parasites. Put any political symbolism like khadi and ticks become politicians. Ipso facto. QED.

Consequences of Selling Votes – Rotten Rut

Now that the Lok-Sabha elections are underway, here is a message from a psuedo-sponsor, I-Am-Aam, that there are consquences to selling votes. So, please do us all a favour, and more importantly, do yourselves a big favour and do not sell your votes for it could not only lead to metaphorical death of integrity but also an undignified cruel physical death by bills, taxes, poverty, starvation, garbage, disease etc. –
You have been told nicely and have been warned. Full story here at CWorks.

Consequences of Not Voting – Loss of Rights

Democracy is an interesting idea, especially in India. With less than 50% polling in just about every election at any ward, muncipality, district, assembly, national and everything in between, any government and official that was elected was in effect, a government and official that a majority did not want or to be more accurate, did not care nor had anything to do with it. Within those votes casted, a majority of them were bought and rigged. Basically, if you do the math and think deep enough, power is where the money is at and this is a self-perpetuating vicious cycle which can only be broken if a majority actually got off their lazy asses and voted. Kindly vote, not just in these elections but every elections at every level – voting is a right, and not voting is well, a wrong and defaults to a loss of rights, even the right to complain which desi brown Indians like to do a lot. Like, a lot lot. You have been warned –

With many TV channels, political parties and celebrities doing their bits to cajole and inspire people to vote, I suppose a peddler of silly posts on an unknown nondescript nacheez blog can only do so much but here is a little more word-play. If you don’t exercise your right, you will be left with regret and there will be consequences and side-effects that could include indiscriminate mining, erosion of farm-lands, unbridled pollution, losing of rights to protest, getting your ass kicked, chided by public, having your house bulldozed, living under tree, singing and begging on trains, irritable bowels, and seriously no kidding, hair loss, skin darkening, weight gain and horror of horrors, politicians staking the moral highground… vagaira vagaira.

Call for Rise of Nation of Inner-AAMs

Whenever it passes muster that I doodle, just about everybody in India or those with roots to India mention the iconic so-called Common-Man character of R.K.Laxman to which Wikipedia has the following to say:

The Common-Man is the creation of author and cartoonist R. K. Laxman. For over a half century, the Common-Man has represented hopes, aspirations, troubles and perhaps even foibles of the average Indian, through a daily comic strip, “You Said It” in The Times of India. The comic was started in 1951.

When Laxman began to draw cartoons in The Times of India, he attempted to represent different states and cultures in India. In the rush to meet deadlines, he began to draw fewer and fewer background characters, until finally he found only one remaining – the now-familiar Common-Man who generally acts as a silent witness to all the action in the comic.

Being the contrarian that I am, just about everybody in India or those with roots to India is taken aback and fall from their smugness cloud when I reveal that I really do not like the so-called Common-Man character and that while I have no reason to disrespect Laxman as a person and even admire him for his art and drawings, I do not actually respect Laxman as an author and cartoonist for he has pissed on a great opportunity and platform. Rather than inspire people by making the recurring character an agent of change, he played his part, however miniscule, making the character hapless and clueless and in so doing, conditioned people to be suffering bovines happily quipping “arre bhai, India mein aisa hi hotha hai” with an annoying and lazy “chalta hai yaar” attitude. Before everybody in India or those with roots to India thinks that this is just my opinion, Laxman has on record parroted the same thing, “The Common-Man symbolises the mute millions of India, or perhaps the whole world, a silent spectator of marching time.”
Now one could say that maybe I am looking too much into some imagery. Could be but iconography is a powerful thing which is seldom acknowledged. Discussing imagery as iconography implies a critical “reading” of imagery that often attempts to explore social and cultural values. Allow me to make an observation. If we study imagery of icons – fictional or real – we can immediately see some patterns. For the sake of simplicity, if we just compare non-religious icons of USA and India, the noticeable icons and paragons of the Western world have been superheroes fighting evil and preserving the American way of life while the icon worthy of mention in India is arguably Common-Man who is a speechless village idiot whose inaction has created a rotting, stinking, corrupt, poor, sickening, diseased, infested, horrible, broken, polluted, communal, violent, uneducated… catch the wave, stench of an excuse of a country called India. Let this vomit throw up in your mouth and sink in.
A wise man once said to me that how we want to be treated by others is dependant on us and our actions and not the largesse and manners of others. I for one feel that the Common-Man has an Inner-AAM (Angry And Mad) that is just wanting to explode and do something about the cacophony around him. Since Laxman will continue to draw the Common-Man as a damsel in distress and sell books, give speeches, get honoured etc. by the bucketload while at it, I am taking the artistic liberty of bursting the bubble and bringing out the Inner-AAM of demure character and fight the evils, worms, leeches, maggots… get the drift, of politicians, businesses, terrorism, policegiri, supersitions, rowdyism et al. in the hope it will inspire others, yes, all of you and you, the 2 readers of this blog who could very well fall under the common-man definition or an attempt towards a definition by Udit Misra, to fight –

Now, by associating myself with I Am Aam (a seller of t-shirts with a twist), I have brought out my Inner-AAM and have joined the fight to do my bit in the way I can by immortalizing the travails and adventures of Inner-AAMs across the length and breadth of India inspired by true stories. I understand that the suspense might be killing you and you want to see what it will be like and when you can see it but the key question, and perhaps the only question that should matter is, are you in? Are you going to bring out your Inner-AAM and join the fight? We’re all waiting!

P.S: Please go here at CWorks for the full-comic

India is Anna Hazare is India

Wow, what a catchy populist statement! No self-respecting cartoon-artist, nay no doodler can let it pass and so, just quickly simply some complicated elaboration…

To be liberal and critical if only for the sake of it, I think Kiran Bedi has got it right because with old ignorant millions starving for days altogether in this sad poverty stricken uber-corrupt country, India is indeed an ugly representative of Anna Hazare.

india map, anna hazare, satellite quip, cartoonist doodler, kiran bedi, right ugly statement, hungry millions, rampant corruption, sriks6711 cworks

India Independence Day 2011 – Cuffed and Shackled

It is and probably always has been very fashionable to say, nay quip that India is a land of contradictions. For once, I tend to agree with this today of all days because it is so-called “Independence Day” of the nation. I know very well that ‘independence’ does not mean nor ‘imply’ freedom by no sense nor definition of the words but for all the patriotism and jingoism to mark 64 years of independence from a cruel, racist, iron-fisted rule of the British, it seems to me that the common man of this country is still in bondage – clutches, suffering, cuffs, shackles and the works…

Ah yes, the contradictions. The police who are supposed to protect, torture. The politicians who are supposed to serve, rule. The doctors who are supposed to treat, harm. The corporations who are supposed to utilize, exploit. Finally, the people who are supposed to live, merely exist to drag yet another day without any hope towards a bleak future that is losing purpose with a unstable economy et al. I digress.

cworks sriks6711, independence day, india 2011, land of contradictions, patriotic jingoism, british raj, common man, red fort, flag hoist, solemn salute, protect torture, serve rule, treat harm, utilize exploit, live exist, bleak future, bad economy

NDM Superbug Vindicates India Superpower Status

This might be old news but still it is news that WHO endorsed Lancet report on India giving rise to NDM superbug that can potentially threaten the whole world but hey, why see this as such a bad thing? Why should 3rd world douchedirt scumbags, read, Indians be scared of germs, take it as a national insult, see it as a Western political conspiracy to undermine medical tourism, feel that it will affect development growth and try to fight and refute it? Just pay heed to the politician…

Any person who has been taught history knows that any country holding a world-threatening thingy – be it a weapon or disease – is a bonafide superpower. In fact, America was won by fleeing Europeans because of germs mostly. Maybe, it is indeed India’s decade as some magazine put it naively and jingoistically.

cworks sriks6711, NDM superbug, lancet report, WHO endorse, torch magnify, west conspiracy, medical tourism, superpower claim, doctors fight, national insult, india refute, 3rd world, disease weapon, america germs, india decade, naive jingoism

India Immune to Inflation, Corruption, Exploitation

A Trak colleague/fan Viral Dholakia asked me to do something on the topic of inflation, particularly based on his, “Have Indians Become Immune to Inflation?” post to which my simple answer is a resounding YES. I however majorly disagree with the reasons cited in the article like supply-demand, economic growth, jobs and spending ability etc. because I think major reason is that of sheer helplessness. Munch on it or apply Occams Razor or whatever. You go to the market to buy some stuff and see some random price for it. What can you do other than curse for a little bit and buy it anyway? What other option is there? Ditto with other ills of corruption, brutality, exploitation et al. You are a psycho if you like them. So, we put up with it because there is absolutely nothing you can do. But we sure can enjoy the pain…

This is inspired from many a movie where the hero can endure any punishment meted out by villains while pouting testesterone charged dialogues for the masses and particularly, a skit/scene in the ‘Monty Python Flying Circus’ film, “Life of Brian” where Brian gets arrested and is put in a dark battered cell with a pain immunized hedonistic-for-torture prisoner singing praises of the Romans. Here is a transcript of the dialogue converted into a monologue for your reading pleasure –

You lucky, lucky bastard! Probably the little jailies’ pet, aren’t we? You must have slipt him a few shekels, eh? Oh, ohoh, what wouldn’t I give to be spat at in the face? I sometimes hang awake at night, dreaming of being spat at in the face. Manacles! Ohuuhoh… what idea of reaving; is to be allowed to put in manacles, just for a few hours. They must think a sun shines out your arse, sonny! You’ve had a hard time!? I’ve been here five years, they only hung me the right way up yesterday! So don’t you come ’round… They must think you’re lord God Almighty. Oh, you’ll probably get away with crucifixion. Yeah. First offense. Best thing the Romans ever did for us. Oh, yeah. If we didn’t have crucifixion, this country’d be in a right bloody mess. Nail ’em up I say! Nail some sense into ’em! Hah! Ptui! [Spit] Oh! Look at that! Bloody favouritism! Now take my case. They hang me up here five years ago. Every night they take me down for twenty minutes, then they hang me up again. Which I guard as very fair, in view of what I’ve done. And if nothing else, it has taught me to respect the Romans, and it has taught me that you’ll never get anywhere in this life, unless you are prepared to do a fair day’s work for a fair day’s… Oh haha! Nice one, centurion! Like it. Terrific race, Romans! Terrific.

