Change must come from within.................

26th of November was yet another day which was of no use to myself or this world. As the day was drawing near the end, I was trying to do something useful for the day by attempting to read Stephen Hawking's "A Briefer history of Time". My room mate was surfing the TV when he saw the militant attacks at Mumbai coming as flash news, though he got excited, I dismissed it as another series of bomb blasts which our country had learned to live with and tried to bury myself in the book. As the clock ticked towards midnight we could figure out that this is not a bomb blast but an extremely well planned operation which is going to cause a major outrage in the world. We went to sleep around 1.00 clock still unsure of what was exactly unfolding in Mumbai.

In the morning when we switched our TV sets we saw that it had been a sleepless night for thousands of people. The whole world was watching as terror unfolded its clutches across the Mumbai, there was little anybody can do. The army was pressed into action and even their seasoned NSG commandos were finding it tough to flush the militants and save the hostages, it has been almost 48 hours since everything began but still the battle to save people is going on. 

Yesterday (Nov 27th), it was raining cats and dogs here at Chennai, our house at Velacherry had had more odds of going under water. The previous night we had a small warning with the water reaching our veranda and bathroom at the back. The fear of water flooding into our house and the terrible situation in Mumbai had me in an awful state of mind and I decided to take the day off. I was alternating between Times now and NDTV to track what is happening in Mumbai till 11, but I got pissed off with some of their predictions and decided to watch a movie instead. These days our media houses are all about reporting and TRP ratings, it is really rare to see good journalism, seems with quantity has traded for quality. 

I was browsing through my room mate Pannai's collection of movies and picked Batman Begins to watch, the recent admiration of Christopher Nolan's Dark Night made me to watch the movie though I had watched it earlier. I found myself enjoying the movie which I didn't when I saw it almost about two years ago, seems laziness and prejudice has slowly crept inside me in every walk of life. As I was going through the movie I felt what Bruce Wayne had felt in Batman, the grudge against the people who are responsible for the chaos prevalent in our society. I wished there would be a person for our country, the world to save it just like Batman did it for Gotham, though it was not pragmatic, I slept off with such a dream. 

The situation was still pale at Mumbai when I woke up, but it was turning worse in my room with water slowly starting to seep in through the back door. Myself and my room mate had an intuition that this was going to worsen, hence we just shoved all the things lying around (usually too many in a bachelors room) into shelves and prepared a backpack to go somewhere. The waters level rose at alarming rate and as we left more the level was more than a feet. Wishing the situation would turn around quickly I left for my uncle's house at Beasant Nagar.

The travel was horrendous with my share auto severing along the breadth of road which had sank under water without a trace. The journey from Velacherry to Thiruvanmayur under normal circumstances takes about 20 minutes, but it was not a normal day. When we had finished three quarters of the distance, the auto came to a virtual stand still just before the Taramani junction. I waited for about 10 minutes inside the auto and thought trotting on the foot was a better alternative to reach quickly. As I came to the T junction of Velachery road and Perungidi link road there was a deadlock which any Operating system teacher would have pretty much liked to use as an example. A section of traffic was trying to take a right towards SRP tools, whereas the traffic from SRP had blocked the entire road. Worse still there was another set of vehicles trying to take a right towards the Perungudi road.

And all the vehicle drives were not just hoping but working hard to clear the traffic with persistent honking of their horns which amused me a lot. Though vice (we will discuss later what is the vice) has spread across the length and breadth of our country there are many persons who have not been still attacked by the same, maybe our population is too huge even for a vice or disease to spread. 3 persons unaffected by these vices were trying to do something for the traffic, buoyed by their spirit I also jumped in to lend my effort as far as possible. And after a struggle for about 15 minutes we were able to regulate it a bit. The worst part was we had to persuade, plead, shout at people to ease the traffice,  everybody sounded that it is urgent for them to reach home and to them it didn't matter what happened to others. 

In other words everybody was trying to follow Adam Smith's philosophy of "In a group best result comes from everyone in the group doing what's best for himself". Little did they realize that what John Nash had corrected it as "In a group best result comes from everyone in the group doing what's best for himself and the group". (Courtesy: A beautiful mind).

After half an hour of effort, I realized it is time to leave or else it will be too late to reach my uncle's house. As I walked my way to the next bus stop more than a kilometre away I was thinking about the vices which has engulfed our society. The first and foremost one is materialism, which has spread its tentacles across the length and the breadth of our society. Everybody wants to become rich, build homes, buy ornaments, cars, etc. There is nothing wrong in being materialistic but the way in which we attain materialistic is extremely vital in determining the health of a nation. I think our understanding of God is also one of the reasons why we are like this blaming everything on God and asking him for a solution instead of trying to find out one.

