importing a lifestyle with Walmart?

The animated debate in Lok Sabha threw up many interesting and not-so-interesting, convincing and not-so-convincing, poetic and not-so-poetic arguments in favour and in opposition of Foreign Direct Investment in multi brand retail in India.Many scholarly articles on the subject have flooded the media. There are also articles carrying the views of farmers' associations, cooperatives, traders' associations, dalit entrepreneurs' association and so on and so forth. However, my reluctance about having Walmart stores in India is more to do with the fact that the stores promote fast food over slow food and the concomitant lifestyle, a lifestyle that emphasizes individualism, short lived joys, a restless search for excitement  and ill health.

 Even without Walmart, we are inundated with packaged food and food supplements some of which only remotely resemble food. The advertising is persuasive, the availability is increasing exponentially, and a significant proportion of the urban middle class is rapidly making the transition to a state of affairs where the family either hires a cook, or eats packaged food. Families don't cook together, and cooking is considered a tedious chore. I am no proponent of a woman's- place- is- in- the- kitchen school of thought, but I do believe that it is a tragedy that women are so rapidly losing the joy of cooking for the family. To a lesser extent, this loss is that of fathers too. One of my fondest childhood memories is of my father spending hours in the kitchen, continuously stirring besan to the accompaniment of the Dilip Kumar songs he was so fond of humming ---- the fragrance of ghee and freshly prepared besan barfi will forever be associated in my mind with my father, and the love he poured into cooking for his children. 

Then of course there is the issue of packaged food being available 24x7 so that the golden rule that constituted the foundation of good health is now observed only in breach----- meals at fixed times, and no food past 9 or 10 pm. 

Packaged food is also so convenient and easy to prepare (where it requires any preparation)  that it encourages the tendency of teen age children to avoid the dining table and family meals and family conversations. 

The fact that packaged food contains chemical preservatives and colours and taste enhancers most of which have a deleterious effect on health over a long period of time is well documented and it  is no tribute to our intelligence that we ignore all sane advice and succumb to the temptations of convenience, ease-of-preparation etc etc.

There was a time when delicacies were the special attraction of festivals and weddings. Now, we  endeavour daily to experiment with different cuisines and different flavours and textures and different presentations simply because they are so easily available. The unintended result is that we weary too soon, too easily get bored, too quickly begin to look for more exciting food to eat. Eating is not so much a means to maintain good health as an exercise in "having a good time". Boredom terrifies us. 

This is exactly the kind of lifestyle that Walmart will aggressively promote. In USA, more than 50% of their sales turnover is on account of groceries and the grocery aisles are overflowing with packaged convenience food of every possible description. 

Genetically modified food is only beginning to make inroads into India ---it will undoubtedly get a push with Walmart's entry even before the Indian public has become aware of its dangers.

Food wastage will increase too ---- an insightful article by P Sainath in The Hindu spoke of Walmart's insistence on the cultivation of large onions ----- the onion is so large that small families do not consume the whole onion, and throw away what remains after cooking, only to dig out an equally large onion the next time -----the more food gets wasted, the more it is bought. 

Perhaps it is old fashioned to want family meals, lovingly cooked, promoting good health, discouraging wastage ---- but I'd rather Walmart stayed out of India.

an hour a week

A shrill, over bearing Barkha Dutt made for a very poor anchor but Mani Shankar Iyer in his dry, slightly supercilious manner and Patrick Heller in a calm, rational tone made a valuable point last night  in "We, the people".

Citizen participation in the political process is not only about casting a vote in the Parliamentary General Elections. It is also about participating in the elections to and the activities of the local elected bodies, be it the gram panchayat or the nagar panchayat or the Municipal Corporation. There are more than 6 lakh villages in India and more than 5000 urban centres, which gives us at least 3 million elected representatives in the villages and 25,000 elected representatives in towns and cities at the local level. The local bodies carry out a range of activities which significantly impact our day to day lives, whether it be roads or parks or sanitation etc etc. How many of us know the name of the Municipal Councillor/Corporator? How many of us have ever voted in the local body elections  or considered contesting the elections? How many of us have made an effort to hold the Councillor/ Corporator accountable in the sense of obtaining information about his duties and responsibilities, ascertaining the extent to which he is performing such responsibilities , and mobilising public opinion if he is not? How many of us have considered assisting the Councillor if he is inclined to promote citizen friendly initiatives but is bereft of the requisite skills (including technology) and possesses the right intention alone?