Yep! Terrific politicans, businessmen and police we have too. Truly blessed.

cworks sriks6711, resistant indians, inflation immunity, supply demand, economic growth, spending ability, rural jobs, sheer helplessness, random prices, curse buy, corruption exploitation, romans centurions, politicians whip, police lathi, business brand, life of brian, prisoner annoy, hang mannacles, crucifiction great, terrific race, flying circus, face spit, poor man, hung chains, blood drop, viral dholakia, trak india

Summer for Climate Change Scientists vs. Deniers

Am not out of topics to be talking about the weather but just that it has been a good summer for climate scientists who seem to have got the spring in their footstep and an unwipeable smirk on their faces rubbing it in to all the global warming deniers given the spike in scorching temperatures, forest fires, water droughts, heat waves, dehydration deaths et al. all over the world, and particularly across the USA where the Republicans are being dragged closer to the altar higher the mercury rising…

I for one do not care much about the weather having been exposed to temperatures from 50-degree to -23-degree centigrade with nothing more than a VIP banian and sandals across the spectrum. I enjoy outdoors as long as am properly insulated.

cworks sriks6711, hot weather, republican sacrifice, scientists rejoice, global warming, climate change, forest fires, water drought, scorching summer, enjoy outdoors, mercury rising, AGW hoax, warangal oslo, banian sandals, blistering sun

India Map WRT Kashmir on Google – Humbug

According to this source, there has been wide coverage to the fact that Google is showing the India map wrongly with respect to Kashmir. Previously, there was some dispute over the demarcation of Arunachal Pradesh which was shown as part of China or so. Wonder what happened to that? I did not follow that up because honestly my dear readers, I don’t give a damn. Who cares about this junk anyway? This reminds me of the ye olde adage ‘penny wise pound foolish’ because the bickering is about some rocky useless piece(s) of land when 99% of the “correctly” depicted land is going to the dogs. Seriously. We are talking about cartography and accuracy now? If you roam about at your own risk and find yourself in some region surrounded by neighbourhood enemy armies of Pakistan, China, Burma, Nepal etc. you are pretty much screwed and no amount of arguing that it is the fault of Google is going to help your situation. On the ground, reality is pretty much what the barbed wires and keep-out signs state what soil belongs to which country. My advise to all of you silly jingoists out there – get a life. But of course, politicians will get some mileage with some elections or the other around the corner all the time –

Disclaimer first. The above cartoon is a mesh of 2 cartoons by Laxman. I could have drawn it myself but as a blue-blood software engineer by training, re-use is the mantra here. Hope ToI does not mind and am sure Sir Laxman himself supports a liberal CC license. With that out of the way, everything that has India in the headline and a foriegn agent sullying the name or borders of this great country is what feeds our fat netas. I will be surprised if such a speech as depicted is not being made in some panchayat elections as we speak to ignorant babus and clueless villagers.

cworks sriks6711, google maps, india kashmir, arunachal pradesh, china encroach, pakistan territory, damn humbug, border lines, cartography accuracy, barb wires, nepal bhutan, bangladesh burma, political mileage, village speech, toi laxman, cartoons mesh, you said it, creative commons, nationalism jingoism, fat netas, clueless villager, ignorant babu, panchayat elections, penny wise, trak india

Pakistan Mulls over $5M Flood Relief Aid from India

I have commented elsewhere that India giving aid to other countries is like a leper giving his alms to a beggar who is down on her luck. It is funny and sad at the same time. However, given that the floods in Pakistan is a bonafide natural disaster (from web of course), the $5M relief package that India wants to give to Pakistan is applaudable. This is a tiny pittance compared to the money spent on newspaper ads on the eve of loser dead prime-minister Rajiv Gandhi birthday (or some other major event as per Congress diktat) and generous compared to the package being given to Leh but it is applaudable nonetheless. Now a country that is battered down and a wretched beggar should not be a chooser but that is exactly what Pakistan is doing by declining the aid package on grounds of vanity without consideration that it can be of some small help (negligible really after due corruption and bureaucracy) in saving human lives. Just goes to show how invaluable and insignificant life is in 3rd world countries. Wait, is it the other way around? You are a 3rd world country if you do not diplomatically accept money from another poverty infested country for the sake of some idiotic stupid nationalistic jingoist hate-mongering pride at the cost of lives of your own citizens. That sounds about right and a cartoon is in order –

Yep! India which is itself on a sinking ship is trying to save an adamant Pakistan which is not budging even when its master, the USA has spoken and Obama is urging. Funny thing here is that the really sad thing about all this is inspite of all the silliness, Pakistan as a failed country still performs better than India and others in many UN human development metrics. Here is evidence. Twisted and scary, innit?

cworks sriks6711, pakistan floods, india aid, USA urge, relief package, $5m aid, adamant muslim, sinking mosque, floating house, sinking ship, throw lifebuoy, leper beggar, rajiv gandhi, congress diktat, leh floods, 3rd world, human life, nationalism jingoism, stupid pride, UN development metrics, atanu deeshaa

Social Media in Kashmir – Parroting ye Olde Yaps

In general, I think social media is a hype and a fad. Just because new services keep coming up all the time like WordPress or YouTube or Facebook or Twitter or whatever and people with internet connections on PC and increasingly mobile, can register and dump their neurosis and details of their breakfast or weekend plans on it does not make it a media in the true sense of the proverbial fourth estate. Let alone their purpose of creation, but these services serve a secondary function of channels for communication, information and broadcasting. If one studies history, there were innumerable channels and every one of them has been exploited by groups to tell the truth and lies. It is just human nature to spread propaganda and protect their own vested interests. What I guess am saying is that just because people in Kashmir have started using so-called social media, it does not mean that they have started to speak out or have found a new voice or something profound like ‘power to the masses’ junk. They just discovered and have the means of a new medium to tell the world what they have been telling for the past many years – India sucks (we all know that). What is sad though is that most of the ramblings of the misquided youth seem to be about hardships of the people (but not themselves) and atrocities of the state (they are unaffected from). So, when I saw this story, “Social Media in Kashmir is Happening”, I could not resist a quick doodle –

Now I have a theory of why that is. Simple one really. The really oppressed people never have the resources to tell their story. It is the vultures and crackheads – read, big media or citizen media – who tell the story that others want to hear. No one wants to hear the story of a shopkeeper who is bankrupt because some paid rogues pelt stones in gay abandon causing curfews. No one want to hear the story of the girl who has had a free ride to education just because she was born in Kashmir while several others born in other states and far more deserving do not get even basic schooling. No one wants to hear the story of how many innocent people get killed everyday and the staggering underperformance of Jammu and Kashmir as an economy because of silly avoidable conflicts day in and day out. There is frustration and anger. Well, boo-hoo, every citizen of every country feels that way at some point or the other. Everyone in India hates the country at a gut level for its gawaar netas and rowdy police as much as the other guy but not everybody resorts to throwing stones nor using social media to tell the world – which hardly gives a damn BTW – the oppression, corruption and violence. Keep saying it like a parrot only makes it diluted, boring and depressing. In other words, share stories and stop cribbing. Importantly, don’t yap and please use more than 140 characters.

cworks sriks6711, social media, kashmir speaks, fourth estate, india sucks, police brutality, corrupt politicians, wordpress youtube, facebook twitter, BSF surprised, online citizens, blog tweet call, spread propaganda, new channel, misguided youth, stone pelters, business curfew, free schooling, unfulfilled potential, underperforming economy, rustic leaders, oppression corruption violence, jammu kashmir, dilute issues, repeat boredom, depressing stories, yap cribs, trak india

India to Move WTO Over USA H1B Visa Hike Bill

I love reading silly headlines in the morning. It feels like stupidity is alive and kicking which is always good for social commentators like yours truly. So, when I took the paper to the bathroom and saw “India to Move WTO Over USA H1B Visa Hike Bill” staring right at me, I laughed so hard that I took a big dump – literally. The sheer audacity of the optimism amused me. Drum-roll people for a quick doodle –

I think it is a fairly accurate depiction of the situation here even if I have to say so to myself. WTO is really the pet dog of the USA and is a fat lazy canine to even budge.

cworks sriks6711, silly headlines, stupidity alive, big dump, India complain, manmohan singh, WTO boss, USA pet, dog park, H1B visa, fee hike, trak india