Call it fate or irony the fact is, the land in which Gandhi was born, people no longer have regard for the philosophy of means and ends which he adhered till his death.  If we had indeed followed that principle of Gandhi, this country would have been a better place to live. Still it is not late, we could see a turn around in the lives of each and everyone of us, but it will take some time to see the effect. Alas, the present day Indian lives in an era of instant coffee and soap operas where he has become devoid of something called patience. 

I believe the second most important thing which is proving to be a nemesis is patience. We are not even patient enough to wait for a traffic jam to clear, instead we just jump over the yellow line and take the wrong side of the road to reach our destination  which ultimately will create a deadlock or an accident and in fact worsens the problem for everyone of us. It is not just traffic, we do it everywhere in every phase of our life from paying our bills in a shop counter to taking coffee in our offices, wherever it is possible. 

The third reason is lack of social responsibility. The definition of Social responsibility has got narrowed down, by corporate India, to the helping of orphans, old age homes and destitute children. There is also another definition of Social Responsibility used by our media, it is about people coming out to help during natural catastrophes, terrorism etc. Do these things alone constitute Social Responsibility?  I believe the above said acts are due to empathy and constitute only a part of Social Responsibility. 

During the past two days I noticed lot of people blaming the Government for its inability to tackle terror, inadequacy to tackle floods. The only question I would like to ask each one of them is, "Who is the government?". If you are blaming the government it means you are blaming yourself not someone else. 

The problems faced by our country is not due to the politicians or the administration, it due to each and everyone of us. We cannot become a developed country unless each one of us change, unless each one of us bring in control the demons in us. 

I have come across many people who talk about the problems in our system and are ready to work for the change, but they want to see the change immediately. Change in a country with such a big population will not come quickly, it might take years, even centuries. For that to occur we must start now, lets strive our best to leave this world a better place for the generations to come.

For that the Change must come from within.................

AN AMAZING DAVID AND GOLIATH STORY

CM: What brings Howard Zinn to Cuba?
HZ: The fact that Cuba has just published its own edition of my book, which in the United States is called The People's History of the United States, though in Spanish it's been translated as La Otra Historia de Estados Unidos. They invited me to the International Book Fair to talk about my book and to participate in some other panels on the war in Iraq. I was here last spring and got to be friendly with a number of very interesting people. Cuban people are so warm. They make you feel at home and it feels good to be here. The atmosphere is a very family atmosphere. There is music and spirit… So, I was happy to come back. Cuba represents something very important in this world of wars and power plays and imperial expansion. I mean, here is this little island, which is not expanding anywhere, is not trying to take over the United States. It is, in fact, holding out in a very courageous way with meager resources against the most formidable military power in the world. This is an amazing David and Goliath story; an amazing story of heroism. So, you have to admire Cuba for being undaunted by this colossus of the North and holding fast to its ideals and to Socialism. And even though there are many problems, it's an interesting Socialism with many possibilities… Cuba is one of those places in the world where we can see hope for the future. With its very meager resources Cuba gives free health care and free education to everybody. Cuba supports culture, supports dance and music and theatre. The United States does not do that. The United States is rich enough to do this, but it doesn't. People who are in the arts in the United States, people who are dancers and poets and in theatre, they struggle to survive, and so, there is this model in Cuba for the future of health care, of education, of culture. We are in a world which is so full of violence and injustice that when we see a place that has the kind of future Cuba does, it's important to hold on to it, important to immerse yourself in it, which is what you do when you come here.
CM: Why do you think the US Government, the Bush administration in particular, does not want US citizens to visit Cuba?
HZ: I wish I could probe the minds of the people who run the United States government. I would ask somebody with really advanced knowledge in psychiatry to do that. We can only guess their motives. One of them undoubtedly is that they know that Americans and people from other countries that haven't come to Cuba are intrigued by the kind of things that Cuba has, which other countries don't have; intrigued by Cuba's progress in literacy, in medicine, in culture and so on. The United States would rather have people be ignorant to what Cuba is. If people don't come to Cuba, then the government can say whatever it wants about Cuba and can ignore its accomplishments and nobody would know the difference. But when people come to Cuba, of course, they go back to the United States and spread the word. So, the United States doesn't want that. Then, of course, the United States doesn't want an example set of a small country that fights its government successfully; that insists on surviving in spite of all the attempts to do away with it -whether by invasion, by subversion or by blockade. It's an irritant to the United States to see this model of survival of a small country. There's a psychological problem there: the frustration of this enormously powerful nation that cannot bend this little country to its will. The United States has had this problem several times in its history. It could not defeat the people of Vietnam -a tiny country in Asia with very few resources, and it just could not defeat it.
CM: Your book The People's History of the United States just sold a million copies. One of the things I found so important about the book is the need to keep the history of activism and resistance alive, which has been hidden from us. This is a particularly difficult time in the United States in terms of the dismantling of social programs. Where do you feel people in the US today get hope?
HZ: I think they get hope in several ways. First, by seeing that there are people all over the world who understand things that many Americans do not understand. When the Iraq war was first beginning about fifteen million people all over the world demonstrated against the war in a single day. That is enormously encouraging, and shows that there's a worldwide movement of resistance. How many people support the administration? You know, it's only fifty percent of the people. They look outside the United States and they see that it's eighty or eighty five percent. That's encouraging. The other thing that is encouraging is that people in the United States who might otherwise loose hope look at the history of social movements in the US and realize that these movements always look hopeless, insignificant and powerless at the beginning. Some of them would remember the recent history in the South -this is something I went through myself- where it seemed that Black people in the South were powerless. They had nothing on their side -certainly not the federal government. And yet, they rose, they organized, they agitated, they demonstrated, they went to jail. Things happened to them, but they persisted and changed the South forever. That's a remarkable story of how a powerless people can gain power and how you mustn't look at power in a superficial way or by asking who has the money or who has the guns? We have to ask, who has the commitment and the energy, and the spirit of sacrifice and is willing to take risks? Then you'll see the future.
CM: Your theatre piece Marx in Soho is playing here in Cuba. What significance do you think it has to Cuban people?
HZ: This play about Marx is significant to the Cuban people for two reasons; one of them, probably, is maybe not as necessary for the Cuban people as it is for the American people, and that is for Marx to once again bring alive his critique on Capitalism and say: Capitalism thinks it triumphed with the collapse of the Soviet Union… No, look what Capitalism has done to people. Look at its failures. Maybe the Cuban people know that. Maybe that's why they support the idea of Socialism. But I think that something very important to people in the United States and in Cuba is to give people a clear idea of what Marxism is and what Socialism is.
2005-03-00

