My article on Solapur

I wrote an article for the Six Degrees  News website. Six Degrees is an international development news website that focusses on grassroots reports. My article was about a government programme called Jal Yukt Shivar in Maharashtra. Here it is:  

http://www.sixdegreesnews.org/drought-management-successes-in-solapur-india/

I’m excited about having done this. I’ve not been officially ‘published’ for a while now, if at all, though I guess there were opportunities at Arghyam that I’ve passed up due to other work. Six Degrees is founded by a friend, Binayak Das, so it didn’t require pitching from my side, and I didn’t get paid for it. 

Whatever I do (if I do anything at all!) in the next phase of my life, I hope writing will be a part of it. This blog has been a source of great fulfilment but time to grow beyond it. And it would be good to be able to generate some income from writing. 

I learnt some practicalities about journalism on the trip. One was the difficulty of really evaluating the success of a programme or initiative from a visit. Though I have a background in the water sector, I’m a generalist and not technically trained, so it was hard to really gauge. And for a large scale programme like this, unless you visit lots of locations, you can’t conclude anything with any degree of confidence. Your ideas about this will be appreciated. 

Anyway, on the visit to Solapur in Maharashtra, based on which I wrote the article, I had the opportunity to meet the current District Collector. It happened quite easily, after a couple of phone calls, which was quite surprising. At Arghyam, it was really painful getting meetings with IAS officers. He was a very cordial and a nice person. However the really interesting bit was about the previous Collector, Tukaram Munde. He really seems to be a larger-than-life person who managed to achieve spectacular results. I have some sense of administration from work at Arghyam, and this chap in my opinion is off the charts. The District Collector (or Commissioner as he is called in some districts) has a really difficult job. There’s just too much stuff, too many subjects to work on. There are around 30 government departments/programmes that he is the head for. The DC of Sholapur told me there are literally hundreds of committees that he  chairs. Then there is the lack of good quality and quantity of HR to work with, including corrupt people. And unlike the private sector, you can't fire people easily. There are many restrictions and rules to getting work done, much less flexibility than in the private sector. There is the political system to be managed, which could be quite formidable. And in the first place, many of the programmes are ill-designed and ‘dead-on-arrival’. So I’d say, as far as serious impact is concerned, the DC is also for the most part, ‘dead-on-arrival’. However, Mr. Mundhe somehow managed to crack the system and actually get it to deliver. For the life of me, I cannot visualise how he did it. He is now head of Navi Mumbai district and making waves there too. A man to watch (and you can watch some of his exploits by searching on the web). 

Back to the trip again. There is a ‘power’ element in the field trip portion of visits like these , the government staff down the line from the DC are very deferential. At the same time I also got the sense that they thought I did not understand the stuff, and were patronising. I also find it tiring to meet a large number of people in a short span - my comfort level certainly is in meeting fewer people and developing stronger connections with them. 

I wonder where Jalyukt Shivar is going. There seem to be many issues with the scheme, much more so in other districts. But it also seems to have huge potential from the Solapur experience. This programme seems to have the tantalising potential to be the ‘Holy Grail’ for water security in drought-affected districts. But many a slip between the cup and the lip. At the same time some other large scale success stories are emerging from other districts like Dewas in Madhya Pradesh. Is there a trend here ? In the past, it was always about NGO models and touting them, but there were very few examples of successes at scale. Are we entering a tipping point where we get more and and more successes at scale. I fervently hope so. 

An interesting side point is that Solapur district has 2 products with the GI (Geographical Indication) tag, Maldandi jowar and Sangoli pomogranate. Here is a full list of GI tagged products in India: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Geographical_Indications_in_India 

It seems this idea is taking off in India.

Some more photos from the trip below:

Check dams storing water

Compartment bunds under construction

Dry open wells that are now recharged with water

A farm pond

Local farmer

On transparency in Singapore

Singapore’s lack of transparency in governance is almost legendary. Researchers, for example, have extraordinary trouble getting data. A couple of examples from personal experience:

-In a class with a guest lecturer from the Public Utilities Board, he cautioned us against taking photographs of some of the slides (“You do not want to be arrested later for this”). 

-In talking to people about the immigration rules and systems, I find that people don’t know how or why the decisions are taken on work permits, guest passes etc. There is amazing amount of discretion and lack of transparency. 