India Rupee Symbol Everywhere – Sky Constellation

An advertisement in the paper today caught my attention for a strange silly symbol accompanied the price. It is the new symbol for the Indian rupee. Digging deeper I could find thousands of articles about it on the web. With a new keyboard by TVS, special key on a mobile phone and all, it seems to be cropping up everywhere –

For social commentators, wannabe writers and amateur cartoonists, a new symbol and rather interesting story preceding it is beautiful material. Stay tuned for more.

cworks sriks6711, rupee symbol, computer keyboard, IIT story, optical telescope, night sky, new constellation, good material, mobile phone, special key, trak india

India Retaliates for IT Chop-Shop Comment by USA

Imagine this scenario. You are going somewhere by train and carrying a lot of luggage. You arrive at the station and start haggling with a coolie. No one really knows the true effort estimate of a coolie but yet we negotiate. Eventually we arrive at some price and at the time of dispensing money, we almost always curse the coolie saying that we have been taken for a ride and such. We take pot-shots by using atrocious phrases to describe the gawaar coolie and his kind. If the coolie happens to hear our comments, he might mumble something but that is the extent of his reaction most of the time. It is just human nature and part of any monetary transaction for services. So, when I saw this “US Senator takes pot-shots by using Atrocious phrases like ‘Chop Shops’ for Infosys: Shouldn’t India Retaliate?” article over at Trak.in, I could not help myself but smile at ridiculousness of the question. I will leave it to readers to ponder about it themselves but here is what I think will happen at IT chop-shops in question that I can vouch for as a digital coolie myself –

The USA might think it is being smart by offloading the burden of building a cross-border Mexico wall to control the illegal immigration troves to India IT outsourcing industry via visa fee hike but little do they realize that ultimately the cost will be borne by the many America based clients that hire Indian IT workers directly or indirectly under goobledygook contracts. It will never come to cost competitiveness because $2000 hike will be absorbed easily for chop-shops work on high margins. As for the remark by some senator, as long as it is profitable, no one really cares what money making enterprises are called. Besides, as thick-skinned suckers, bring it all on.

cworks sriks6711, IT chop-shops, USA senator, india retaliate, take offense, work off, h1b visa, $2000 fee, sweat shop, whip workers, digital coolie, train station, haggle coolie, carry luggage, pot shots, immigration wall, Mexico border, cost transfer, high margins, thick skin, dark godown, bad working conditions, trak india

Octopi Make Perfect Politicians

Antara Dev Sen of Little Magazine has a silly piece in the paper today titled, “We Want Our Own Octopus Oracle” linking ‘Paul the Oracle Octopus’ hype to India. Crass really. But as with just about everything else, there are always nuggets of good stuff hidden in any gutter. Particularly, the paragraph in which she argues that octopi make perfect politicians by evaluating survival and cheating characteristics –

… eight-armed Seer will dominate our lives and politics. In fact, soon we may see baby octopuses contesting elections – if the squirmy baba-log are related to the Ashtabhuj Baba they are fit to govern us, of course. And I have no doubt that they will make brilliant politicians.
For one, an octopus has no spine – it can mould itself any which way. Then, it is a master of camouflage. It can rapidly change colour, even its skin-texture, to fit its surroundings. Besides, it has excellent eyesight and a shrewd brain. Many believe octopus has nine brains, because each of its arms genuinely has a mind of its own. It would be a great help in a system where one arm doesn’t know what another is doing. When in tight spot, octopus can squeeze itself into any loophole and escape. And most importantly, it specialises in spraying ink to cloud your vision and play debauchery tricks …

Yup. octopi would be perfect politicians indeed. With Spain volunteering to provide security to such molluscs, it is a bonus and would be light on exchequer too.

paul octopus, soccer oracle, fifa world cup, spain germany, eight-armed seer, ashtabhuj baba, spineless camouflage, change colour, shrewd brain, squeeze hole, spray ink, cloud vision, mollusc secutiry, antara dev sen, DC 20100710

Fuel Price – Misleading Ad – Dripping Economy

Has this ever happened to you? See something out of ordinary and instantaneously get that feeling that there is something wrong with the picture at a gut level? You cannot quite put a finger to it but every fibre in your body says that this is not quite right and has to be analyzed deeper, time permitting? Well, that is exactly how my shell reacted when I saw this advertisement from the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in the Deccan Chronicle newspaper on 27th June 2010 –

Apparently, one Hashim Adil of Hyderabad shares my concern. In a letter today, he says that the advertisement justifying the hike in prices of LPG cylinder (this is wrong for it is liberalization which has inevitable led to a price hike) is ridiculous. It compares the prices of the commodity in neighbouring countries to make us believe that we are paying less. However, 577 Pakistan Rupees is equal to Rs 311 in India, 537 Bangladeshi Taka equals Rs 355 in India and 822 Sri Lankan Rupees equals Rs 333 in India. LPG costs more in India than in Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

There are a number of issues here. First and foremost is very publication of an advertisement by ministry to justify a decision it took without any regard to previous commissions and opposition. Second, the accuracy of the advertisement has been called into question and there is no one exploring. Where is the so-called hawkish factual rigour in reporting that people are giving and getting awards for? (which seems to be all the time). Is anyone looking deeper if the prices published are normalized to cylinder volumes and currency? I certainly do not hear any newsbytes. Third, comparing prices of other washed-out hopeless countries that surround this pathetic excuse of a nation is just giving excuses and betting on sadistic catharsis in the misfortune of others. So, some poor sod in Bangladesh is paying more for LPG and Kerosene. This proves what exactly? Why some stupid government in some idiot country charges what for some commodity is a matter of some policy and some arrangements they have with some oil producing nations and some oil company. What does that have to do with prices in India? But wait dear reader, the main analysis of my gut feeling and discomfiture is that the whole premise of the advertisement is wrong because it was designed to mislead people into thinking that the government is still doing a better job than the governments of genocidial poverty-ridden violent terrorist failed states. Is this the company we want to compare ourselves with? Why is the comparision not made to fuel prices of the USA where petrol costs half than what we pay at the bunk? The use of media and the English language is just an icing on the cake to prove that we live in a very controlled and suggestive society. The only people who can read and understand this silly advertisement in the first place are the urban middle-class who have some swing and make noises. By satisfying this no-good rubric, the ministry has a free pass.

I hope am not being Chomskyish here and shouting some conspiracy because Jayati Ghosh in her editorial today titled, Dripping Economy gives many points to ponder about the very timing and necessity of “freeing” the price of petroleum products in the midst of almost unprecedented food and generalised inflation. I could not believe that Capsicum is 90/- a kilo…

oil is a universal intermediate (which enters directly or indirectly into all other prices) this necessarily means a further rise in inflation. This is a move that is inexplicable from the point of view of general economic policy. Global prices of petroleum products in the past three years have been marked by the most extreme volatility, more than doubling and then falling to nearly half within a period of 18 months. The fluctuations hardly reflect “economic fundamentals” which have not changed much in the past few years; rather they show the impact of global speculative forces on fuel prices

UPA government has been trying for some time to decontrol oil prices, despite the global volatility in these prices and the lack of convincing arguments in favour of such deregulation. The Rangarajan Committee on the pricing and taxation of petroleum products was set up in the hope that it would recommend such a move. But that report did not really point to this conclusion, so the government, not to be thwarted in its desire, set up yet another committee. This time it was an Expert Group chaired by former Planning Commission member Kirit Parikh, with the more or less explicit mandate to recommend wholesale liberalisation of the pricing of petroleum products. The Expert Group duly did just that, and the government has been quick to accept its recommendations

official reason for this move is that it is necessary to stem the “losses” being suffered by the oil marketing companies. But this argument misses the point that all of these companies deliver a range of products and services, the prices of all of which are not controlled. In fact, profits after taxes of the most important oil companies have remained positive and often quite substantially so in the past 10 years. The oil refineries and governement also get a huge pay-off from taxes and levies but they are not willing to budge. Current strategy is one that puts the entire burden of irrational shifts in the international prices of oil on the consumer, even if the burden sharing involved is extremely regressive and unjustified

So, there you have it. The most obvious reason for the deregulation or price hike or whatever you want to call this scum scam, seems to be that the government has chosen to favour the private companies that have been allowed to enter and expand in this sector. This has encouraged the government to take a measure that will cause great harm to most of the population so as to bring in more profits to a few large and powerful companies and of course itself. It also gives people a chance like Andhra Pradesh CM to be a hero by giving statements that the state will buffer the poor from the price increase. This brings to mind popular adage: “Either the government owns the oil companies, or the oil companies own the government.”

fuel price, oil deregulation, ministry of petroleum, hashim adil, currency conversion, lpg cost, country comparision, factual reporting, sad excuses, silly awards, sadistic catharsis, media control, free pass, middle class, jayati ghosh, eco currents, food inflation, volatile speculation, rangarajan committee, kirit parikh, oil companies, under recoveries, positive profits, shift burden, bunk consumer, regressive policy

Related articles by Zemanta

• Scrapping of Fuel Regulation to Boost India Refiners (businessweek.com)
• India OKs Market Driven Fuel Prices (online.wsj.com)

Falling into Deficits – USA Recession Obama – Zyglis

Adam Zyglis has a wonderful depiction of current state of USA economy (and by association, world economy) in light of the trillions of dollars of deficit in recently unveiled 2010 budget (which is as stupid as they come with too many cooks)…