a good read on poverty and perceptions

http://www.columbia.edu/~sr793/count.pdf

La Sa Ramamirtham - the astounding tamizh writer

அடையாளங்கள் - லா.ச.ரா.

தருணத்தின் தர்க்கத்தினின்னு இன்னும் மீளவிலை. தேடினால் வராது; ஆனால் எதிர்பாராத சமயத்தில் பின்னால் வந்து தோளை தொடும் தருணத்தின் ஸரஸம்.

எண்ணத்தோடு, அதனினும் மஹத்தான இன்னொரு எண்ணம் இழையும் ரஸாயனத்தில், மனம் நித்யத்வத்துடன் உராய்கையில், வேறு ரோமாஞ்சலி, நெஞ்சடைப்பு, தனக்குத்தானே தனிழப்பு, பயம், கணமேயுகம். யுகமே கணம் - கோடுகள் அறிந்த நிலையில் எல்லாவற்றையும் தாங்கிக் கொண்டு ஒரு ஆனந்தம் - ஆனால் நொடி நேரமே தாள முடியாது. ஆனால் அதில் அமுதம் உண்டு விட்டேனே! அதற்காக அலைகிறேன்.

தரிசனத்துக்கு ஆதாரம் அன்புதான். அன்பின் பெருக்கு. அன்புக்கேற்றபடி ஆவாஹனம் ஆவாஹனத்துக்கு ஏற்றவாறு தரிசனம். தரிசனம் என்பது என்ன? அன்பின் அலைச் சிகரத்தில் சமயத்துக்கேற்றவாறு அவள் தோன்றுவிதம், ரூபம். இங்கு அரூபமும் ரூபம்தான்; ஆமாம் யார் அவள்?

நித்யத்வத்தில், மானிடப் பரம்பரை வழிவழி. நம்பிக்கையின் தீவிரத்தில் செதுக்கப்பெற்று, அதே வழிவழி பக்தியில் ஊறி, இலக்கியமென்றும் இசையென்றும் கலை, ஞானம், விஞ்ஞானம், தியானம் என்றும் பல்வகை வழிபாடுகளில் செழித்தவள்.

அவள் எங்கும் நிறைந்த சக்தி ஆதலால் அவளை தனி உருவத்தில் முடக்குவதற்கில்லை.

வான் நீலம் அவள் நிறம்.

வாழை மரத்தில் ஆடும் தலைவாழையிலை அவள் பச்சைப் பட்டுப்பாவாடை.

அதோ செம்பருத்திச் செடியில் எட்டா உயரத்தில் என்னப் பார்த்து நாக்கை நீட்டிச் சிரிக்கிறாள்.

துளும்பிய கண்ணீர்த் துளியில், குமுறும் இடியில் நிறைந்த மனதில், இருவரிடையே தேங்கும் மௌனத்தில்.

பூவரச மரத்தினின்று தானே சுழன்று சுழன்று உதிரும் இலையின் காவிய சோகத்தில்.

கிணறுள், அதோ ஆழத்தில் சுரந்து கொண்டேயிருக்கும் தாரைகளில்,

கோபுர ஸ்தூபி உச்சியில் உட்கார்ந்து சிறகைக் கோதி, உடனே பறக்கும் பச்சைக் கிளியின் சொகுஸில்,

அடுத்த சமயம் அதே ஸ்தூபி மேல் கழுகின் சிறகு விரிப்பில்.

