dilEmma of EquitablE dEvElopmEnt

If we look at the history of development of free market economies it is evident that from the beginning of the 19th century the growth rate of these countries was phenomenal; both in terms of GDP as well as social development index As industrialization grew there were more and more refined industries which pushed the workers away from less skilled industries to highly skilled ones and machines replacing the low skilled workers. Social development and salaries of the workers seem to be very closely tied, as the more developed the country is socially, the more is the standard of living and the salary paid out to them. 

Any naive child of economics will undoubtedly say that the sign of a healthy economy is the domestic market. If most of the goods and services manufactured within one’s own boundaries could be sold within that confine itself, lo, we have a sustainable development model. If we look at the USA of the 80s & 90s it had one of the best in house production team, good domestic market, happy people, good social development and standard of living as a whole. 

The cost of development is that as the living standards of people increase, so does the average cost of production of goods and services. As the living standard of the Westerners increased, so did the cost of its products. As a result, to remain competitive in the huge American market, they had to outsource their manufacturing business. This was seen as an opportunity for the Asian tigers and China to push their cheaply manufactured goods to the American market. It turned out such that for an American industry operating at the same product base as an Asian country, to remain competitive it had to reduce the wages drastically. As the prices of goods came down, so does the wages and for the inflation adjusted measurements average American is poorer than his parents who worked during the 70s & 80s. Poor citizenry means lower domestic consumption which again gets bad for a capitalistic economy. 

The Indian financial planners seem to be well aware of this situation. That’s why they seem to be keener in keeping a section of the poor manufacturing workers poorer. Only if they remain poor, goods and services can be manufactured at low cost. But the middle class sitting above these oppressed poor workers seems to be getting better at the cost of the people beneath them. Of course the middle class is needed for domestic consumption. So Indian planners are using a two pronged strategy in which the primary and secondary sector workers remain as poor as possible so as to keep the product costs low, and a middle class ripe with money power so that they can drive the domestic consumption. 

As is evident from the example of the Americas, if you let loose the free market demon, it is always going to prefer the products from the poorest (as in socio-economic development & standard of living) of nations, which no doubt can manufacture at a very low cost (again the world of today is a perfect example), and reduce the real income of a nations citizens and make the country as a whole poorer. 

So the lesson today is you need a mix of capitalism within the country to sell of the goods and a certain level of protectionist measures when dealing in international trade so as to facilitate a more equitable development model.

India is a SupErpowEr! Huh? u mEan rEd Indians? Part-3

The third and last part of a myth-busting.

Finally the political power which is more of a soft power or rather a soft skill. I think it is developed more as a combination of the previous two powers. A nation with no military or economic power cannot exert any political influence; although strategically used it can deliver more than it promises. The power that Cuba exerts in the World or atleast amongst its neigbors is a wonderful example. Political power is the soft power which we exert through diplomatic and international decisions which can turn the tide in our favor. I don’t see when we have ever applied a well thought about political decision since the Nehruvian days. But even then political blunders committed by Nehru ensured that Kashmir will always be a sore point in all international matters pertaining to India and Pakistan. Also his Hindi-Cheeni bhai bhai rhetoric was no hindrance to the Chinese juggernaut in its path for attaining what the dragon wanted. When it loses its decision making powers to external influence we loose our political power too. We kindly bend down to any pressure point in international relations and deliver others what they want. We always fail to see what India as a nation wants in the long run. Politicians are ready to sell their nations for petty political interests. We shrug off our economic might just as an elephant does not understand its might. The e way in which we favored American companies in all agreements with them, by limiting their liability in case of nuclear accidents, the immunity with which Dow chemicals and its subsidiaries still continue to operate in India, a non-aligned nation like India providing support for a nation (that too almost a military base for them in Indian territory) that was altmost single handedly responsible for all major world conflicts after Second world war and the conversion of this country to almost that of a dominion of the United States; I wonder with who/what the allegiance of the political elite of India lays.

And as long as we remain so dumb and driven by short term political and vanity reasons we never stand to make it in this world as any kind of superpower. And we Indians sooner realize the fact the sooner will be out of this matrix of illusion.

India is a SupErpowEr! Huh? u mEan rEd Indians? Part-2

Part 2 of a myth-busting.