I suppose one could put any nation premier in the picture but I feel for the O-dawg for he has nowhere really to go. He is royally screwed. The more he tries pulling people out of recession (with the current free-money-for-all monetary policies), more deeper he digs the grave he will eventually fall into. Reminds me of an old Telugu saying of gramps, “mundu goyya, venaka nuyya” (pit in front, well in back).

sriks6711 cworks, barack obama, pull people, recession pit, deficits grave, budget 2010, USA economy, world ripple, trillion dollars, telugu saying, monetary policy, fiscal measures, too many cooks, stupid america, adam zyglis, buffalo news

Mathematics of War – 3 – Reality, Why and Other

A wise person (who inadvertently happens to be your parents or grandparents once you are old enough) once said that if one looks at just about anything, closely and long enough, one can always find faults, patterns, cracks. Be it images of perfect airbrushed models or character traits of arguably greatest of men like Mahatma Gandhi or cruelest of men like Adolf Hitler. So, it was no surprise that on marinating the “Common Ecology Quantifies Human Insurgency” paper (popularly – oh the horror of laying it out to the man on the street – known as ‘Mathematics of War’ or ‘Ecology of War’ depending on how stupid the publisher is) in my consciousness long enough, I found many quantitative and qualitative faults, patterns and cracks in the assumptions, data, analysis and conclusions to the extent of being tempted to say it is not entirely devoid of errors and it is not entirely out of line to say it is a load of crap – the suspect scholarship itself, evident oversimplification of ground reality by arm-chair theorizing and TED drummed hype that followed. But some stink more than the others. Like most of you who may have a life of sorts, and if not, get one, I have neither the time nor the inclination to go into details and till I see any sliver of feedback (monetory or otherwise), my detailed critique/review will remain in dark alleys of a rotten brain. This is a blog and I, and you, are entitled to my opinions. I will (try to) be brief. No promises. Here are a 1000 words for starters (with each frame and line and word having a story to tell on its own if not already so)…

The cartoon (inspired by a classic stock trading madness one by Kal of Economist which also reflects the allusion of financial markets simile) tries to address 2 things at a high level. The ‘why’ and ‘other’ side of the coin. Allow me to elaborate –
1) For a paper that flaunts to be the mathematics or ecology of war (strike-1: make up your mind), the core question of ‘why’ remains unanswered other than the broad strokes of generalizing it to violent primal animalistic human behaviour in a conflict scenario viz. ganging up and acting out of reptilian-minded self-preservation and just silly attention-seeking, message-sending, authority-opposing, loathing-fired, territory-protecting, family-first, religion-tampered, son-of-gun, honour-killing, blood-thirsty, cult-following, brain-washed, nepotism-led, arms-dealing corporate interest driven, virgin-seeking, nation-gaurding, eye-for-an-eye revenge. Out of the 6 wise questions of who, when, where, what, why and how of anything, it is the ‘why’ that is always most important and difficult one to answer. Unsurprisingly, it is not always forthcoming and so is the case with the current research/paper/letter/talk/hype/site in question. My answer to ‘why’ is not my answer because it has been addressed before. In any conflict, the main reason for all the tomfoolery is primarily a result of ye-olde mis-communication and bad decision-making. People act irrationally (or whatever it is the paper insinuates) because for all the wisdom of the world, groups only serve the purpose of amplifying stupidity and at discrete time-steps under pressure with only incomplete information and shrouded judgment as a way of life and we don’t have to observe a conflict to come to that conclusion. It is kinda obvious from shopping to ordering pizza. Patterns. Patterns. Everywhere
2) The paper does not address the most important element to any conflict which is the ‘other’ side. It paints the terrorists (putting on my linguist hat ala Chomsky, this is a wrong word in itself because if it is used, it automatically implies the branded-as-such people as bad which is just one point-of-view) as villains from the word go and does not give due weight to the acts of the ‘other’ side, say the state police or occupying USA troops in Afghanistan. If you ask me, the patterns of behaviour of the ‘other’ side are just as irrational and fueled by internal politics (no matter how hierarchical they are organized) and media sound-bytes as the insurgents (again, a bad and violent word that should not have been used in interests of neutrality). We all know it takes two to tango or two hands to make a clap or no smoke without fire or every action has an opposite reaction or what goes round comes around and such idioms. Not considering/mentioning, let alone understanding the role of the ‘other’ side and how they influence/provoke behaviour of freedom-fighters (terrorists by other name), is like saying – well, I cannot think of a suitable analogy because there are so many of them that apply here – the insurgents are evil by birth and all that the paper is trying to do, in a fly-on-wall (when it really should be cat-on-wall) manner is quantify their evil-doings somewhat like an overbearing God who at the same time turns a blind eye at the misdemeanours of his chosen people. It’s just plain wrong. Besides, there are too many Gods already responsible for much mess that has/going/will in the world but discussing religion is slightly off-topic, no?
When seen with that lens of favouritism, it is of course obvious that patterns can be identified in the reactions (yes, not actions) of insurgents. Suffice to say that what we are seeing here is simply a human collective not showing the other cheek when slapped and that maybe, just maybe, we should perhaps be more concerned why did the slap happen and importantly, whose hand is it that was raised leading to harakiri? Again, there will be patterns to series of events that led to this situation. So, my question is this: Can we identify “that” pattern of circumstances that triggers insurgency? I believe we can (if one looks closely and long enough goes without saying). If so, that will be the right path to understand misunderstandings. To the best of my knowledge from private communication, Sean Gourley is already at work along these lines and I hope whatever comes out of that is not half as bad as the paper we are discussing, er, opiniating. Lest I forget, as for the errors in data and analysis, I informally tried applying their methods to Kashmir situation and I was disappointed and felt cheated. The first thing that came into my mind was that maybe my data was not clean or my interpretations of the paper and formulae. It takes a great and beautiful mind to accept mistakes. Mine is certainly not. So there.

PS: If you are wondering what happened to part-2 of series, well, keep wondering. I did not think it was worth my typing and am famously lazy. You are however free to think of it as a forced workshop on imagining or maybe, Quentin Tarantino stylism

sriks6711 cworks, mathematics of war, ecology of war, wise parents, faults patterns cracks, let it marinate, character traits, mahatma gandhi, adolf hitler, human insurgency, nature cover story, sean gurley, quantitative qualitative, assumptions conclusions, data analysis, methodology formulae, lots of errors, suspect scholarship, evident oversimplification, arm-chair theorizing, ground reality, TED hype, load of crap, stinking mess, get a life, sliver of feedback, dark alleys, rotten brain, entitled to opinion, kal economist, buy sell, classic cartoon, financial markets, stock trading, stupid behaviour, the why, other side, primal instincts, animalistic tendency, reptilian brains, human species, act of self-preservation, blood-thirsty revenge, eye for an eye, 6 wise men, who important, problem of communication, bad decisions, irrational acts, discrete time-steps, incomplete information, order pizza, linguist hat, noam chomsky, terrorist wrong word, implies villain, USA troops, afghanistan occupy, internal politics, strict hierarchy, media soundbytes, two to tango, no smoke without fire, karma philosophy, action reaction, overbearing god, analogy simile, fly on wall, trigger circumstances, show other cheek, harakiri slap, kashmir situation, clean data, wrong interpretation, beautiful mind, building smash, mom to son, bear no ill-will, overheard kill, signal to noise, taliban action, call CNN, bottle bomb, humvee on fire, army tent, watch TV, big bill, soldier action, launch missile, cycle repeat, pattern in circumstances leading to

Joker of Year – Kalmadi – FIFA World Cup in India

Sometimes an article comes along that is just worth spreading such as “Kalmadi Kicks up a Laugh Riot” in DC today accompanied by nice little image and fact-file…

Say what you may about Indian Olympic Association president Suresh Kalmadi, one thing can’t be denied; The 65-year old can make most optimistic amongst us seem like Arthur Schopenhauer. At Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at Port-of-Spain, he surprised all present with his proclamation that once India successfully staged next year’s Commonwealth Games in New Delhi the nation could soon launch a bid to host the world’s most popular sporting extravaganza – the FIFA World Cup. Ironically his promulgation was made in Trinidad and Tobago, which in 2006 became the smallest nation to ever qualify for the quadrennial showcase with a population just exceeding one million. The closest India, with a population of over a billion, have come to gracing world football’s biggest stage was in 1950 when it qualified for the World Cup held in Brazil but were eventually unable to compete as the team played barefoot. Cutting to the ground reality, Kalmadi ignored probably the most important element to host a football World Cup – the infrastructure.

FIFA sets a minimum requirement of 12 stadiums capable of seating at least 40,000 spectators, while a stadium with a minimum capacity of 80,000 is required for the opening match and the final. At present, India has just one stadium which matches up to AFC criteria, where the minimum allowed capacity is 20,000 – the Gachibowli Stadium in Hyderabad. The national team’s preferred home venue, the Ambedkar Stadium, which has been the sight for many a historic triumph, falls short of matching-up to AFC standards. If that doesn’t bode well, the scenario with the training facilities is even bleaker. India is so woefully short of training facilities that national team is forced to train in high school playgrounds during prestigious tournaments like AFC Challenge Cup and the Nehru Cup and has to routinely travel abroad for national camps as there are no training facilities in the country.