சொல்லிக் கொண்டே போகலாம். உவமைகளில், உருவங்களில், அடையாளமாய்த் தன்னைக் காட்டிக் கொள்கிறாள். உள்ளத்தின் நெகிழ்ச்சியில் அவள் நடமாட்டம்; மௌனத்தின் உச்சிதான் அவள் வாழுமிடம்.

திரிகரண சுத்தியில் எப்பவுமே இருக்க முடியாது. சுத்தமாயிருக்க ப்ராயத்தனம் தான் செய்ய முடியும். அழுக்கு சேர்ந்து கொண்டே தான் இருக்கும்.

ஆனால் சில அபூர்வ சமயங்களில், முகூர்த்த வேளைகள் என்றே சொல்லலாம். தருணங்கள்; நான் என் பாசாங்குகளைக் களைந்து, பொய்மையில் மூழ்கிக் கிடந்த என் நாணயம் தானே மேல்வந்து, நான் யாருடனும், எதனுடனும் விரோதமில்லாமல் புவனத்தின் ஜீவஸ்ருதியோடு இழைந்துபோன வேளையில், இதயத்தின் அமுத கலசம் பொங்குகையில், தன் ஸஹிக்க முடியாத சௌந்தர்யத்தில் அவள் தோன்றுகிறாள். என் உள்ளத்தின் சதுப்பில் இறங்கி நடக்கிறாள். மார்பை இருகைகளாலும் பொத்திக் கொள்கிறேன். அவள் பாதச்சுவடுக்ளின் இன்பம் தாங்க முடியவில்லை. அதோ அவள் கொலுசு சப்தம் கேட்கவில்லை?

அவள் தருண்யை.

தெய்வம் வேண்டாம். ஆனால் தரிசனம் கட்டாயம் வேண்டும்.

வார்த்தைகள் கிளிஞ்சல்கள்.

அடையாளங்கள் (கட்டுரையின் சில பகுதிகள்) - லா.ச.ரா. (லா. ச. ராமாமிருதம்)

Remember the bottom billion in our brave new world

This editorial was from Financial Times UK
This weekend an attempt will be made by world leaders to redesign capitalism. A new financial architecture will be put in place. This effort will fail unless the bottom billion – those living on less than a dollar a day – are invited from the shadows and allowed to work with us in forging our brave new model.
Just a few weeks ago it was hoped that Main Street could avoid the fallout from a disgraced Wall Street. That has proved to be another case of bankers’ self-interested delusions. It is in the nature of streets to meet. The results were as predictable as they are awful. Yet, with great effort, we will recover.
For those in Africa who live in the world’s hardest circumstances, this crisis can seem academic. Yet there is a threat that they will be overwhelmed by a new wave of poverty, just when there had been the beginnings of real sustained economic change. While Africa is sheltered from the immediate impact of the crisis because of its relative isolation from the global financial system, it will be buffeted by the after-shocks: falling demand for exports, slowing capital flows, reduced remittances, sluggish growth and the threat of development aid drying up.
The food and fuel crisis knocked the poor off their knees; the financial crisis threatens to kick them when they are down. This must not be allowed to happen. Instead the crisis offers a moment of opportunity. When financial vested interests are weak and laisser faire fundamentalism on the ropes, there is a chance to finally live up to the oft-broken commitment to the poor while also regulating the more irresponsible sides of capitalism.
Just as the crisis has been international because of globalisation, any new reforms will also need to be international. As Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, has remarked, a modernised multilateralism must put global development on a par with international finance. The next round of globalisation must be one where economic opportunities and responsibilities are more widely shared.
This moment of flux offers the chance to revive ideas that have been around for some time but have been heavily resisted. First is the Tobin tax. In 1978 James Tobin, the Nobel economist, proposed a tiny tax of 0.5 per cent or less on all foreign currency ex­change transactions to deter speculation and pay for development. Some calculate this tax could yield $375bn (€289bn, £253bn) annually. Even at half that amount, it is on a par with the amount that should already have been directed to development globally. This levy, even if it is cut to 0.005 per cent would limit volatility in small economies whilst generating enormous sums for the poor. It would also cost taxpayers nothing.
Second, we need to institutionalise the means by which profits from carbon trading can be channelled to development. As Germany has already shown, this is a vast market. It involves creating incentives for polluters to pollute less while generating resources for development. It is a smart, painless way to create revenues and jobs while bringing the poor into the global economy. A Europe-wide scheme is planned, but in Washington it should be seized upon as an effective mechanism for growth and development. It, like the Tobin tax, is tax neutral to the consumer while curbing overproduction of carbon dioxide and helping the world’s poorest.
Third, this new round of globalisation must not be accompanied by a return to protectionism. Make Poverty History called for progress on debt, aid and trade. Trade is the area in which the least has been delivered. We need to pursue a stand-alone trade deal for Africa that supports regional integration, delivers improved market access, addresses supply-side constraints such as weak infrastructure, deals with the most damaging subsidies and allows governments to determine their own development strategies.
The voice of Africa’s poor will barely be represented in Washington. The world cannot afford to disenfranchise 900m potential producers and consumers. Of course the Bretton Woods institutions need reform, but this cannot simply come in the form of a different carve-up between countries that have newly acquired more power and those that have always had it. Investing in Africa through effective aid and trade may seem counterintuitive at a time of hardship, but is a necessity. Globalisation has been a boon for many, but has not benefited everyone. Reform of the global economy will not work until all are connected and involved.