It would be interesting to understand the historical origins of this phenomenon. In reading extensively of the writings of Lee Kuan Yew, I did not see anything about why he did not feel transparency important. 

In the ongoing project of revisioning Singapore, I am pretty sure that transparency will help Singapore in finding a way forward.  There have been memorable debates about Asian values and Singapore-style democracy. I don’t think these addressed the role of transparency and whether lack of transparency is a part of Asian culture :-)  

 Lack of transparency is simply incompatible with a modern society. You cannot have a educated, well-to-do population that is creative and free-thinking and a society that aims to be globalised and at par with the best of them, and at the same time, hide your governance behind a veil of secrecy. 

Prof Lam Chuan Leong, a retired bureaucrat whom I respect, pooh-poohed transparency in one of his classes. I wish I had taken it up with him then!  The bureaucracy will of course protest mightily that it is simply not possible to function efficiently if you have to be able to explain everything that you do. While there can be more discussion about the pros and cons, enough developed countries have implemented Freedom of Information acts and none have reconsidered its value. Even India has one, and you don’t hear anyone complaining about it.  Certainly it could make life more difficult for bureaucrats, but making bureaucrats' life easy is not the purpose of governance! In any case, the system will re-adjust and find new ”SOPs” that are compatible with the new laws. 

Singapore continues to be a restricted society with little space for questioning the government. Transparency would be one way to open up the space for questioning. Asking an innocent question cannot be grounds for harassment or taking someone to court.

It is surprising that the PAP, which has gone so far as to consider splitting itself in order to provide a more robust political system, has not considered the importance of transparency and implemented substantive measures in this direction. Its quite likely that 50 years of obscurity will have concealed a fair number of governance boo-boos. Whether there are more serious discrepancies between the facade and what went on behind the scenes, I do not know enough to speculate about (nor do I want to attract attention of the government by doing that!). 

Kissinger jokes

Henry Kissinger's work has many examples of what decent people would find enormous inversions of justice. Like, for example, that he was given the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing an end to the Vietnam war, when he was in actuality responsible for things like the massive bombing of Cambodia as part of that war. Giving him the Nobel was appropriately labeled 'the death of satire' when it happened.

Chomsky is not usually given to humor, and one of the few examples I've seen is in relation to Kissinger, whose guts he really hates.  Debunking one of Kissinger's arguments where he says that that Western civilisation has a culture of 'toleration' (never mind a couple of World Wars and decades of colonial cruelty), Chomsky comments with an undertone of frustration and bitterness: "One can always count on K for some comic relief, though in reality, he is not alone" ( http://www.iran-bulletin.org/history/chomsky3.html)

And finally one from that fantastic commentator on US political affairs, Gary Trudeau author of the Doonesbury cartoons. In a series of strips, Kissinger is visiting faculty at a Washington DC university and leading a course while doing his stuff as Secretary of State. While he tries to use the seminar to talk about realpolitik and world domination and such, there are one or two idealists in the class who keep bringing up useless questions about truth, justice and the suffering of the common man. Finally Kissinger in frustration bursts out "Human rights! Human rights! I'm sick and tired of human rights!"

Touche. Sometimes I feel a similiar sentiment : "Climate change! Climate change! I'm sick and tired of climate change!"

For perhaps a more rounded portrayal of Kissinger, see the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger

The vegetable pushcart man as hero

As you drive on the streets of Bangalore you often come across vegetable pushcarts. These are flat 4 wheeled contraptions, loaded with vegetables and being trundled around the city. Sometimes its just piled high with tomatoes and potatoes, sometimes its a wide range of vegetables. Consider the life of the vegetable pushcart man:

-- the daily pollution and dust
-- being completely at the mercy of the weather ; from hot sun to sudden showers. Imagine trundling your way home maybe 5 kilometers away in one of Bangalore's thunderstorms in roads running full of water with your business day washed out.
-- reducing business as the big shops like Reliance undercut everyone else
-- negotiating Bangalore's traffic and intersections where to the man in the CAR the pedestrians and pushcarts are irritants to be honked angrily out of the way as they interrupt the smooth flow of traffic.