In the olden days, military might should have augmented all other short comings but in the present, omnipotence comes closely associated with Economic might. Concept of an economic superpower emerged during the the renaissance period and gathered steam during the industrial revolution. Nations were looking for lucrative markets for selling the excess goods churned out because of the improved productivity bought along by the industrial revolution and also to buy cheaper raw materials for their industries. Britain emerged the clear winner during this period as it laid its hands on vast portions of territories all over the world and fortified these holdings with its military and cunning. That kind of economic might saw a change after the World wars with the US emerging a clear winner as European economies were shattered and US economy soared by selling war to both sides. Americas, with its abundant natural resources, a daring political leadership guided mostly by capitalist interests and the only strong economy after the WWII, made sure that it will create a new economic order in the world on the basis of dollar.

And it sure did and managed to keep that up so for the next 60 years or so. Even though it shows signs of weakness, there is no sight of a threatening force in the near future. To keep up this economic might they sure did use the military as well. Not long back American companies were in the forefront rummaging through the new nations and amassing profits. The treasury bonds purchased by the Asian tigers and the Dragon nation further enabled it to rise upon a credit based economy. The importance of oil changed the dynamics of the economics with US exerting all the influence it can over the OPEC to sell oil in dollars, which it just had to print up and other nations just bought it. In those countries where communism and leftism showed resilience against market forces, the US showed its economic and military might so as to scare off competition or to change even the rulers of democracies. After all democracies became just another name of a channel for capitalism. The economic might also served to buy off entire nations so that capitalism could thrive in them. And sure they did succeed. Well, for those who matters, it did.

To ask the obvious, where do we figure in this field? We have come a long way from those times; when the US gave us food grains in grant, when we had to sell bullion in the international market to sustain our imports, when our forex reserves came down all the way to $1 billion; to one of the largest producers of food grains, more than $300 billion of forex reserves and the fourth largest holder of dollar and ready to buy back gold from the IMF. But does these make us a so called economic superpower? We ourselves assign that term to us taking pride in the new found purchasing power of the great India middle class. It’s true we have huge remittances from our NRIs; we have a large export industry (although the import-export deficits are still on the darker side) and the purchasing power of the average Indian is said to be higher than say 20 years back. But what can we do with this economic might?

Power matters only as long as it is used; the muscle to flex and make other nations act to your will without resorting to arms. As a matter of fact the economic powerhouse status that other national leaders bestow on us is the power of the worlds biggest market for selling goods and services. Sure that's a power; that's the only power we have. But are we going to utilize that? When are we going to ask things to move our way when we have the power to do so? The pathetic state we are in is clearly depicted by our affairs in this realm. We are not able to influence even our neighbors to buy from us, we are ready to open up our markets, banking and insurance system and whatever we can without even the slightest compulsion or need. We allow foreign banks to work freely in India when our own State Bank has been denied permission to operate in areas with vast migrant Indian population. We have to push over selves to a corner and limit the liability of American companies in case of a nuclear accident (and with Bhopal like tragedies and the kind of treatment the victims have been receiving, i doubt whether there is any liability for a foreign company operating in India). We want to open our markets just for the sake of opening it up. We should seriously think where the priorities of our policy makers and the bureaucrats is. It’s as if we are selling ourselves to the bidders, rather than be the bidder in other world economies. Our hold on the SAARC countries itself is loosening.

China is flexing its economic power by influencing even India’s neighbors and surrounding us and choking us. We are still too complacent to do anything proactive. We take pride in our economics by stating that if we wanted we can reduce America to nothing by recalling our engineers and scientists (I laugh myself out of my senses) and all the [crappy meager] software that we produce [for foreign companies]. We fail to realize that our software power is only an illusion. It’s the foreign corporates that are still running the business and we are just tools. If they want they can make Mexicans or Chinese or Africans to do the same thing. As long as we don’t flex the economic muscle its useless. After all brains is all that matters and only if it is used. For our politicians the philosophy seems to be that of the cancer cell - growth for the sake of growth.

(to be continued)

India is a SupErpowEr! Huh? u mEan rEd Indians?

Part 1 of a myth-busting.