Remember the bottom billion in our brave new world

This editorial was from Financial Times UK
This weekend an attempt will be made by world leaders to redesign capitalism. A new financial architecture will be put in place. This effort will fail unless the bottom billion – those living on less than a dollar a day – are invited from the shadows and allowed to work with us in forging our brave new model.
Just a few weeks ago it was hoped that Main Street could avoid the fallout from a disgraced Wall Street. That has proved to be another case of bankers’ self-interested delusions. It is in the nature of streets to meet. The results were as predictable as they are awful. Yet, with great effort, we will recover.
For those in Africa who live in the world’s hardest circumstances, this crisis can seem academic. Yet there is a threat that they will be overwhelmed by a new wave of poverty, just when there had been the beginnings of real sustained economic change. While Africa is sheltered from the immediate impact of the crisis because of its relative isolation from the global financial system, it will be buffeted by the after-shocks: falling demand for exports, slowing capital flows, reduced remittances, sluggish growth and the threat of development aid drying up.
The food and fuel crisis knocked the poor off their knees; the financial crisis threatens to kick them when they are down. This must not be allowed to happen. Instead the crisis offers a moment of opportunity. When financial vested interests are weak and laisser faire fundamentalism on the ropes, there is a chance to finally live up to the oft-broken commitment to the poor while also regulating the more irresponsible sides of capitalism.
Just as the crisis has been international because of globalisation, any new reforms will also need to be international. As Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, has remarked, a modernised multilateralism must put global development on a par with international finance. The next round of globalisation must be one where economic opportunities and responsibilities are more widely shared.
This moment of flux offers the chance to revive ideas that have been around for some time but have been heavily resisted. First is the Tobin tax. In 1978 James Tobin, the Nobel economist, proposed a tiny tax of 0.5 per cent or less on all foreign currency ex­change transactions to deter speculation and pay for development. Some calculate this tax could yield $375bn (€289bn, £253bn) annually. Even at half that amount, it is on a par with the amount that should already have been directed to development globally. This levy, even if it is cut to 0.005 per cent would limit volatility in small economies whilst generating enormous sums for the poor. It would also cost taxpayers nothing.
Second, we need to institutionalise the means by which profits from carbon trading can be channelled to development. As Germany has already shown, this is a vast market. It involves creating incentives for polluters to pollute less while generating resources for development. It is a smart, painless way to create revenues and jobs while bringing the poor into the global economy. A Europe-wide scheme is planned, but in Washington it should be seized upon as an effective mechanism for growth and development. It, like the Tobin tax, is tax neutral to the consumer while curbing overproduction of carbon dioxide and helping the world’s poorest.
Third, this new round of globalisation must not be accompanied by a return to protectionism. Make Poverty History called for progress on debt, aid and trade. Trade is the area in which the least has been delivered. We need to pursue a stand-alone trade deal for Africa that supports regional integration, delivers improved market access, addresses supply-side constraints such as weak infrastructure, deals with the most damaging subsidies and allows governments to determine their own development strategies.
The voice of Africa’s poor will barely be represented in Washington. The world cannot afford to disenfranchise 900m potential producers and consumers. Of course the Bretton Woods institutions need reform, but this cannot simply come in the form of a different carve-up between countries that have newly acquired more power and those that have always had it. Investing in Africa through effective aid and trade may seem counterintuitive at a time of hardship, but is a necessity. Globalisation has been a boon for many, but has not benefited everyone. Reform of the global economy will not work until all are connected and involved.

Salutation To A Brave Soul Who Valiantly Fought Her Honor

This article by Vidya Bhushan Rawat at Countercurrents.org once again reinforces the fact that we have a long way to go.

They came in large number with their OB vans, photographers and anchor persons. Much before she could come and join the press, the hall at the Indian Social Institute in Delhi was fully overcrowded. Every body present thought that for that day there was enough 'news' to spread the TRPs. I had never seen such a 'concern' from the commercial media for the communal violence against the Christians, so it was quite surprising that the popular faces of the TV were there to broadcast live the 'historic' press conference.