National team coach Bob Houghton, more of a realist than Kalmadi, has more than once stated that before we start dreaming of qualifying for the World Cup, much less dream of hosting it, we should keep in mind that the two biggest and most historic clubs in the country – East Bengal and Mohun Bagan – don’t have their own training grounds even after over 100 years of existence. With the hosts for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups being announced together in 2011, India doesn’t have a chance at making a bid before 2026 and even so, one wonders how successful a bid from a nation which has never qualified for the World Cup would be.

[Tweet – 20091225]: Ultimate irony that India could not compete in 1950 world cup in Brazil is that they played “barefoot” a sport called football – not, bootball. Classic

suresh kalmadi, indian olympic association, arthur schopenhauer, port of spain, commonwealth games, FIFA world cup, trinidad and tobago, brazil 1950, world cup, barefoot compete, inadequate infrastructure, ground realities, state of football, 12 stadiums, 40000 spectators, gachibowli hyderabad, ambedkar stadium, AFC standards, nehru cup, bob houghton, east bengal, mohun bagan, 100 years, traininng grounds, 2011 2026, japan host, south korea, fact file, DC kumar bolt

COP15 Summary – Simple Choice, World Ponders

cworks sriks6711, matrix pills, cop15 copenhagen, UNFCC 2009, simple choice, green earth, burning planet, rich country, uncle sam, big mess, blame world, poor country, india singh, white man, china party, corporate angry, pay scientists, poverty people, demand action, world ponders, null accord, failed summit, colour cartoon

Greed Begets Capitalism Begets Scams, Corruption

Some selected quotes from, “Scams that Launched a 1,000 Suits” by educator and commentator, Paranjoy Guha Thakurtha and, “Of Money, Greed and Risk-loving CEOs” by economist, Jayati Ghosh both of whom put the year-end focus on scams that rocked both India and the world, er, USA. While many people believe, (or are led to believe by the capitalist media which also have major stakes in the system) that capitalism is somehow more open, accountable and democratic that has led to an appreciation of the qualities that capitalist functioning is based on: individualism and the competitive spirit have something else coming in this post. It is a false illusion because capitalism as a system in based on greed, on the harnessing of individual self-interest to the common good. 2 words – human nature – which should be all-encompassing on how corporate games are played – dirty and fatally.

In 1776, Adam Smith’s famous and still widely quoted passage in the “Wealth of Nations” noted that ‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. More recently, the more famous quotation was probably that of Gordon Gekko, the fictional hero of the 1987 film “Wall Street”, ‘Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms — greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind’. The proof is out there for all to see – well, to someone looking. A series of corporate scandals and failures rocked the US economy in 2001 and 2002 – from Enron and WorldCom to Adelphi and even one of the “Big Five” accounting firms, Arthur Andersen. It turned out that much of the much-hyped growth and profits were clearly illusory, based on fraud and data manipulation, or simply put, lies. Two points that emerged then are still relevant today. First, such scams are not new nor unexpected; in fact they are part of capitalism’s normal functioning. Only most naive interpretations of the history of capitalism would leave out the crucial role played by fraud, deceit and open crime in the accumulation of capital and its subsequent use. While many of the financial malpractices continued for several years, they were exposed only when economic slowdown and the stock market bear trend fed into each other. Yet another (policy created) bubble in the US — this time directed to the housing market and financial proliferation — once again diverted attention and brought back the glory days for risk-loving CEOs of large companies, especially financial firms. The period 2002 to 2007 thus became, in the US and globally, a repeat of the earlier 1990s process on an even larger scale. It was the same dance, to just a slightly different tune, and joined by many more economic agents all over the world. Greed and boundless market optimism were back in fashion again. And the current crisis is not over yet. The major imbalances that were at the heart of the crisis still persist: the imbalance between finance and the real economy; the global macroeconomic imbalances; and ecological imbalance resulting from the pattern of growth. This cycle will repeat for eternity.

When Deccan Chronicle asked me to draw up a list of the 10 biggest scams of the past decade, I didn’t realise there were so many over the last two years alone. I gave up counting. A group of bleeding-heart do-gooders by the name of ‘Transparency International’ ranked India at the 85th position out of 179 countries in its annual “corruption perceptions index” in 2008. In fact, India’s score improved dramatically from 2.7 (out of 10) in 2002 to 3.4 in 2008. Does it mean that corruption has become better or that India is more transparent in its corruption today than before? Everybody accepts it as a way of life. Of capitalism and bureaucracy taking its charted path. We draw distinctions between the more corrupt and the less corrupt, the corrupt-but-efficient and the corrupt-and-inefficient – “that fellow accepts bribes but still refuses to do his job”. We are a nicely nuanced lot. But as a majority is so poor, none of this actually affects them. They have their own fish to fry (this is figurative because there aren’t enough fish to feed all the ugly masses). Scams therefore, escape our scrutiny for the same reason. Harshad Mehta, former employee of the New India Assurance Company who became a notorious stockbroker by presiding over a financial scandal involving Rs 4,000 crores. Byrraju Ramalinga Raju, who headed Satyam Computer Services confessed that he cooked the books of account of his flagship firm to the tune of Rs 8,000 crores. Ketan Parekh is a pale shadow of his former cocky self and few remember C.R. Bhansali’s claim to infamy. The IPO scam involving India Bulls and stock-broking firm Karvy is a distant development. And, have you recently heard anything about Abdul Karim Telgi who started life as a fruit and vegetable seller before he decided to bribe his way into the Nashik security printing press and forged wads of stamp paper? Madhu Koda started off as a labourer in a mine and a window-grill fitter before a small-time flunky in the BJP to a big-time beneficiary of the vagaries of coalition politics. He reportedly almost bought up a couple of uranium mines in South Africa before celebrations abruptly ended. But Koda’s shenanigans faded into insignificance before the occurrence of the “biggest” scam in independent India, namely, allotment of electro-magnetic spectrum to a clutch of mobile operator telephone companies at prices that were at least one-seventh their true market value. What was the loss to the nation? Only Rs 50,000 crores! This is India, after all, the world’s greatest democracy, where sibling rivalry can paralyse the working of the government. Imagine a tycoon splurging on front-page advertisements in dozens of newspapers to tell the world how the Union ministry of petroleum and natural gas was depriving the exchequer of huge amounts by favouring a fraternal company by agreeing to pay a higher price for natural gas taken out of the bed of the ocean in the Bay of Bengal. More than 250 aircraft and helicopters valued at not less than Rs 16,000 crores that were imported into the country between May 2007 and July 2008 by more than 70 companies controlled by some of the country’s most prominent industrialists after evading customs duty worth Rs 4,000 crores. Noteworthy that most of these private aircrafts were used not merely by corporate honchos, family members and business associates but also by “politician friends” during their election campaigns.

All said and done, capitalism works because it is first and foremost a monopoly – only because of a failure (and propagandic annihilation) of other systems to catch on, rather than any strict opposition or fair-play – because our pathetic little brains and genome vessels cannot think beyond self-preservation. During the cold war, the East looked in jealousy at West for the goods they have in their supermarkets. But now, the East which still suffers from poverty inspite of capitalism, looks in despair and hopelessness at the West for the debt-ridden luxury consumption that is the driver of growth more than industry. After all, we are animals who like cuckoos value trinkets like some yellow metal (read, gold) and pressurized rock (read, diamond) in high regard than that of the life of a fellow human and would be willing to commit unspeakable actions to the pursuit of stuff – white solids or black liquids or green paper or blue powder – that has absolutely no real tangible value if one really spends enough time to think and ponder about this madness.
This is getting boring, isn’t it? If one were to start chronicling the stories of human greed, it would take a million lifetimes. The MD of Alcatel-Lucent India, Vivek Mohan spoke, “It is high time for India to move on from ‘Copy the West’ phenomenon and develop innovative, India-specific stuff. I strongly believe that India is home to the best entrepreneurial talent and Indians have innovation in their DNA”. It is so very true. We are innovators in corruption and scams today after successfully imitating the West at a scale that boggles the mind. It is in our blood to be apathetic and suffer. Connection between capitalist greed and scams and the nexus between business and evil politics is neither new nor unique. What’s a few billions among friends, eh? Let’s talk about the weather instead. Oh wait, there is a scam brewing here too. Of railroad engineers, Pachauri and failed Presidential candidates, Gore who could be the first carbon billionaires if not already, which would be even cooler – paradoxically – to cash-in on the haze of mitigating/combating global warming.

