an interesting viewpoint
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S U B V E R S E
Plenty is not pretty
Rahul Singh
In his otherwise perceptive book, Imagining India, IT entrepreneur Nandan Nilekani has sadly got it completely wrong as far as our population problem is concerned.
He argues, “With growth, our human capital has emerged as a vibrant source of workers and consumers not just for India, but also for the global economy... Since independence, India struggled for decades with policies that tried to put the lid on its surging population. It is only recently that the country has been able to look its billion in the eye and consider its advantages.”
He refers to these advantages as India’s ‘demographic dividend’, a phrase made fashionable by two demographers, David Bloom and Jeffrey Williamson. They studied the economic success stories of some East Asian countries, in particular Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. They found that one of the reasons for their success, which had hitherto been ignored, was, paradoxically, population growth. “Between 1950 and 2000, the chances that an infant would die in East Asia fell sharply from 181 per 1,000 births to just 34, and this caused fertility to fall from six children to two per woman,” they wrote.
But there was a lag between these two drops. Child deaths fell first, while fertility remained high. It took some time for people to realise that fewer babies were dying. Only then did people adjust to lower fertility. And the children who unexpectedly survived formed a “boom generation”, they further explained. This created a large number of young enterprising workers, i.e. the demographic dividend.
The East Asian example cannot be transposed on the Indian case to explain this country’s economic success in the last two decades, particularly in the IT area. The fact of the matter is that there are huge differences between the East Asian experience and India’s. In countries like Taiwan and South Korea — even Thailand and Indonesia to a lesser extent — two essential social parameters were put in place before population growth began to decline: literacy and health care. A great deal of investment was made in primary education and public health, leading to literacy rates of over 80 per cent and average life expectancy — which is the best indicator of good health care — of over 75 years.
In India, on the other hand, there has been no such investment in primary education or public health, with the result that our literacy rate is only a little over 60 per cent and the average life expectancy is around 64. We have one of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the developing world, outside sub-Saharan Africa. India’s population increase has largely been among the poorer and least educated sections of its people. Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, UP and Rajasthan account for 40 per cent of the country’s population and 50 per cent of its population growth. They also happen to be our nation’s most backward states, with low literacy rates and poor health care.
And when you think of it, how come there has been no such demographic dividend in Pakistan, where the population growth rate has been even higher than in India? At the time of our independence, our population was 350 million. Today, it is almost 1.2 billion. Fortunately, food production has more than tripled in the same period thanks mainly to the Green Revolution; hence there have been no mass famines. Though fertility rates have admittedly come down from over six children per woman to around three, there are still about 18 million people added to our population every year. They have to be fed, educated and housed. This is an unsustainable burden on the Indian economy. It has led to massive environmental damage. Our exploding cities and a growing culture of violence can also be largely traced to our increasing numbers.
A major priority of whichever government comes to power must be to make greater efforts towards stabilising our population growth and promoting family planning. It would be a great pity if the next government thought otherwise.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Maneka and Animals
A genius article on Varun Gandhi's speech and his mother, Maneka's handling of her progeny. What a shame, Maneka!
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S U B V E R S E
You lucky dogs!
B V Rao
Many of us who have known Maneka Gandhi as a champion of animal rights are distressed how her venom-spewing son Varun seems to have unhinged her. It is tough to comprehend why Maneka, who taught us all to love every kutta and billi, did not knock her son on his head and subject him to a long lecture on human rights on the lines of the animal rights lectures she has been giving us.
No, it’s not Maneka’s fault that her son thinks that those who do not worship his god have no right to life and liberty. But if she lets him believe that he has said or done nothing criminal, or that she will protect him no matter what, then she loses all moral authority to preach to us. The very power of the principle which earns our leaders the right to lead us, gives us the right to hold them down to that principle.
What is an animal rights activist worth if she cannot extend the same principle to her fellow human beings? The way she has sprung to her son’s defence, without even attempting to comfort those whom he tried to terrorise, will make me laugh in her face if she ever dares preach to me about anyone’s rights at all.