Yes, I am talking about Sister Meena, an Adivasi nun who was raped by the Hindutva's thugs in kandhamal district of Orissa On August 24th. In her statement made to the press She said, "

On August 24th, around 4:30 pm, hearing the shouting of a large crowd, at the gate of Divyajyoti Pastoral Centre, I ran out through the back door and escaped to the forest along with others. We saw our house going up in flames. Around 8:30 pm we came out of the forest and went to the house of a Hindu gentleman who gave us shelter.

On 25th August, around1:30 pm,the mob entered the room where I was staying in that house, one of them stopped me on my face, caught my hair and pulled me out of the house. Two of them were holding my neck to cut off my head with axe. Others told them to take me out to the road; I saw Fr. Chellan also being taken out and being beaten. The mob consisting of 40–50 men was armed with lathis, axes, spades, crowbars, iron–rods, sickles etc. They took both of us to the main road. Then they led us to the burnt down Janavikas building saying that they were going to throw us into the smouldering fire.

When we reached the Janavikas building, they threw me to the verandah on the way to the dining room which was full of ashes and broken glass pieces. One of them tore my blouse and others my undergarments. Father Chellan protested and they beat him and pulled him out from there. They pulled out my saree and one of the stepped on my right hand and another on my left hand and then a third person raped me on the verandah mentioned above. When it was over, I managed to get up and put my petticoat and saree. Then another young man caught me and took me to a room near the staircase. He opened his pants and was attempting to rape me when they reached there.

I hid myself under the staircase. The crowd was shouting "where is that sister, come let us rape her, at least 100 people should rape." They found me under the staircase and took me out to the road. There I saw Fr. Chellan was kneeling down and the crowd was beating him. They were searching for a rope to tie us both of us together to burn us in fire. Someone suggested to make us parade naked. They made us walk on the road till Nuagoan market which was half a kilometer from there. They made to fold our hands and walk. I was with petticoat and saree as they had already torn away my blouse and undergarments. They tried to strip even there and I resisted and they went on beating me with hands on my cheeks and head and with sticks on my back several times.

I am not putting the entire text which is already available to various websites where the nun says openly how the police never protected her and it was not even doing its basic duty of filing her FIR. Instead, it discouraged her from doing so. Her horror story moved every one but more than that was her immense courage to come in the forefront against the guilty who are being protected by the inefficient and corrupt state government of Orissa. For the past one year, the Hindutva's hate campaign against the Christian missionaries in Orissa and other parts of the country have not resulted in anything. Despite the terror the work of these communities in the far flung areas of the country is praise worthy. Despite all the blames of evangelism, the work of the missionaries in the poor communities in India is unparallel. No one can deny the fact that such an enormous amount of work particularly in the health and educational sector in India is much disproportionate to the number of the community in the country, which denied education to large part of the its masses named as Dalit-Bahujans and an educational set up dominated by brahmanical elites of the country.

Orissa's horror story did not end in frightening the community workers. It is terror in all the forms. From burning the churches, demolishing their holy book, to attacking the social institutions of the community and even when such things fails to dampen the spirit of the community then the final assault. And the final assault is in the form of molestation, rape and indignity heaped upon women and men both. It is beyond shock that such mishaps of history are defended shamelessly on the television channels and widely circulated internet debates.

So, it was refreshing to see a large number of media persons to show their concern when they received an intimation for the press conference of Sister Meena. The timing was accurate at 2 pm. But the entire media was much before the organizers could make it there. The TV Cameras, the photographers, the anchors cum reporters, every one was settling for the final moments. There were cries from behind where the full team of camera persons were ready to 'shoot' the minutes details. The still photographers were preparing for the final assault.

Around 2 pm, as Father Dominic Emanuel came and announced modalities of the press conference saying that the sister would read her statement to the press and nothing more and nothing less. He made it clear that no further question would be taken in this regard as the sister was not in a position to speak and also the matter was subjudice.

The journalists, particularly from the electronic media were shocked as they thought of having an 'exclusive' interview with sister. They thought that the sister would give them lucid details of the incidents and then they would run it for several days like what they have been doing regarding Arushi murder case or Jessica Lal murder case. They perhaps forgot that a victim of the feudal communal mindset in India need a lot more than just courage to speak to the national media. Even when many of the Sangh Parivar people say that the charges of rapes were false, I do not want to comment on the hired pen-pushers who do not have the courage to come open and accept that something horrible has happened. The sister's narration moved every one who understands that how a woman mustered courage to speak of her plight to the 'national' media. It is time to stand with her and provide her mental support. We all know what happened to kandhamal and that if Hindu Rastra becomes a reality in this country, it would be a Kandhamal kind of rastra. Remember, a Hindu Rastra would be a great calamity for India, warned Ambedkar.