india scams, human greed, basis of capitalism, risk-loving CEO, self-centred media, competitive spirit, harness self-interest, common good, human nature, dirty games, adam smith, wealth of nations, self-love benevolence, gordon gekko, wall street, michael douglas, greed good right clarifies essence, evolutionary spirit, life money love knowledge, surge mankind, corporate scandals, enterprise failures, organizations rockes, USA economy, 1776 1987, 2001 2002, enron worldcom, financial irregularities, dotcom bubble, arthur andersen, lehmann brothers, accounting cook-up, data manipulation, securities fraud, clerical errors, management glare, accumulation of capital, open criime deceit, hyped growth, debt hiding, illusory profits, creative destruction, destrutive creation, laws malpractice, economic slowdown, stock market, bear trend, housing bubble, risk proliferation, divert attention, glory days, display wealth, banker bonus, government regulation, public bailout, too big to fail, market optimism, major imbalances, 10 biggest scams, transparency international, corruption perceptions index, corrupt bureaucracy, way of life, degrees of corrupt, nicely nuanced, fish to fry, harshad mehta, new india assurance company, financial scandal, 4000 crores, ramalinga raju, satyam maytas, 8000 crores, ketan parekh, bhansalsi infamy, IPO scam, india bulls, karvy brokerage, abdul karim telgi, stamp papers, nashik security press, madhu koda, coalition politics, jharkand CM, uranium mines, south africa, electro-magnetic spectrum, 50000 crores, mobile operators, telephone companies, market value, sibling rivalry, reliance oil, natural gas, bay of bengal, aircraft helicopters import, custom duty evasion, 4000 crores, corporate honchos, politician friends, election campaigns, capitalism monopoly, propaganda annihilation, pathetic brains, genome vessels, self-preservation mantra, cold war, supermarket goods, debt-ridden consumption, gold diamonds oil money, alcatel lucent, vivek mohan, copy west, innovation DNA, apathetic suffer, business politics nexus, carbon billionaires, IPCC pachauri, climategate poop, railroad engineers, al gore, failed presidents, global warming, save world, paranjoy guha thakurtha, jayati ghosh

Recession and High Prices = Empty Christmas

There is joblessness, under-employment, high prices due to recession and empty treasury, food shortages due to fuzzy monsoon and all-time high corruption et al. What does anyone expect from Santa Singh? Well depicted by Subhani in DC…

recession, high prices, joblessness under-employment, recession effect, empty treasury, food shortage, fuzzy monsoon, santa singh, middle class, empty bag, dull christmas, unchecked corruption, no gifts, poor family, DC subhani, 20091221

Mathematics of War – 1 – Ecology and Patterns

In a letter sent on 5 July 2009, accepted on 29 October 2009 (so much for work at the speed of light and thought) and published on 17 December 2009 is Nature 462, 911-914, Juan Camilo Bohorquez, Sean Gourley, Alexander Dixon, Michael Spagat and Neil Johnson write that war can be quantified in a box and push forward a short paper, “Common Ecology Quantifies Human Insurgency”, which the bombastic, pun intended, TED is arguably claiming as the handiwork of their TED Fellow Sean Gourley, so much so as immortalizing the collective sweat and toil of 5 people as the Gourley equation (come on people, show some modesty and appreciation)…

Describes dynamical composition of an insurgency. Here, n_s is number of groups with strength s (> 1). The different terms describe processes of group coalescence, and group fragmentation.
I feel for Bohorquez and others because the spotlight seems to be on Gourley who is listed as the second author and we all (well OK, some geeks) know what that means as noticed in time-tested real-life graduate, academia and university life…

Ha ha. Having started communications with a joke as schooled, let us get to the abstract but not before mentioning that this paper is featured as the cover story of Nature beating out the ‘new earth discovery’ and ‘possible cancer cure’ which says as much of our fascination, nay, obsession with killing other people we don’t know, err… war, terrorism and occupation than nothing else. Enough trivia, le abstract…

Many collective human activities, including violence, have been shown to exhibit universal patterns*. The size distributions of casualties both in whole wars from 1816 to 1980 and terrorist attacks have separately been shown to follow approximate power-law distributions. However, the possibility of universal patterns# ranging across wars in the size distribution or timing of within-conflict events has barely been explored. Here we show that the sizes and timing of violent events within different insurgent conflicts exhibit remarkable similarities. We propose a unified model of human insurgency that reproduces these commonalities, and explains conflict-specific variations quantitatively in terms of underlying rules of engagement. Our model treats each insurgent population as an ecology of dynamically evolving, self-organized groups following common decision-making processes. Our model is consistent with several recent hypotheses about modern insurgency, is robust to many generalizations, and establishes a quantitative connection between human insurgency, global terrorism and ecology. Its similarity to financial market models provides a surprising link between violent and non-violent forms of human behaviour.

(*) I would think that the ‘why’ of universal patterns in any collective human activities, peaceful or violent, is fairly obvious to an acute observer, not just surreal zoologists such as Desmond Morris. We humans are a young and naive species. Inspite of our pretensions to be sentient and complex and underneath all the make-believe layers of civilization and smoke and mirrors, we are still nothing but animals with barbaric instincts influencing our thought patterns which are focused after all, on the primal need to feed, greed and breed. Everything, with a capital E considered, brain has not really evolved after an initial mutation burst but has only adapted
(#) Let me spare the suspense and list out the universal pattern across conflicts, purely by observation and my study and understanding of history (however little I seem to recall) without me reading the paper (which is gated) or the editors note or news article(s) or Q’n’A session or TED Talk or commentary or books like Naked Ape or Human Zoo or just about any sort of reference research whatsoever –
1) Humans organize themselves into collectives. It is natural
2) Each collective, duh, collects stuff that makes others jealous
3) Conflict ensues and power and control comes into equation
4) Vanquished seek revenge. Conquerors seek more blood
5) Uneasy peace exists but there is in-fighting and ambition
6) Objects of affection evolve from materials to idealisms
7) People just want to kill others brutally and be famous for it
A) Pattern holds for war and insurgency. Rinse and Repeat
There. We do not have to face an ordeal of the propaganda and rack our brains to read paper or any related materials to make sense of the world as seen through lens of war, or to be more precise, increasingly fluid insurgency that mathematically fits collected data. Wrong. I thought so too but my brain disagreed. It is a nasty piece of work and wanted to have a peek. After all, it is a beautifully written paper and only about 4 pages – most of which is justifying data gathering to the point of being apologetic – and a look-see will not take too much time or too much rewiring of the neurons. Or so, it said. As a principle, I dont argue with my brain. It makes me do unspeakable things and hurts me if I dont do its bidding. So, I complied and boy, was I glad I did? It was a page-turner and a well written piece of inquiry. Well done. I have much to say (continued in later posts where I delve into math, commentary from other places, media coverage and of course, cartoons), but for this piece, I will just cite/para-phrase/quote and expose a model schematic from the letter itself…

The political scientist Spirling and others have correctly warned that finding common statistical distributions (for example, power laws) in sociological data is not the same as understanding their origin. Possible political, ideological, cultural, historical and geographical influences make conflict arguably one the ‘messiest’ of all human activities to analyse. Mindful of these challenges, yet inspired by recent studies of human dynamics, we analyse the size and timing of 54,679 violent events reported within nine diverse insurgent conflicts, placing equal emphasis on both finding and modelling common patterns. Such insurgencies typify the future wars and threats faced by society. To our knowledge, our model provides the first unified explanation of high-frequency, intra-conflict data across human insurgencies. Other explanations of human insurgency are possible, though any competing theory would also need to replicate and/or fit the results. Our model’s specific mechanisms challenge traditional ideas of insurgency based on rigid hierarchies and networks, whereas its striking similarity to multi-agent financial market models hints at a possible link between collective human dynamics in violent and non-violent settings.

Taking our empirical findings for event size, and event timings. Our model (described in schematic) provides a quantitative explanation by treating the insurgent population as an ecology of dynamically evolving, decision-making groups, in line with several recent sociological hypotheses. In addition to explaining the ubiquity of approximate power-laws in the event size distribution it explains the conflict-dependent deviations beyond a power-law. Furthermore, the same model framework also explains the common burstiness in the distribution of event timings that we observe across insurgent conflicts. Following our preliminary 2005 results for Iraq and Colombia, we had suggested that other insurgent wars might be clustered around similar findings supporting our hypothesis. By contrast, we find that the Spanish Civil War and the American Civil War – neither of which are considered insurgent – each give distributions where log-normal can not be rejected, and therefore different from conventional wars. This finding provides quantitative support for claims circulating in social science that insurgent wars represent qualitatively different dynamics from traditional wars and can be classified as “open source”, “fourth generation” warfare – for lack of terms.

Insurgent population comprises of N people, weapons, resources, money etc. distributed into groups with diverse strengths at each time-step t. This distribution changes over time as groups join and break-up. Dark shadows indicate strength of numbers and fire-power, and hence severity of casualties that can be inflicted in an event involving that group.
Our model framework incorporates two key features: (1) ongoing group dynamics within the insurgent population (for example, as a result of internal interactions and/or the presence of an opposing entity such as a state army); (2) group decision-making about when to attack based on competition for media attention. Mechanism (1) is consistent with recent work on human group dynamics in everyday environments, and with current views of modern insurgencies as fragmented, transient and evolving. Mechanism (2) is consistent with comments by former US Senior Counter insurgency Adviser David Kilcullen (no kidding, this is the real name and is a combination of ‘kill’ and ‘cull’ – how apt), who noted that when insurgents ambush an American convoy in Iraq, “… they’re not doing that because they want to reduce the number of Humvees we have in Iraq by one. They’re doing it because they want spectacular media footage of a burning Humvee …”

If a group launches an attack during a day with many other attacks, its media coverage will in general be reduced. If, instead, it launches an attack on a quiet day, its media coverage will increase. Each group receives daily some common but limited information (for example, public radio or newspaper announcements about previous attacks, opposition troop movements, a specific religious holiday, even a shift in weather patterns). The actual content is unimportant provided it becomes the primary input for the group’s decision-making process (akin to a financial market). Although the groups are heterogeneous in terms of their strategies, they tend to converge towards similar responses when fed the same information. Our model also includes trapdoors allowing us to interpret the increase in non-randomness over time for Iraq and Colombia when insurgent groups in both wars have become less cautious over time about whether to launch attacks providing more fodder to empirical evidence that groups of humans do indeed use such generic decision-based mechanisms. The data for all the 9 conflicts deviates from its ‘random war’ model (randomizing event occurrences within each epoch): the ‘real war’ exhibits an over-abundance of “light days” (that is, days with few attacks) and of “heavy days” (that is, days with many attacks), but a lack of “medium days” compared with the ‘random war’. By considering subsets of days, we have determined that these features are not just an artefact of a variation in attack volume across days of the week (for example, Fridays). Interestingly, this burstiness has become more pronounced over time for the wars in both Iraq and Colombia, suggesting that they have become less random (ergo, more predictable) as they have evolved.