There are so many other ways in which one can participate in the community. There are citizen initiatives to do with environmental conservation, protecting our cultural heritage, sanitation, building zero waste communities, promoting pedestrian friendly urban spaces, creating parks, libraries and other public spaces, and so on and so forth. Upon reflection, one will see that each of these involves working in a group, engaging with the local administration, and improving the quality of life ----- which is partly what politics is about. We are so busy living our frantic 9 to 5 lives and over compensating over the weekends via movies and shopping and eating that most of us have no time or inclination to participate in any of these community activities. 

Once a year, I organise a collection drive for GOONJ ---- collecting old clothes, utensils, linen, books etc for re distribution to the less privileged. In a community of approximately 1000 families, the same 50 or so families respond every year. Interestingly, these are the very same people who participate in all manners of citizen initiatives that impact the whole community ----- every one else is cocooned in the comfort of job and family and doesn't venture out, except to complain that the country's systems are rapidly going downhill and someone should do something about it!

If each one of us stepped forward and spent even an hour a week participating in community activities including local governance, imagine the difference it would make!

not my vote, Shweta

Were I living not in NCR but in Maninagar, I would not vote for Shweta Bhatt.

I am no fan of Narendra Modi nor do I think that the BJP is the nation's saviour .

I have no particular antipathy for the Congress, it is as good or bad as the other political parties. 

I am not a male chauvinist in disguise and do not think that the home and hearth are where women belong, not politics.

While prior experience is necessary for most corporate jobs, civil servants who run the country's 600 districts have no prior experience so one can waive that requirement for elected representatives as well, although it would certainly be my preferred option to see in Parliament/Legislative Assemblies people who have some experience in running organisations, be they corporates or NGOs. 

It would help if our elected representatives were articulate. While they do not necessarily have to be powerful orators, and the best orator may mean only half of what he says, or nothing at all, its my perhaps erroneous belief that clarity of thought is reflected in clarity of speech. However, it is not for reason of lack of oratorical skills that I will desist from voting from Shweta Bhatt. 

Does she subscribe to the Congress manifesto? Has she even read it? Does she have a vision for the nation, other than routing Narendra Modi? Is she simply a pawn being played by the Congress which knows that no Congress candidate, be it a Gandhi or a Bollywood superstar or a sports icon, can defeat Modi? None of these matter to me, for we'd be hard put to find candidates who contest elections on a party ticket having read the manifesto and are in agreement with its vision.

The reason why I will not vote for Shweta Bhatt is that her candidature smacks of complete lack of integrity. Why has Sanjeev Bhatt fielded his wife as a candidate? If he has courage of conviction, he should resign from government service and enter the political fray. Instead, his wife, whose name we had not heard till yesterday, has stepped forward as a proxy candidate. That she has agreed to contest elections as a proxy for her husband places a question mark over her integrity as well. Is this the kind of politics that Sanjeev Bhatt wishes to promote, where the alleged authoritarianism of Modi is attempted to be toppled by a mere mouthpiece while the de facto candidate remains in the background? It is not enough that one be seen as a person who does not demand or accept bribes of the pecuniary kind. Integrity is a much larger concept ---- any contradiction whatsoever between word and deed lays one open to the charge of lack of integrity that Sanjeev Bhatt makes against Narendra Modi and is himself guilty of as is his wife. You do not get my vote, Shweta Bhatt.

why 66 A happened

Whether its television or newspapers or social media or e zines, one encounters Section 66 A of the IT Act in all one's meandering journeys these days. Some commentators have read the said clause,  some haven't, some understand it, some don't, some are genuinely concerned, some are not, but every one is talking about it. We owe a debt of gratitude to K Chidambaram, B Thackeray, and Mumbai Police. Had it not been for these worthy men, each one of us would have remained in blissful ignorance of Section 66 A ----- till dragged to the nearest police station for reason of an offending FB post!

Have we asked ourselves the reason for such ignorance? There are more than 40 Bills which are either pending introduction in the Parliament, or have been introduced and are to be passed. Other than the Lokpal bill, which erupted into national conscience thanks to India Against Corruption, most of us would be hard put to name even 2 or 3 pending Bills. As for the provisions of these Bills, the level of ignorance will be even higher, notwithstanding the fact that when enacted into law, these will directly impact our lives, our rights, responsibilities and privileges.

The media too remains mostly silent ---- neither the national newspapers (with exceptions like The Hindu) nor national TV channels carry any discussion on proposed legislation. All the discussions take place, if at all, post facto.