The irony is that some of the Church people from Orissa went and met Mr Lal Krishna Advani, just a few days before nun's press conference and Advani in turn expressed his 'gratitude' to the missionaries as how he studied in Christian schools. He then went on to condemn the incident of rape on the nun and said that there should be dialogue among all the religion. Now, somebody, should have told Advani that this is not a question of dialogue but bringing culprits to the book. Those who initiate such a dialogue with a criminal gang are criminal and have betrayed their very cause. The nun has her original identity as a tribal from Orissa and it is important to understand that she paid a price of her faith. Sangh Parivar's loyal intellectuals would always like to debate and then justify their positions after each event. If we continue to legitimize them by initiating a dialogue with them we make them representative of non Christians-non Muslim population of India which is highly objectionable. The Muslims and the Christians who initiative such a fake religious dialogue with them must be isolated and boycotted.

Finally, the sister arrived with her face covered with mask escorted by responsible friends like John Dayal and others but see the rush among the photographers. They heckled with each other to take photograph of the nun with different angle. It was just shocking to see how they were just fighting to take per photographs as if it was a photo session with a Bombay beauty queen. There was no understanding that a victim of the fascist onslaught was here to explain her plight. In a civilized society a victim of a such a horrible act would have found enough people from media and civil society speaking on her behalf but the scandalous silence of these sections of the society, added with Sangh Parivar's assertion that she was lying as if a woman is very happy to say that she was raped, compelled the sister to speak to the media. It is further when the state government and its police which was unable to protect the nun from the humiliation. The state government wanted her to identity the accused in Orissa itself without giving her due protection. It needs not to be elaborated here how Orissa and Kandhamal district in particular have become an area where Christians are being targeted and hounded. And the government's inaction has further deteriorated the situation with Christians still finding it difficult to return their home. In such a scenario when the media has no time to follow up their own stories, a brave woman speak her plight should have been welcomed. A society where the victim is asked to prove her innocence can not be termed as civilized society and those who claim for it must hang their head in shame. We must admit that we live in one of the most brutal society and the only civilized thing about us is our civilized constitution without being effectively used to protect its citizens who need it.

Many in the crowd said that there was nothing wrong in photographers taking the photos in such a way. It was great that media was present but it should properly think that not everything is meant to strengthen your TRPs. A person's plight needs to be heard properly. If you need to take photographs to do your 'professional' duty, do it with grace, understanding the importance and seriousness of the issue. I know these days the TV cameras are everywhere even when the dead bodies go from the family and the reporters are asking the family people ' how are you feeling'. But it is not just media fault. People are also eager to see their faces on TV and print so we see they do 'speak' on the camera how 'great' their dear one was.

One thing is clear that the friends in support of Sister including CBCI need our solidarity for not making this incident cheap and vulgar. Friends like John Dayal and others handled this issue graciously and did not allow the 'crazy' media anything that would be termed a cheap publicity. Secondly, by supporting the sister's courageous act of speaking to the nation her plight and her conviction to get justice, need to be encouraged. In this country the exploiters, rapists, and all those anti social elements get away with the law because the victims are victimized more than the tormentors. The Christian community has shown their great courage by siding with the sister. Let the media put pressure on the government of Orissa as well as the central government to act on the issue fast and get the sister a justice. Tragically, nothing has happened and the media will wait for another juicy story to which can raise their TRPs and the Hindutva terror would go unabated all over the country and the victims of this terror would rarely find space in our national media unless there is some 'masala' in it. One sincerely hope that with this press conference, the media will understand that serious issues need to be tackled seriously and they are not here to get more advertisement and market their channels. Let us see how many of them turn up to cover the issues if the CBCI organize another press conference related to violence against Christians in any part of the country. One hope the editors are listening and will do the needful. One can only hope that such atrocious and tedious process of law will not demoralize her further. Let us salute her spirit to get justice. Let us stand with her in this hour of crisis. Let us hope she get justice so that our faith in the institution of law remains intact.

Is bailout really neccessary, no I don't think so now.

Few days back, I wrote a post stressing the need for bailout. I came across an article which which pointed out that how the bail out is going to make life worse for the common man me explain how it is going to be worse.

Say Mr.X has taken a loan of $200,000 from a mortgage firm for buying a house. The mortgage company in order securitize the loan, converts the it a bond and sells the bond in the open market. The bond is bought by an investment bank or a mutual fund or a pension fund since it offers good returns. In order to securitize their investment, the entity which bought the bond insures it with an Insurer. when Mr.X defaults, then it sets off a chain reaction which affects all those involved in the chain of events, i.e. the mortgage company, investment bank & insurance company.

The guys with with fat pay checks in Wall street never cared about the fact that this vicious chain may crash. All that mattered to them were profits, never the means to achieve it. Wall street being the brainchild of capitalism came up with a master plan to save their skin from this economic breakdown. The US government $700 billion bailout save only the financial companies from bankruptcy and leaves Mr.X in total disarray.