Many public personalities who live for some worthy cause or the other fall by the wayside when they are subjected to the progeny test i.e., the test that they are put to by their progeny. Take Sunil Dutt for example. When Sanjay Dutt — the dud who wanted to be a stud — got on the wrong side of the law, Sunil Dutt’s son-stroke symptoms were severe. He failed the test by light years.
So, Maneka, it might seem, is just the latest celeb who failed the progeny test. But, wait. Maybe she didn’t fail at all. Maybe, the problem is that we have failed Maneka. Maybe she thinks the defence of Varun is just an extension of her animal rights work.
It is possible that, working with those poor beasts for ages, she can now identify the beast in men too and has just extended her line of work: Animal health, animal shelters, animal rescue, animal slaughter, animal instincts etc, you see. Or it could be this: Maneka will defend your rights only under two conditions: One, you are an animal. Two, you are her son.
Yes, if you are her “bachcha” (yes, that’s what she calls her almost-30-year-old bigot), then Maneka will scream about “democracy” and “illegal detention”. I wish she had found out how many mothers’ stomachs churned when Varun threatened their children. Yet, forget about reprimanding her son or admitting to his folly, she will holler shamelessly about a Muslim cop beating up her son’s riotous band of supporters.
If you and your son have got an election to win, Maneka, win it by all means, by any means. But know that there are others too who want to win by the same means. So, get off the moral high horse. Let’s not hear you talk about rights anymore. And on the way down, do us a favour. Keep Mother Teresa out of this.
Postscript: Maneka gave a book to Varun for bedtime reading. What could it be? Can’t be the Gita. Heeding recommended reading from the other Gandhis is blasphemy. And anyway, doesn’t he know the Gita? Is it not the Gita that said it’s the duty of every kshatriya to rule? And isn’t Varun a political kshatriya? A born-torule Gandhi?
No, it can’t be the Gita. The boy knows it like the back of his hand. So here’s my guess: Maneka has given him a handbook on how to unwind after such delicate, nation-saving surgical interventions as severing of limbs and forced nasbandi.
Post-postscript: It’s possible that the animal world is agitated with the discovery that their benefactor’s heart beats harder for those who are Hindus. But animals of the world, relax. Maneka still loves you. She will still fight for your rights. Because she still has no way of finding out which god you worship. You lucky dogs!
The writer is a Delhi-based journalist.
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S U B V E R S E
You lucky dogs!
B V Rao
Many of us who have known Maneka Gandhi as a champion of animal rights are distressed how her venom-spewing son Varun seems to have unhinged her. It is tough to comprehend why Maneka, who taught us all to love every kutta and billi, did not knock her son on his head and subject him to a long lecture on human rights on the lines of the animal rights lectures she has been giving us.
No, it’s not Maneka’s fault that her son thinks that those who do not worship his god have no right to life and liberty. But if she lets him believe that he has said or done nothing criminal, or that she will protect him no matter what, then she loses all moral authority to preach to us. The very power of the principle which earns our leaders the right to lead us, gives us the right to hold them down to that principle.
What is an animal rights activist worth if she cannot extend the same principle to her fellow human beings? The way she has sprung to her son’s defence, without even attempting to comfort those whom he tried to terrorise, will make me laugh in her face if she ever dares preach to me about anyone’s rights at all.
Many public personalities who live for some worthy cause or the other fall by the wayside when they are subjected to the progeny test i.e., the test that they are put to by their progeny. Take Sunil Dutt for example. When Sanjay Dutt — the dud who wanted to be a stud — got on the wrong side of the law, Sunil Dutt’s son-stroke symptoms were severe. He failed the test by light years.
So, Maneka, it might seem, is just the latest celeb who failed the progeny test. But, wait. Maybe she didn’t fail at all. Maybe, the problem is that we have failed Maneka. Maybe she thinks the defence of Varun is just an extension of her animal rights work.