Is it the case that we are too busy to keep ourselves abreast of developments in at least one or two large areas of public policy? I think not ---- middle class lives are far more comfortable and far less tedious than they were 30 years ago. We have plenty of leisure. What we do with our hours of leisure is, however, dictated by an almost frantic attempt to have "fun"---- lots of television, lots of shopping, lots of eating out, lots of sight seeing in India and abroad, in short, lots of stuff that places no burden on the mind. None of these activities is undesirable per se ----- but the fact that this is what we mostly do in our leisure hours and have totally dissociated ourselves from the making of public policy is disastrous for the nation. The educated middle class owes it to itself and the nation to make an effort to learn, perhaps master, those aspects of public policy that do not require expert knowledge ----- even esoteric subjects like atomic energy have some aspects that a layman could acquaint himself with if he tried. It is only a well informed citizen who can trigger/participate in public debate on issues of public importance. That such public debate can influence policy is something all of us have seen vis a vis the Lokpal bill, which would have remained in hibernation had the ordinary Indian not begun talking about it in every nook and corner of the country.  It is only when each one of us begins to participate in policy making to the best of his ability that more such successes will happen, and there will be an enrichment in the quality of our lives, the future of the nation, and the legacy that we leave behind for the next generation.

There are some excellent online resources to aid one in this effort ---- one is http://www.prsindia.org/,which aims to increase public engagement on issues of national importance. 

Let us not leave the task of nation building to the government -----let each one of us also assume that responsibility.

Akhilesh's game changer

While the UPA government flashes cash subsidy as a "game changer", Akhilesh Yadav has gone one step better and decided to withdraw prosecution proceedings in several criminal cases in which the accused belong to the minority community and are charged with the same category of offences, viz., terrorist acts.

 In a manner of speaking, Akhilesh Yadav is not on weak ground. The Code of Criminal Procedure provides vide Section 321 that the Public Prosecutor in charge of a case may, with the consent of the Court, withdraw from the prosecution of any person at any time before the judgment is pronounced. This provision is taken recourse to by the Central and State governments in many different types of cases. In UP itself, in the recent past, prosecution proceedings have been withdrawn against Sanjay Dutt, actor, in the cases which were registered in respect of his allegedly offensive remarks against the Mayawati government. Prosecution proceedings have also been withdrawn in several criminal cases that were lodged against farmers during the protests over land acquisition-related issues in Tappal in 2010. 

It is also a well documented fact that in many of the criminal cases involving charges of terrorist activities, the accused are acquitted after several years of incarceration. A group of teachers at Jamia Milia Islamia University has put together a compilation of 16 such cases between 1992 and 2008 that failed to hold up in court. All these cases involve youths arrested and described as terrorists, some of whom languished in jail for years before courts acquitted them, citing lack of evidence or possible tampering of evidence.

So, the action proposed by Akhilesh Yadav is neither illegal nor implausible. What makes one react so sharply, perhaps, vehemently in opposition to the proposal are the following facts:

1. While the Code of Criminal Procedure provides for the Public Prosecutor to withdraw from the prosecution of a person, with the consent of the Court, and therefore appears to have adequate checks and balances against the abuse of such a provision by the Executive, the ground reality is that the Public Prosecutor is appointed by the government and rarely contradicts or opposes the wishes of the government. It is therefore likely that a government which has made up its mind will experience no resistance from the Public Prosecutor, no matter what the merits of the case.

2. A single terrorist set free could be instrumental in the deaths/loss of limb/injuries of countless innocent Indians. Will Akhilesh Yadav then step forward, assume responsibility and make good the loss of lives?

3. It is not from the minority community alone that innocent people are being arrested and jailed for years only to be set free subsequently by the courts. This is the fate that befalls many for the simple reason that our investigating agencies adopt short cuts, are used by political bosses to achieve short term political gains, still carry the colonial legacy and therefore view the ordinary citizen as a lesser being deserving indifference at best and exploitation at the worst, and do not, in any case, possess either the skills or the equipment or the will to make proper investigations and collect infallible evidence. That being the case, should we immediately review each and every criminal case pending in the courts to decide whether it merits withdrawal?

4. There are, at present, approximately 2.5 lakh undertrials in India's 1500 prisons. Of these, roughly 70 % or nearly 1.7 lakh have been booked for petty offences. Many, many of them have either undergone the maximum punishment for the alleged crime or major portion thereof without conviction. If at all Akhileh Yadav wishes to ensure that the criminal justice system with its huge backlogs and innumerable deficiencies does not cause harassment to the innocent, why does he not focus on the under trials in UP and secure the release from prison of those accused of petty offences? 