Despite all these obstacles, the pushcart man endures. Why does he do it? Does he go home to a loving family that makes it all worth it for him? Does he feel he has no choice? Or does drink do the trick? Where does he draw the strength from, to continue his useful but uneviable role? Does he fall prey at some point to the many options for a spiral into self-destruction that a city offers? Does he feel a proud sense of dignity in doing a honest day's work?

Vegetable pushcart man: I don't (yet) have the humanity to stop my vehicle and have a real conversation with you, so I just have to imagine all the above. But I salute you.

This year's Padma awards

Today's announcement of the Padma awards gives some scope for criticism:

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, A.R. Rehman, Resul Pookutty: We must be the only country that gives national awards to our people after they get international awards. I guess we give awards to people for having gotten international recognition, not for their work. A thoroughgoing shame. It would be interesting to dig deeper and see how often we are able notice and recognise peoples achievements before they reach international renown. I don't think we do a good job.

Prathap C. Reddy (Apollo Hospitals), C.P.Krishnan Nair (Leela Hotel Group chairman), DLF Chairman Kushal Pal Singh : I find it disturbing to see awards going to successful businesspersons whose where the work done or the business concerned doesn't have any otherwise important or socially relevant features. In the case of Apollo Hospitals and other corporate hospitals there is a definite ambiguity about them - there is a common perception of money-driven practice of medicine. Why award Leela Hotels for running a business of luxury hotels which 99% of the country will never stay at? And how many think DLF got to where it is without underhand dealings ? On the contrary, I find the award to Venu Srinivasan of TVS and current head of CII appropriate. M.S.Banga of Unilever is a bit on the borderline.

Looking through the entire list of awardess, overall, for a poor country like our, perhaps the awards should be more focussed on people who are contributing a bit more directly to national development.




Comments ?

Mayawati

The Economist's recent article on the Indian elections:
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=13492427
is centered around Mayawati. It triggered the following:
A necessary though not sufficient step to get past identity politics and caste hierarchies will be to have CMs and PMs from the dalit castes. Perhaps we should just have Mayawati as the first and most unsavoury of these and have done with it.


Photo from raman raina on flickr, click through for more

Tell it like it is, Manmohan !

Manmohan Singh rips into L.K.Advani today:

 

"Mr. Advani has the unique ability to combine strength in speech with weakness in action. This is not the kind of strength we need"

 

"..But unline the NDA's prime ministerial candidate, I will not be found weeping in a corner while hoodlums tear down a centuries-old mosque. Nor will I be found wringing my hands in frustration while one of my Chief Ministers condones a pogrom targeted at minorities."

 

Not all good though: He offered a weak defence regarding the lack of justice for the killings of 1984.

The Rise of the Shoe-ice Bomber

A brilliantly satirical piece by Sainath.I had no idea the man had this talent in him. Replete with puns:

 

The Rise Of The Shoe-cide Bomber

 

By P. Sainath

 

09 April, 2009
Counterpunch

 

When Muntader al-Zaidi hurled one shoe then another at George Bush in Baghdad last year, he couldn’t have foreseen the fallout. Doubtless inspired by the Iraqi journalist, Jarnail Singh, a veteran Delhi reporter, tossed his shoe -- a solid Reebok trainer -- at Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram. Jarnail works for the Hindi newspaper, dainik jagran (The Daily Awakening). For the Home Minister, it was a rude awakening. Jarnail Singh was miffed with the Congress Party for fielding two tainted candidates from parliamentary constituencies in Delhi in our ongoing national elections.

 

Read More at: http://www.counterpunch.org/sainath04092009.html 

Elections

There are far too many political parties in India now and far too large egos that prevent parties from merging when they outlive their usefulness. I look forward to a period of consolidation when things shake themselves out and become more reasonable. But this election looks like it might end up inconclusive with a period of prolonged instability.

I have also the seeds of a theory that needs building out, that party-based 'competitive' democracy is stupid. It encourages competetiveness instead of co-operation. It encourages negativity -- the opposition party has to keep on opposing whether there is validity or not in the actions of the government. We need to find a better form of democracy. We could start with villages (though I have hardly any 'locus standi' to talk about what should be done in villages) and say that panchayat elections should be by consensus not by competition.