The bailout has put a double burden on the common man, first $700 billion has been made raised from the tax payers money which includes Mr.X's contribution also. We need to remember Mr.X has been shown door from his house has he has defaulted his payments. His house would be auctioned off now and say it is sold for $50,000. Mr.X still has a liability of $150,000 to his mortgage company. In other words he needs to pay for the house he doesn't have and also he has to pay for preventing the financial institutions from crashing, the very same institutions which has left him in lurch. These guys do have a lot of brains.

Had this bailout not happened the entire world economy would have collapsed and a new world system might have been formed. Of course we would have faced many problems, but I sincerely believe it might have cut off the wings of Capitalistic Imperialism. The bankers have made sure that this didn't happen and Capitalism continues to thrive so that they can reap it's benefits.

What lower oil prices mean for the world

Oil prices are a barometer of the world economy. Rising prices between 2003 and 2007 reflected the best global econ­omic growth in a generation. This high economic growth was brought to an end not only by underpricing of risk, excess liquidity and over-confidence but also by an increasingly unsustainable commodity boom – of which oil was a crucial part. Now, as the world has dropped into recession, oil prices have fallen by more than half.
This fall also reflects the power of price itself. For rising prices set in motion decisions by consumers, governments and businesses that have changed the course of demand. Now the recession is also weighing increasingly heavily on demand.
Of course, a price “collapse” to the $60-$70 range is a collapse only if one forgets that the average oil price in 2007 was $72 a barrel (and $66 in 2006). The tight balance between supply and demand was not the only factor driving the increase in oil prices. The last explosion in oil and other commodity prices began in the late summer of 2007, as a weakening dollar set off a “flight to com­modities”.
Certainly, oil prices were also driven up throughout July 2008 by psychology; what Professor Robert Shiller of Yale describes as “contagious excitement about investment prospects”. It was almost like bets in a poker game, with a $200 prediction being raised by a $250 prediction, which would in turn be raised by a $500 prediction. It was all self-reinforcing, creating its own ­reality.
Yet there were two hidden assumptions in this contagion of enthusiasm. The first was the belief in “decoupling” – that the rest of the world was insulated from a US economic downturn. The reality of the past several months has demonstrated the opposite: how closely economies are linked together in a globalised world. Brazil, Russia, India and China became the up-and-coming “Brics” by virtue of ­globalisation.
The second hidden assumption was that price does not matter. Both demand and supply, it was assumed, would not budge as prices soared. Yes, this was just possible, but it would have been the first time in economic history. As it turned out, cycles are still with us.
What was all the more odd about this “contagious excitement” is that, while the price was going up, the energy fundamentals were declining along with the overall economy. Petrol consumption in the US had hit “peak demand” in 2007 and was beginning to decline. On a global basis, estimates for demand growth for 2008 have fallen from as high as 2.1m barrels a day at the beginning of the year to 200,000 barrels a day now. Or perhaps zero.
The world oil market is caught in what Cambridge Energy Research Associates two years ago described as a “Global Fissure” recession scenario. Total US oil demand over 2008 is down 1m barrels a day compared with last year. The last time demand dropped this much was in 1981, on the eve of the recession that was – until now – known as the “worst recession since the Great Depression”.
The fall in oil prices is a great bounty to hard-pressed consumers. If you compare the average US petrol price in July ($4.14 a gallon) with October ($2.26) on an annualised basis, the savings to American consumers are $282bn (€220bn, £180bn). The fall in oil prices is a sort of de facto tax cut – a stimulus package that does not have to be approved by the Congress or paid for out of the beleaguered Treasury.
What will happen to oil prices in Global Fissure? One of the most important determinants – just as in the 2003-2007 increases – is the pace of global economic growth. But, this time, the question is how deep and long the recession and how big the hit on consumer spending. The other crucial question is oil supply itself. How large will be the flow of new oil supplies that have been stimulated by the rising prices and have been under development but were delayed by shortages of people and equipment? Watch what happens in 2009.
Lower prices are forcing energy companies to cut their budgets and hold back on starting some new projects. This will make itself felt in a new turn of the cycle after an economic recovery. In the meantime, it is not only investment in new oil and gas and electric power projects that will be restrained.
The energy policies of the new US administration, as in other countries, will emphasise greater energy efficiency and renewables. A “green stimulus programme” is already high on the transition agenda. But the worried question around Washington now is: to what degree lower prices will crimp investment in renewables and ­efficiency.
The answer will not be determined just by energy prices, important as they are. The biggest impact will come from the health of the economy, the nation’s fiscal position and the availability of capital and credit. With the costs of two wars and a vast financial bail-out, and with an impaired credit system, resources for other purposes are likely to be constrained.
In such circumstances, some kind of charge or auctioning for carbon permits may suddenly take on new attractiveness, not just for combating climate change but as a revenue-raising measure for a federal government that certainly needs the money.