Just some high-level observations. One, this study shows humans are predictable and therefore, their actions, which is predictable on by and itself. Boy, you know, people don’t like to think that their lives can be tracked so accurately, but, uh, human action isn’t very different than any other data, is it? Two, what this letter really achieves is refute/ratify (not fully clear at this point) the mathematics of a fictional character Charlie Eppes in the CBS TV series Numb3rs Season 2, Episode 16 “Protest” where Charlie blurts that terrorists/insurgents/soldiers/fighters behave on the lines of a social network. They are after all, only human and like all other humans form social networks from bridge clubs and church groups to university staff and federal agencies to jihadi extremists. Mathematically, we can analyze these organizational structures to reveal who the leaders are. Now, these various insurgents or terrorists or freedom-fighters or even, anti-war anarchists (depends on which glasses one wears) are also social networks an analysis of which can reveal which members of groups got along, and which didn’t, and who linked up with people in other groups quantifying relationships. It reveals sub-structures in networks, like cliques, romances, even secret alliances with other groups. Now, using bipartite network analysis, one can identify who the true connectors are and bomb the crap out of them through unmanned predator strikes which will kill more innocent people prompting their loved kith and kin to take up arms against the marauding invaders who had no reason to be there in the first place. Three, there are people who are actually collecting the data which all made the headlines and getting international press right down to the international section in a local newspaper in rural Mongolia whereas the mission to Mars, or its postponement has become a footnote in history. Four, the authors are not really expounding any new theory. They say that current theories being explored by other people are somewhat true or false – it depends on the theory – based on quantitative analysis of public domain data on insurgent attacks. Five, perhaps, they need not have done this research at all. But since they did, they would have been better off explaining their work by just showing “Monty Python’s Life of Brian”, especially ‘Judean People Front’ vs. ‘People Front of Judea’ vs. ‘Judean Popular People Front’ vs. ‘Popular Front of Judea’ scene, “Romans Go Home” graffiti scene and kidnapping planning/execution scene where two groups land at the same time and scuffle that they thought of it first. Just a fun touch. Finally, the irony is if one has to verify if this model and/or the theory behind it holds any water using the scientific method i.e. conduct more experiments to see if it fits to new streams of data, we need more violence, more bombings, more killings and more attacks. The constant quandary of such analyses. To get more data, you need more wars in spirit of curiosity.

common ecology quantifies human insurgency, gourley equation, twitter bombs, cham PHD, author list, hung around, group meetings, free grub, new earth discovery, cancer cure, collective human activities, universal patterns, power law, whole wars, terrorist attacks, insurgent conflicts, guerrilla combat, self-organizing groups, financial markets, desmond morris, animalistic behaviour, primitive brain, feed greed breed, barbaric instincts, smoke mirrors civilization, naive species, history observation, editors note, news article, zia commentary, naked ape, human zoo, skirmish model, materials ideals, neurons rewiring, page turner, political science, statistical distributions, sociological data, messy activities, group dynamics, societal threats, rigid hierarchies, social networks, multi agent, event timings, iraq colombia, spanish civil war, american civil war, log normal distributions, open source warfare, fourth generation warfare, state army, media attention, david kilcullen, word play, press footage, burning humvee, convoy ambush, public radio, newspaper announcements, troop movements, religious holiday, weather patterns, heterogeneous strategies, generic decision-making mechanisms, data deviation, random war model, light days, heavy days, medium days, friday important, pronounced burstiness, predictable evolution, people lives, track accurately, refute ratify, charlie eppes, cbs TV, numb3rs show, season 2 episode 16, organizational structures, identify leaders, filter connectors, jihadi terrorists, freedom fighters, infidel killers, quantify relationships, cliques romance, secret alliances, predator strikes, kill civilians, friendly fire, innocent massacre, women children, elderly disabled, land mines, marauding invaders, illegal occupation, kith kin, take up arms, rural mongolia, international headlines, blood obsession, mars mission, history footnote, resonate theory, monty python, life of brian, judean people front, romans go home, kidnap planning, execution clash, submit blackmail, more experiments, data quandary, more conflicts, mathematics of war, TED talk, juan camilo bhorquez, TED fellow, sean gourley, nature letter

Binding Emissions Cut – USA to India Shake Hand

According to any source one might want to look into, total carbon dioxide emissions (in millions metric tonnes as per 2003 figures) for USA is close to 6000MMT, for China is 4000MMT and India is 1000MT. Taking population numbers, this means the per-capita CO2 emissions (in metric tonnes) for USA is 20MT, China is 4MT and India is 1MT. Yet, in the COP15 conference in Copenhagen, USA is asking the world to wipe the slate clean and pressuring India to shake hand and comply in binding that every country, rich and poor reduce their respective emissions by 25% from now on – no matter what the gross, nett and per-capita emissions have been for the past 400 years during which time all the damage we see today (glacier reduction, droughts and floods, ice cap melting, typhoon severity et al.) has been done primarily by rich countries getting industrialized into developed countries. This situation has been depicted by many cartoonists. Here is Subhani in DC today…
If that is not unfair, I dont know what is. Given that per-capita income is inexplicably linked to per-capita emissions (higher income, higher pollution, duh?), it means that rich countries will get richer (but slower) and the poor countries will get poorer (and faster) if this policy or protocol or poo-poo is implemented. It seems to be more like arm-twisting to me. The irony is not the 25% or whatever arbitrary number but the gal to demand the world to forget the damage that has already been done and brandishing an air of superiority that it is the poor countries who have to take the initiative to save themselves. There is no fine being slapped because no one is asking. No technology transfer because no one is giving. No pledge to remedy the mistakes because no one is apologising. I will tell you what is binding. Rice. Ha ha.

COP15 copenhagen, climate change, 25% emissions, binding cuts, USA india, obama singh, CO2 puke, per-capita pollution, per-capita income, wipe slate clean, protocol pledge, gross nett impact, ironic situation, unfair scene, lots of chimneys, shake hand, arm twisting, superiority air, slap fine, rich countries, poor nations, technology transfer, remedy mistakes, rice is binding, DC subhani, 20091214

COP15 Rain – Capitalist Pig – Subservient Countries

Sometimes, I astound myself. Having followed the COP15 United Nations Climate Change Conference at Jokenhaven (sorry, Copenhagen) for the last 4 days or so by way of RSS, Webcasts, Calendars, LivingStories and what not, I could immediately see (and am not alone) where this is heading and did the following which I have to say is one of my best works so far in terms of symbology and semiotics…

Simply put, what is going to happen on and after the summit is that things will be the same and only get worse. Thank universe for entropy. The rich nations (I make it a point not to call them by misnomers of ‘developed’ or ‘civilized’ or ‘industrialized’ for many reasons least of all, decadence, immorality/brutality, laziness) who are the ones mostly responsible for the mess and 80% of the emissions even today with their meagre 20% rudderless population, are depicted as well, greedy capitalistic pigs. All this talk and noise of “climate change” even if it is made out to be a hoax thunderstorm with striking lightning, will be like raindrops on thick skinned pigs. Ergo, no effect at all. These pigs will be munching the worlds poor without a care in the world. After all, pigs apparently are the best beasts to dispose of with human bodies as this character in “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrells” confirms –

You’re always gonna have problems disposing of human bodies. They are heavy and smelly. Apparently the best thing to do is cut up a corpse into six pieces and pile it all together. And when you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them, because it’s no good leaving it in the deep freeze for your mum to discover, now is it? Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs. You got to starve the pigs for a few days, then the sight of a chopped-up body will look like curry to a pisshead. You gotta shave the heads of your victims, and pull the teeth out for the sake of the piggies’ digestion. You could do this afterwards, of course, but you don’t want to go sieving through pig shit, now do you? They will go through bone like butter. You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm. They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes. That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, ‘greedy as pigs’ (and ‘capitalist pigs’).

If a pig is fed, it will feed. It is free food on a platter. What does it gotta lose? What concerns me is to see about the hand that is feeding the pig. Sadly unsurprisngly enough, it is the subservient poor countries who will have no qualms nor presence of the mind nor common sense of the future nor the grey matter of what this slavery is doing to their own nations. They will feed the pig everything, the earth, the forests, the minerals, the blood – and will do so collaboratively with one country supplying the fuel, another the timber, another to puff at the fire – without even knowing that they are but feeding, nay, disposing their fellow live humans for short-term foriegn currency reserves which at any point can lose in value. It is wrong at so many levels.