No matter how strident the denials, we know that Akhilesh Yadav is motivated not so much by compassion or a passion for justice as securing/strengthening a vote bank, whatever the repercussions.This is politics of the worst kind and reinforces my conviction that it is not so much educated politicians that we need as politicians with a conscience.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/akhilesh-govt-takes-credit-for--withdrawing--cases-closed-by-maya/1025052/0

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/arrested-accused-acquitted/1004163/0

Aadhaar vs Voter ID

On Saturday, the Prime Minister launched the Aadhaar-enabled service delivery initiative in 51 districts across the country. It will be used for making pension payments, MNREGA payments, PDS distribution, scholarship payments and other social welfare schemes. As per the Prime Minister, the intended beneficiaries include 5 crore MNREGA workers, 1.5 crore students who avail of scholarships, 2 crore old age pensioners, and 3 crore families who get medical facilities. The Aadhar will also serve  as identity proof for opening bank accounts, gas and mobile connections etc, says the Prime Minister.

Could the Voter Identity card not have served the same purpose?

In a democracy, it is of utmost importance that elections invite the widest possible participation from voters and that voting be seen as participation in nation building and a primary duty of every citizen. Indian democracy suffers from many ills, not the least of which is the apathy and non participation in the electoral process of millions and millions of voters, specially those who belong to the educated middle class. If the voter identity card were made the most important document that a citizen could possess, there would be a sea change in the attitude that citizens have towards participation in the electoral process. They would begin to look at the Voter card and the attendant electoral process not as an optional activity to be undertaken at one's leisure, if at all, but as an integral part of a citizen's life. If mobile connections, gas connections, bank accounts, social welfare benefits, registration of property transactions, college admissions, stock transactions, high value purchases of consumer goods etc etc required that the Voter Identity card be presented, it would become imperative for citizens to obtain a Voter Identity card. It would be viewed then as a document as necessary to one's existence as the Ration Card once was ----- and the frequent excuse trotted out by many that they do not vote because they do not have a Voter ID card would no longer hold valid. All the demographic and bio metric information that is now being included in Aadhar could become embedded in the Voter ID card, and serve the same purposes ---- proof of identity, and a fail-safe method of preventing identity fraud and leakages of social welfare benefits.

Over the last two years, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has generated over 20 crore Aadhaar numbers and it is mandated to cover 60 crore people by March 2014. There are roughly 80 crore voters in India. Had the time, money and effort spent on Aadhar been expended on streamlining the process of obtaining Voter Identity cards, providing each and every Indian eligible to vote with a Voter ID card, and making the ID cards multi functional, Indian democracy would have benefited and there would have been far less controversy and opposition vis a vis the project.

What we will now have in Aadhar is an identity card that possesses greater utility than the Voter ID card, and is far easier to obtain. Even more than before, the indifference towards the need to get registered as a voter will flourish, and in the absence of such registration, participation in the electoral process will remain at its current low levels. The middle class will continue to watch  exposes of corrupt practices on television, extend support to anti corruption crusaders via social media, participate once in a while in protests and rallies, but when clean and competent candidates present themselves, the potential voters will remain glued to television screens, watching election analyses, and not be seen at polling booths casting their votes.

jana gana mana

 It was a primarily female audience, mothers, daughters, friends, who had decided to catch the morning show of English Vinglish. There were teenaged, giggling girls, elderly women with walking sticks, young mothers, and chiffon clad grandmothers. The excited girls in the row ahead of mine were practicing whistling ----- Sridevi's come back deserved to be thus welcomed, they said. 

Having settled down with a coffee to enjoy the movie, I was a little taken aback when I heard the request to all movie patrons to stand up for the National Anthem. Plonking my coffee on the floor, I rose to my feet, as did my mother and many others, some with alacrity, some a little slowly as they struggled to their feet. There were some in the audience, however, who remained seated -----the young girls who had been rather loud and vociferous before the announcement was made.

I am still trying to comprehend why this happened. Is it because schools and colleges have almost completely stopped playing the national anthem during the daily/periodical assembles so that the sheer force of habit no longer works in the case of our school/college going youth? Is it because there is a marked decline in the sense of pride in being an Indian? Is it because there is a growing tendency among youth to disobey/ignore directions, no matter what the nature of the direction? 

Whatever the reason, it saddened me to be a witness to such indifference to the national anthem. There are experiences which never fail to stir the heart ----a rendition of the national anthem is one of them if one learns love and regard for it in early childhood.Even as we spend huge amounts of money, time and effort educating our children, let us also make an effort to inculcate in them respect for the national anthem, an inalienable part of our identity.