There is a widespread illusion of super prowess in the Indian nation, primarily among the India middle class which can be attributed to the economic growth they have seen in the past decade or so. I believe this illusion began appearing somewhere during the reign of the Vajpayee lead BJP coalition at the center during the latter half of last decade of 20th century. The trigger should be considered as the Pokhran blasts and the associated nationalist rhetoric put up by the BJP (which apparently failed them in the next elections). Apart from this, the middle class saw their standard of living rise and the nation witnessed the IT boom and the rise of India as a software powerhouse (the illusion of Indian Software power will come later). This Pokhran lead nuclear "surge" and the associated economic burgeoning lead the news media to put out the superpower rhetoric; which the Indian middle class readily believed just as anyone would believe that there are a billion galaxies each with a billion stars in it. With the spread of computers and emails and social networking; mails spread around the web educating the children of the great Indian middle class that they are living in a Utopian super power society. We are taught to be proud of our scientific history, our nuclear capabilities, our great military and many other factors like number of Indians heading multinationals, Indians forming a considerable force at NASA, Microsoft filled with Indians and so forth. I believe there is a generation of Indians who think that its just our self restraint that keeps other countries from bowing down to us.

But are we really so? Who is a superpower in the current world context? I think there are three main categories according to which super powers can be called so - military, economic, political.

First and foremost military super power - the best example being the USA. They are the most powerful military in the whole world in terms of combat expert, effectiveness and technology. They take risks like no one else so as to attain whatever ends that their masters at the White house and the Pentagon want them to. In any conventional or non-conventional form of war fare (lets rule out nuclear weapons); there is no contention as to who will emerge the winner. After the second world war we have seen a lot of their military greatness in action all over the world - from covert ops in the Latin Americas to conventional warfare in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq to tactical warfare in the Balkans and the Russian union; apart from a few failures they were mostly success (as far as the myopic eye goes). That stature has not changed or even shows any sign of change as far as the immediate future is considered. So as far as the military might goes, USA is the sole superpower with no parallel. And where does India figure in all this? We are still the second largest army (fueled and filled in by the large population and poverty), who has seen no major victories apart from some costly endeavors against an ill equipped Pakistan. We were no match for the Chinese or the small terrorist outfit LTTE. An army that has hardly seen any combat duty after 1971 Bangladesh endeavor and the nuisance (it was made out into a war, because it sounds great) that was Kargil (that was costly for the army with almost 1 soldier killed for every 2 infiltrator; but not that costly considering the gargantuan size of the army and the money made by the politicos buying coffins for the bravest of Indians). We still marvel at the sight of refurbished aircraft carriers purchased from Russian scrap dealers (figure of speech). Our Navy has seen hardly any combat duty apart from foiling some piracy attempts and capturing Somali pirates/. Air force is no better with a large fleet of aging and rusting aircraft peeling off mid-air and the infamous flying coffins (Mig 21). During the Kargil conflict politicians strictly wanted no crossing of the LOC, not because of the moral superiority but because they were fully aware that if some insurgents can bring down a few Indian aircraft, the better equipped Pakistani military can bring down the whole of it, if it crosses the border. To suffice, India is hardly in any position to flex its military muscle to coerce any nation to follow its will and therefore it is hardly any superpower in this context. Let us be content with keeping peace in African and eastern European countries and after all that’s what we all want.

(to be continued...)

why arE wE such a complacEnt lot?

A year has passed since the terrorists struck Mumbai and innocent civilians gave up their life for government apathy. On the one hand it’s glad to know that most of the Mumbaikars have gotten over the sad things that happened during India's 26/11; but on the other all the more frightening. Was this our first taste of a terrorist act? - No; was this our last? - may not be. The question that had been troubling me is the continued occurrence of these gruesome acts in India - Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai ... when will we learn or why don’t we learn. It was enough for just one 9/11 to wake Americans out of their slumber - be it internally planned or externally. Not one single attack of a comparative magnitude has struck that country again afterwards.

During my last years visit to the US, I found out how the Americans have succeeded in thwarting the terrorist mess for 8 long years- the security and the heightened level of alertness. When I told about the strict and thorough security checks I had to go through, to my friends over in the US, they were quite unsurprised. In fact they told it was always in a state of high alert for every single day after 9/11. On the contrary in India we see a beef up of security just during the national holidays or whenever the RAW/IB/FBI or CIA comes up with a threat advance. Before every Independence Day or Republic Day commemoration we read and hear about heightened security all over India; as if terrorists have ever struck during one of these days!!! If that was not the case and we are arguing that it was only because of this extra security that we don’t have to see these attacks, then let me ask why don’t we have this all year round? Is it the enormous cost of security? Oh crap, it’s always the material cost, not the cost of a human life!!! We have one of the largest reserve army and police force. Rather than utilizing them around the independence/republic days why don’t we use them every day. That makes sense as these reserve units are always in a state of readiness and can effectively tackle terrorist threats any time of the year.