It is possible that, working with those poor beasts for ages, she can now identify the beast in men too and has just extended her line of work: Animal health, animal shelters, animal rescue, animal slaughter, animal instincts etc, you see. Or it could be this: Maneka will defend your rights only under two conditions: One, you are an animal. Two, you are her son.
Yes, if you are her “bachcha” (yes, that’s what she calls her almost-30-year-old bigot), then Maneka will scream about “democracy” and “illegal detention”. I wish she had found out how many mothers’ stomachs churned when Varun threatened their children. Yet, forget about reprimanding her son or admitting to his folly, she will holler shamelessly about a Muslim cop beating up her son’s riotous band of supporters.
If you and your son have got an election to win, Maneka, win it by all means, by any means. But know that there are others too who want to win by the same means. So, get off the moral high horse. Let’s not hear you talk about rights anymore. And on the way down, do us a favour. Keep Mother Teresa out of this.
Postscript: Maneka gave a book to Varun for bedtime reading. What could it be? Can’t be the Gita. Heeding recommended reading from the other Gandhis is blasphemy. And anyway, doesn’t he know the Gita? Is it not the Gita that said it’s the duty of every kshatriya to rule? And isn’t Varun a political kshatriya? A born-torule Gandhi?
No, it can’t be the Gita. The boy knows it like the back of his hand. So here’s my guess: Maneka has given him a handbook on how to unwind after such delicate, nation-saving surgical interventions as severing of limbs and forced nasbandi.
Post-postscript: It’s possible that the animal world is agitated with the discovery that their benefactor’s heart beats harder for those who are Hindus. But animals of the world, relax. Maneka still loves you. She will still fight for your rights. Because she still has no way of finding out which god you worship. You lucky dogs!
The writer is a Delhi-based journalist.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
The Profilgacy of US dollar
excellent article explaining how US is using or rather mis-using dollar being the world's reserve currency and living off people's money
Jug Suraiya
Like Banquo’s ghost at the banquet, several unresolved questions haunted the G-20 summit in London which pledged to pump $1.1 trillion into the critically ailing global economy. Protectionism, particularly on the part of the developed countries against the developing world, was one of these question marks. Another was that of establishing equitable norms of transparency and accountability in banking practices. But perhaps the most significant question — made all the more significant in that it wasn’t even raised — concerned the US dollar: Is it time for the world to say goodbye to the American greenback,
which increasingly better answers to the description of greenbroke?
The G-20 meet has been called Bretton Woods II, in reference to the Bretton Woods conference of 1944 which, attended by 730 delegates from 44 countries, laid down ground rules for managing the world’s monetary system. The International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (now part of the World Bank) were set up then. Each of the signatory countries was obliged to ensure the stability of its country against gold, with the IMF stepping in if necessary to correct temporary glitches.
This gold standard came to an end in 1971 when the US unilaterally terminated dollar-gold convertibility. After considerable upheaval, the US dollar emerged as the ‘reserve currency’ of the world. This was the beginning of the dangerous myth of the Almighty Dollar, arbiter of the world’s fortunes, both the medium and the barometer of international trade and commerce. From oil to gold, coffee to coal, the global price of all commodities is quoted in dollars, making it the most sought after currency in the world.
Like a profligate living on increasing amounts of borrowed money, America learned to live off the fat of many lands, all of which sought its dollars in exchange for goods and services. Though living in deepening debt, the US could never run out of cash: all that its Federal Reserve Bank had to do was, in effect, print more dollars in the form of treasury bonds greedily bought up by foreign investors. The US got richer and richer, on other people’s money.
Though the euro has emerged as an international alternative to the dollar (a conspiracy theory suggested that one of the reasons the US attacked Iraq was because Saddam Hussein was planning to sell his country’s oil for euros instead of dollars) an estimated two-thirds of the world’s foreign exchange reserves
crisis which sparked the global meltdown showed the dangers of global overdependence on the prodigal dollar. But though both China and Russia had, prior to the G-20 meet, suggested a search for a replacement for the dollar as an international medium of exchange (one of the proposals being that the are held in dollars. China alone has almost $2 trillion in its national coffers.