Think about it, today, if someone in the USA buys a bloody sneaker, the chain of the production is completely outsourced. Everything except the design is produced in some poor country by some underpaid malnourished chimp sweaty ugly hopeless illiterate sick bastard. The shoe might be priced at say, 100$, earning a profit of 90$ to the shoe company based in Europe which has an operating expense of 5$ tops for chaining the natives but what the poor country gets is far less than what it loses in the bargain in both monetary and resource terms. The actual cost of the shoe is not 5$ because the cost of the raw materials is heavily subsidized by nature (or externalities as economists would say) and in some cases, the government. In the end, the poor country might be getting 5$ but it is actually losing a lot more in the bargain because of depletion of resources, pollution caused, toxic waste generated and indisposed of, loss of freedom/opportunity and gross violation of human rights. By manufacturing and selling the shoe, the poor country is actually losing – a lot. It can be called a lose-lose situation if there ever was one. So, the idiots who run poor countries (democratic or communist or monarchial or theocracy or dictatorship or terrorist or military) who show so-called strides in development with skyscrapers, roads, statues, fly-overs, cars, middle-class et al. combinedly are fattening the pig with illusions of grandeur. No wonder the pig is drunk with power and has absolute disregard of an ailing planet. What fools, we humans can be. How did we get to this fucking world order? Oh wait, it was with invention of dynamite. And who pioneered that? Alfred Nobel no less. Kinda makes the peace prize hara-kiri to war mongering US presidents (can you believe there are oddly 4?) fathomable. It is a wow moment.

cworks sriks6711, cop15 rain, climate change, copenhagen conference, united nations, captialist pig, subservient poor nations, jokenhaven play, RSS webcasts calendars, google livingstories, symbology semiotics, rich nations, developed civilized industrialized, decadence immorality lazy, co2 emissions, per-capita pollution, thunderstorm lightning, thick skin, munch people, dispose human bodies, lock stock and two smoking barrells, guy ritchie, uncooked flesh, poor countries, lighting fire, warm food, india china saudi, serve earth, deplete forest, supply fuel, chain of production, shoe outsourcing, huge profits, operating expense, lose lose situation, stupid bargain, resource externalities, nature subsidy, democratic communist, development indicators, sky scrapers, roads statues, fly overs, middle class, illusion of grandeur, world order, alfred nobel, USA peace prize

Mistakes in Causal Direction – GDP and Education

Filip Spagnoli on Politics Arts Philosophy (P.A.P) Blog on Human Rights, illustrates “Mistakes in Direction of Causation” with a couple of cartoons and old bunch of intriguing examples that proves lies, damned lies and statistics idiom somewhat.

When you find a correlation between two phenomena, you’re tempted to conclude there’s a causal relation as well. The problem is that this causal relation – if it exists at all – can go either way. It’s a common mistake – or fraud – to choose one direction of causation and forget that the real causal link can go the other way, or both ways at the same time and space. Or not.

We often think that people who like violent video games are more likely to show violent behavior because they are incited by the games to copy the violence that’s featured in these games. But can it not be that people who are more prone to violence are more fond of violent video games? We choose a direction of causation that fits with our pre-existing beliefs. Another widely shared belief is that uninformed and illiterate voters will destroy democracy, or at least diminish its value. No one seems to ask the question whether it’s not a diminished form of democracy that renders citizens apathetic and uninformed. Maybe a full or deep democracy can encourage citizens to participate and become more knowledgeable through participation. A classic example is the correlation between education levels and GDP. Do countries with higher education levels experience more economic growth because of the education levels of their citizens? Or is it that richer countries can afford to spend more on education and hence have better educated citizens? Maybe both. Or perhaps it is just old boy Pareto Law. Or simply, random twist of fate.

Bakes your noodles, no? These are chicken-egg problems and hence, solvable.

cworks sriks6711, antarctic penguins, global warming, film crew, common mistake, direction of causation, both ways, same time, violent people, video games, illiterate voters, diminished democracy, apathetic citizens, education levels, country GDP, chicken egg, pareto law, filip spagnoli, PAP blog, human rights, WSJ cable cartoon

Afghanistan Surge – 2011 Exit – Economist Cartoon

Latest editorial cartoon in Economist (via Kal Sketchblog) showing Obama as knight in shining armour (depicting troop surge) embarking on nation building and terrorist destruction in Afghanistan with a sword that’s only good by 2011 (reference to the exit strategy before 2012 presidential elections). It is the plan anyway…

afghanistan strategy, obama warrior, knight armour, troop surge, exit plan, use by 2011, sword engraving, USA flag shield, economist kal, 3 December 2009

Food Price Inflation – WPI at 15.58% – Subsidy PDS

In response to “Food Prices Scale High at 15.58%” in DC on 27-November-2009 (full article after fold), I wanted to do something but yet again, Subhani beat me to it through this nice cartoon depicting the situation of a poor family sitting for a meal…

Food prices kept their upward trend hitting the common man hard. Food inflation rose to 15.58% for the second week of November with potato prices rising by 111% As compared to last year the prices of pulses were up by 35.60%, wheat by 12.53%, cereals by 13.04% and rice by 11.89%. Also prices of vegetables moved up by 11.96%, onions by 27.33%, fruits by 10.97% and milk by 11.36%. On a weekly basis, products which saw a rise in their prices are urad and poultry chicken (15% each), eggs (8%), moong (6%), arhar (5%), fruits and vegetables (3%) and milk and wheat (1% each). However, the prices of barley (2%) declined. The increase in food prices is due to shortages caused partly by a weak monsoon and partly by floods in some parts of the country. Said Mr Trehan and Mrs Mathur respectively –

In a country where even a simple vegetable like potato has become so expensive, how can one expect to have three meals a day. Survival has become really tough. How frugal can one become?

One has to think twice even for grocery shopping. Everything has become out of reach. Be it milk, vegetables or pulses. And worst, public transport has also gone so expensive. How can we honestly manage?

Inflation for all commodities more than doubled to 1.34% for the month of October from 0.50% in September due to costlier minerals and fuels, as per data released earlier. The finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee, said on Thursday that government is very deeply concerned about rising prices and will take all fiscal and monetary measures to contain it. Arjun Sengupta in his “Fair Food Deal for All” in DC on 30-November-2009 comments that it is high time that the government initiates a universal public distribution system (PDS) covering at least the essential commodities because the bulk of the population, about 70%, remains poor with their dire struggle for minimal livelihood –

About 350-million people remain below poverty line (BPL). The prices of essential commodities have been rising at an unprecedented rate. Not only foodgrains but vegetables like onions and potatoes are becoming costlier day by day. These affect all Indians but for the poor they are devastating as all their meagre incomes get exhausted, not meeting even a portion of the necessities. Prices of these products are no doubt largely due to shortfall in production but there are clear signs of market cornering, hoarding and price fixing. It is, however, very difficult to control speculatory tendencies by physical measures because the players are too many in the country and not just big traders and producers, even the common rehriwalla is hoarding. Unless those expectations are dampened they cannot bring down the speculation. The only way to do that is to increase supplies, if not through temporary production increase measures, then through additional imports.

To mitigate this problem, the universal PDS would be the first important step beginning with the BPL population by supplying them with the essential commodities at cheap and affordable prices. If PDS is targeted to a limited BPL population it may also be possible to increase their supplies through market purchase of these products and sell them at subsidised prices. This would push up the open market prices somewhat further. But targeted PDS can be sustained if the government is willing to subsidise the difference between market price and issue price of commodities. Hopefully increased prices, supported by planned increase in production incentives, will raise output in a short period reducing the supplies bottleneck. But in the immediate future, the government has to be ready to bear the cost of maintaining the PDS. However, the most important requirement is organisation of the system. That cannot be achieved by market incentives or subsidies. The government has to build up a huge and efficient structure of distribution throughout the country. It has to procure, purchase or import products and reach them to different destinations of the PDS. This can be done only with the help of state governments, first to identify the BPL beneficiaries and then to have fair-price shops supply the products efficiently. National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Limited (NACMFoI) or similar organisations can be created for vegetable and other such products. They should build up storages and have contract farming both at home and abroad. The time has now come for all kinds of out-of-the-box thinking to meet a serious problem of economic management in the country. Indian development, if it has to follow an inclusive path, must reinvent itself so that the poor develop an equal stake in our growth process.

Well, I agree in moral principle to Dr Sengupta (a Member of Parliament and former Economic Adviser to assassinated-good-riddance Prime Minister Indira Gandhi) but does this universal PDS not sound too communist? Why should the poor be further subsidized when already farmer markets, ration shops and pink/white cards etc. exist? Are not the high prices a result of supply-demand and greed (read, free-market capitalism) and therefore, market-based solutions are needed? Let missionaries, NGOs, social enterprises and fortune-at-BoP marketing gurus deal with solving something tangible like hunger for a change other than human rights, empowerment or whatever cause. Oh wait, they tried. And failed. And chickened out.

cworks sriks6711, food prices, wholesale price index, public distribution system, vegetable balloons, poor family, below poverty line, primary articles, fuel power, inflation double, graph chart, pranab mukherjee, fair food, production shortfall, market cornering, price fixing, trader hoarding, grains import, contract farming, out of box, communist policy, articles subsidy, good riddance, indira gandhi, farmers markets, ration shops, pink cards, market-based solutions, fortune at BoP, NGO missionary, empowerment causes, hunger gurus, tangible problems, human rights, DC subhani, arjun sengupta, 27 November 2009, 30 November 2009