Oh, then India will become a police state just like USA; the activists will shout. But aren’t we a police state- where the police can do anything as they are still doing in the many corners of India where the press and the visual media can't cover or will never bother to cover? "Only if a police state could have prevented their absence with us today"; the near and dear ones of the grateful dead will never bother.

sita sings the bluEs

I came across this animated movie from a review found in Hindu's Friday review section. What got my attention was the peculiar mix of the modern and the archaic; narration of Sita's story with Blues (the music style). I went through the beautifully presented review and before I completed it, I found torrents for this freely available (without any copyright/left/license restrictions) animated film. The film is directed by Nina Paley.

This animation takes a different perspective at the Ramayana from that of Sita rather than the more prevalent male versions that we have grown up to. the film is presented in a multi threaded format with two of the threads going in parallel as a narrative & analysis of the Ramayana by puppet characters and the actual story told by first person performance and jazz recitals by Sita and the third from the life of the director Nina Paley. The narrative thread played by the puppets is kind of a modern day analysis of Ramayana and the various intricacies of the story. Puppets complement and comprehend each others doubts and take a looks at the characters with a contemporary outlook. This thread felt like second generation NRIs explaining their scant knowledge of the Ramayana to their adolescents. Their doubts bring forward the picture of the Indian male dominant society and the various strata in the Indian society and about the women in general. They also post various doubts which will seem quite blasphemous to the new guardians of Indian culture and may even lead to the complete boycott of this wonderful piece of art.
As the puppets doubt and conclude upon a certain section of the story, it switches to Sita's perspective of the actual story. Most of the actual story is told by Sita's jazz performance. Various blues genre songs are used to provide the wonderful narration of love, romance, loss, despair, hope and divinity.

The third thread is from the life of the director herself. It speaks of how she and her husband were having a wonderful married life, how it was torn apart and how she redempted herself by turning herself into the solace of Ramayana. I believe she is trying to draw parallels with her story and that of Sita by interspersing her story inside a Ramayana narrative (she was dumped by her husband who she loved so dearly; after all that’s what it seems to be).

In all, this is a wonderful endeavor from Nina Paley. most of the animation is done by her as well as the direction, animation, editing, story etc. the animation for the three threads are done in three different styles - the main story when told from first person uses the kind of Rajput drawing technique prevalent in the 15-18th century. The narrative from the puppets is told with a kind of collage type animation (animated photographic composition). The directors life story is told in squiggle vision. I believe this blends in quite beautifully with the film. The actual story is in bright high quality animation which signifies the clarity of the first person perspective of the narration itself. The second thread as narrated by the puppets is a collage as they are collecting all their ideas and opinions with whatever information they had from the different sources. Finally squiggle vision for the director's life story may be the dramatization of her unkempt life and the emotional turmoil she might have gone through.

For those who have seen Anurag Kashyap’s Dev-D, the psychology of the puppet narrative may seem familiar; the Ramayana is told without changing anything in the story but rather analyzing the character of Sita in depth no one has ever gone through cinema (or the animated cinema at least).

slumdog millionairE

Who contests the fact that the film was good? I have to say is the film was fantastic.
Wonderful story, screenplay, acting and direction. How else would have the film bagged the globes and would have raked in such amount of money at the box office?