The US subprime
Special Drawing Rights of the IMF be made into a ‘supercurrency’) the issue seems to have been sidelined at the conference. Earlier, ‘supercurrencies’ like the universal Terra or the Dey (dollar, euro, yen), created and supported by a supranational banking authority, have been proposed but have found few, if any, takers.
However, with Obama pouring over $1 trillion into buttressing the crumbling US economy and buying up the ‘toxic assets’ that have poisoned its banks and financial institutions perhaps it’s high time seriously to think of developing a substitute for a currency which, more and more, is beginning to resemble Monopoly money. Running out of cash? Not to worry; we’ll just print some more. And some sucker, somewhere, will buy it off us. Perhaps it’s time for the suckers of the world to unite and wake up.
Jug Suraiya
Like Banquo’s ghost at the banquet, several unresolved questions haunted the G-20 summit in London which pledged to pump $1.1 trillion into the critically ailing global economy. Protectionism, particularly on the part of the developed countries against the developing world, was one of these question marks. Another was that of establishing equitable norms of transparency and accountability in banking practices. But perhaps the most significant question — made all the more significant in that it wasn’t even raised — concerned the US dollar: Is it time for the world to say goodbye to the American greenback,
which increasingly better answers to the description of greenbroke?
The G-20 meet has been called Bretton Woods II, in reference to the Bretton Woods conference of 1944 which, attended by 730 delegates from 44 countries, laid down ground rules for managing the world’s monetary system. The International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (now part of the World Bank) were set up then. Each of the signatory countries was obliged to ensure the stability of its country against gold, with the IMF stepping in if necessary to correct temporary glitches.
This gold standard came to an end in 1971 when the US unilaterally terminated dollar-gold convertibility. After considerable upheaval, the US dollar emerged as the ‘reserve currency’ of the world. This was the beginning of the dangerous myth of the Almighty Dollar, arbiter of the world’s fortunes, both the medium and the barometer of international trade and commerce. From oil to gold, coffee to coal, the global price of all commodities is quoted in dollars, making it the most sought after currency in the world.
Like a profligate living on increasing amounts of borrowed money, America learned to live off the fat of many lands, all of which sought its dollars in exchange for goods and services. Though living in deepening debt, the US could never run out of cash: all that its Federal Reserve Bank had to do was, in effect, print more dollars in the form of treasury bonds greedily bought up by foreign investors. The US got richer and richer, on other people’s money.
Though the euro has emerged as an international alternative to the dollar (a conspiracy theory suggested that one of the reasons the US attacked Iraq was because Saddam Hussein was planning to sell his country’s oil for euros instead of dollars) an estimated two-thirds of the world’s foreign exchange reserves
crisis which sparked the global meltdown showed the dangers of global overdependence on the prodigal dollar. But though both China and Russia had, prior to the G-20 meet, suggested a search for a replacement for the dollar as an international medium of exchange (one of the proposals being that the are held in dollars. China alone has almost $2 trillion in its national coffers.
The US subprime
Special Drawing Rights of the IMF be made into a ‘supercurrency’) the issue seems to have been sidelined at the conference. Earlier, ‘supercurrencies’ like the universal Terra or the Dey (dollar, euro, yen), created and supported by a supranational banking authority, have been proposed but have found few, if any, takers.
However, with Obama pouring over $1 trillion into buttressing the crumbling US economy and buying up the ‘toxic assets’ that have poisoned its banks and financial institutions perhaps it’s high time seriously to think of developing a substitute for a currency which, more and more, is beginning to resemble Monopoly money. Running out of cash? Not to worry; we’ll just print some more. And some sucker, somewhere, will buy it off us. Perhaps it’s time for the suckers of the world to unite and wake up.
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