Jagdish Tytler over whose name a permanent pall resides due to broad public opinion that he was involved in the killing of Sikhs in the 1984 riots is standing from a New Delhi constituency as the Congress candidate. Disgraceful behaviour by the Congress party. Even if he wasn't convicted in a court, this is simply not on.


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Photo of Chiranjeevi in a Praja Rajyam election poster by kalyan3 on Flickr. Clickthrough for more.

Comments:

Responses to comments:

Arvind left this comment in response to my Hindu newspaper posting, which I regretfully had to delete:
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Dsyw, I liov toi hxifn nsoespape. Wheif elosp cso I tais to wposivis I wais to sao a bosiu os intellocisllly imspten fokxj wovit an uziantsox rveigistoaone of tss fecis uoefo tsi gixis os "baoxidke vici." Wheoc eisi in Iciks cao I tice to to sxi sdibids on tsi Cislens paydrll? Wsoer esol cib I tnor ta ffi asoi Tsiit pdidifigis? Wso eisk wsidirl esifitiris on ssoript 3 dsou a wsood asi on uncofitrollale tsivin lsik UG fsifine piolich tofiels Tinbokakoo ? Linf lins thi Hondi nispapr.

Dear Arvind: I am seriously concerned. I hope the isolation in Tokyo is not affecting you. Or was the above written under the effect of the local rice sake? Naughty, naughty! Nandita -- I would start tracking Arvind more closely if I were you!
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Sidharth: Apologies for the self-indulgent post (self indulgent blog?). I was referring to the fact that the Hindu has a blind spot as far as Tibet is concerned; it vociferously defends every action of the undemocratic chinese government in Tibet. So when you see an article with a title like "Tibetans enjoy comforts of progress" it is not even worth reading the article to see if it has anything reasonable in it.
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Sajini, sorry for the broken link, the right link is:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sidwork/
Enjoy!

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Photo of sake by rossorosso on Flickr, click through for more

Okay, I'm punting for now on all the big questions I brought up in the previous post. I'm just going to post for a while and see how it goes. I *would* prefer that the blog is at despoki.net, but currently I'm too tempted by the simplicity of custom blog sites like this one.

Okay here's some of the threads of my thinking. There are many ideas crowding my mind, and not much clarity about what's the right thing to do.
-- Srikanth (http://www.egovernments.org/) thinks I would work for a role in his group. The job is based in Delhi.
--Paul (http://www.rinovations.org/) invited me to go to Chennai for a couple of days and check them out.
--I want to visit Timbuktu (http://www.timbuktu.org/), but I don't think I will get any specific ideas about what to do from that trip.
--I have been in contact with an old IIT acquaintance who went off the beaten path a while back and will visit soon. It should be very interesting seeing someone from my background doing stuff like organic farming. I may post our mail thread .. (privacy invasion question).
--I was reading a magazine article on rationing, PDS (public distribution system) etc. and it struck me like a ton of bricks, which it does from time to time: shouldn't the basic immediate focus simply be to *provide enough food for everyone who needs it by any means possible*. It is such a huge failing of society that this doesn't happen.
-- Pratham (http://www.pratham.org/) and their Bangalore chapter Akshara (http://www.akshara.org/) do very good work. Pratham is notable as they have managed to scale significantly. They also seem to have another strength of innovation, they say that they have evolved a methodology to get children reading in about 6 weeks. And do that at a cost of Rs 100/- per child (this is important because the learning levels in government and possibly even private schools is pretty bad). Its pretty exciting
--Priya is interested in getting into the animation industry and in doing some background reading, its seems to be an area that is poised to take off. There is some temptation for me to ride that wave myself :-). There are other things that I can do in software that would be quite interesting. I'm of course looking to do something alternative, but once you decide to do that, the advantages of staying mainstream start showing up very clearly :-)

--Biodiesel. Less said the better. But one comment is the divergence between doing something nice like biodiesel that could also pay off significantly monetarily, versus doing something in NGO space where money won't be there. Its a difficult choice. Not that there are opportunities and people queing up for me in either area, but nonetheless. I am in 'first principles' mode right now and want to pretend that anything is possible.

I'm stabilizing a bit at work, earlier in the year, I was spending upto 90% of the workday brooding about these things :-).

I've agreed in principle to have a baby :-) Less said the better.