I’m not aiming to write a full page review on the film, but what struck me most were the themes that were handled in the movie.
If u ask me for the plot synopsis, it is just another rag to riches story with a cleverly sewed in love story. After the movie bagged awards at the globes, all the Indian channels were abuzz with the notion that an Indian film won the globes. After the Mumbai terrorist tragedies they were in pursuit of breaking news and they got it. At least we should open our minds to the fact that this film is a western made movie directed by an English and his crew which enacted a story with an Indian back ground which of course required the use of Indian actors and an Indian musician who could capture the westernized Indian music. More than that for whatever reasons it may be, it took an English man to showcase what the real India is all about, apart from the glistening picture of a middle and upper middle class world portrayed in the predominantly upper class media.
The truths in India like child abuse, religious persecution, sexual atrocities towards women, poverty, gangsters and their murky underworld, atrocities and corruption, social and class discrimination were quite boldly taken up by Danny Boyle which the native film producers and directors always avoided. Even if they were taken up by an Indians they dint see much light, thanks to a wonderful director and his crew this film broke all the social barriers and was an instant success. Life in the slums were quite brilliantly captured by Boyle, the rampant poverty and the social discrimination. The class discrimination is so rampant that even in the tv show, the host (Anil Kapoor) taunts the slum dog with chaiwallah and it is the same upper class superiority that led him to beleive that his fool proof show is being cheated by this slumwallah.

And now, with all the media hype surrounding the film, Amitabh Bachan has come out into the open, criticing the movie, you may not beleive it, for accurately picturizing the facts. He is saying it will tarnish the image of India. Image, the vanity of the rich. I dont have any more to say to those who attracts the curious western clout to the Indian pelvic dance and sleeps in the imaginary glory of the donkey carrying the idol.

I don’t have any illusionary notions that this film is going to change India or the perceptions about it, but we require more and more people like Boyle, to come up with more socially relevant themes and pursue someone to take some actions to bring about a better India.

Dasavathaaram - Some avathars are quite avoidable

I felt embarrassed for being in a self proclaimed league of those eagerly waiting for Kamal Hassan's new movie, Dasavatharam. In his new Avathar, Kamal painfully tries to fit into 10 characters who live (extra)ordinary life in seemingly unconnected spheres. In some strange twist of fate, their lives get mingled. This will feel like another Amores Peros or Crash or Syriana or Babel or many other hyperlinked films increasingly dotting the realms of World cinema. But for the normal, formula driven Indian audience it is an entirely new experience; but I suspect whether the bang was too much for them. I say this because, the theaters didn't portray that enthusiasm which a big budget movie ought to highlight, the reason might be that the target audience was too intelligent a target for this particular style of narration. However this multi-threaded approach is quite new to the Indian commercial film diaspora and should be considered a treat for the avid viewer, sans its pathetic special effects and mediocre make-up. Film makers these days, are trying to blow up a fortune taking films. I just can't figure out where the proclaimed 80 crores have been spent since the special effects don't create the magic effect and the makeup makes the characters plastic. In fact if Kamal's objective was to give a message rather than immaculate himself with 10 roles, he could have done his job significantly better with lesser roles and much lesser crores.

Anyhow, the film moves something like this. Rewind to 12th century and here we have a temple priest how sacrifices his life because he was not willing to betray his belief to his deity. Kamal excels in this role. The king (Napoleon plays the role of the villain perfectly) gives command and the priest is mercilessly thrown into the depths of the ocean tied to the deity and perishes there. Fast forward to December, 2004, few days before the Indian Ocean tsunami. A scientist (played by Kamal. No makeup and wonderful role), who is also the protagonist, at some biological facility in the US develops a weapons grade microbe. There is an American ex-CIA villain (again played by Kamal to perfection, barring the overdone makeup) who wants to lay his hands upon the new weapon (somehow he didn't chose an "Al Qaeda" for this role). Then its a cat and mouse chase which then moves onto India, where we meet the police officer who is inclined in catching the villain at any cost (Kamal, once again, plays this role of a inept police officer to perfection). There is also the role of the environmental activist played astonishingly good(neglecting the overdone makeup). Kamal proves his mettle again with the role of a Sikh singer. Rest of the characters like President Bush, the Old lady, the extraordinarily tall guy and Kung foo master were not up to the mark and could have been better if avoided. Finally, when the villain is conquered, to make the hero's task difficult, he swallows the microbe and he is infected with it thereby increasing the chance of spreading the microbe. The only agent that can act again it is NaCl or salt. Then the famous Tsunami comes in and everything is cleansed.

Towards the end of the movie, the message what Kamal tries to give is God has a plan for the entire world and seemingly unrelated people and events may be very closely related. So whatever happens is the action of Gos and it happens for good.

Overall an average movie, with glitches like bad graphics, a weak narrative and poor makeup.