Sunday, April 16, 2006
Introducing ..
Sajini (veterinarian based in Houston) is my sister. Seshu, her husband, (recent assistant professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio), and her are going to Italy for an academic conference and I thought I invited her to 'guest blog' here for the duration of her trip. Here goes ..
Friday, April 14, 2006
Narmada and Bhopal
Countdown: 7 days !!
Something interesting (and perhaps remarkable) has been going on in Indian political activism recently. First, background. There have been two peoples' protest movements (among others) going on for a while -- one the Narmada Bachao Andolan and the other by the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy. The Narmada movment is about the construction of 2 large dams on the river Narmada. The huge amount of people displaced to make space for the dam, and the doubtful benefits of the dam itself is the chief story there. It has become a highly polarised issue with strong advocates both for (mainly government and 'establishment') and against (displaced tribals and citizens who have taken up their cause). More info from the point of view of the NBA is at www.narmada.org.
The Bhopal issue is much less complex and much more sad. Its around the terrible response of the goverment in rehabilitating the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy. The story is heart-rending and while I don't remember all of it, one piece of news gives some idea: in July 2004 the Supreme Court forced the government to distribute a significant amount of the money that it got from Union Carbide to the affected peoples. Your life is ruined by poisonous gas and you have to sue your own goverment to get the compensation money 20 years later !
You can read more at www.studentsforbhopal.org
Fast forward to the current date. In an imaginative joining of forces people from both the Narmada protest and the Bhopal movement have marched to New Delhi to press their demands with the government. In the case of the Bhopalis several people including some of the survivors of the tragedy marched *500 miles* in 5 weeks from Bhopal to New Delhi. Various stuff happened including police attacks. The Narmada end gave up hope of getting a response from the government at one point and went
into a hunger strike. A few people, including the well known Medha Patkar have been striking for several days now. Medha was arrested by the goverment for the crime of attempting suicide and is now at AIIMS where she and one more person are still subsisting on lemon water. The Bhopalis asked for an audience from Manmohan Singh and were basically refused. I have a high opinion of the PM but in this case -- the survivors of a terrible natural disaster march 500 miles and you don't have to courtesy to meet them ?! They also are now on a hunger strike.
In both cases the pressure is mounting on the government to do something and there are signs that it can happen. The extraordinariness of thie situation is the drama of two well known protest movements joining hands like this. They have set up camp across from each other in New Delhi and are feeding off each others' courage and resources. Its a great moment.
Part of the pressure on the government comes from ordinary people emailing/faxing/phoning government officials (including NRIs calling the Indian consulates abroad). If you want to do this the above websites give you a way of doing this without much trouble. Emailing and online faxing is effortless from the sites, but calling is the most effective.
Fax: http://www.studentsforbhopal.org/FaxAction/fax_action.php
http://petitions.aidindia.org/narmada/
Email: http://www.studentsforbhopal.org/FaxAction/email_action.php
Phone numbers: http://www.studentsforbhopal.org/MarchToDelhi.htm
Something interesting (and perhaps remarkable) has been going on in Indian political activism recently. First, background. There have been two peoples' protest movements (among others) going on for a while -- one the Narmada Bachao Andolan and the other by the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy. The Narmada movment is about the construction of 2 large dams on the river Narmada. The huge amount of people displaced to make space for the dam, and the doubtful benefits of the dam itself is the chief story there. It has become a highly polarised issue with strong advocates both for (mainly government and 'establishment') and against (displaced tribals and citizens who have taken up their cause). More info from the point of view of the NBA is at www.narmada.org.
The Bhopal issue is much less complex and much more sad. Its around the terrible response of the goverment in rehabilitating the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy. The story is heart-rending and while I don't remember all of it, one piece of news gives some idea: in July 2004 the Supreme Court forced the government to distribute a significant amount of the money that it got from Union Carbide to the affected peoples. Your life is ruined by poisonous gas and you have to sue your own goverment to get the compensation money 20 years later !
You can read more at www.studentsforbhopal.org
Fast forward to the current date. In an imaginative joining of forces people from both the Narmada protest and the Bhopal movement have marched to New Delhi to press their demands with the government. In the case of the Bhopalis several people including some of the survivors of the tragedy marched *500 miles* in 5 weeks from Bhopal to New Delhi. Various stuff happened including police attacks. The Narmada end gave up hope of getting a response from the government at one point and went
into a hunger strike. A few people, including the well known Medha Patkar have been striking for several days now. Medha was arrested by the goverment for the crime of attempting suicide and is now at AIIMS where she and one more person are still subsisting on lemon water. The Bhopalis asked for an audience from Manmohan Singh and were basically refused. I have a high opinion of the PM but in this case -- the survivors of a terrible natural disaster march 500 miles and you don't have to courtesy to meet them ?! They also are now on a hunger strike.
In both cases the pressure is mounting on the government to do something and there are signs that it can happen. The extraordinariness of thie situation is the drama of two well known protest movements joining hands like this. They have set up camp across from each other in New Delhi and are feeding off each others' courage and resources. Its a great moment.
Part of the pressure on the government comes from ordinary people emailing/faxing/phoning government officials (including NRIs calling the Indian consulates abroad). If you want to do this the above websites give you a way of doing this without much trouble. Emailing and online faxing is effortless from the sites, but calling is the most effective.
Fax: http://www.studentsforbhopal.org/FaxAction/fax_action.php
http://petitions.aidindia.org/narmada/
Email: http://www.studentsforbhopal.org/FaxAction/email_action.php
Phone numbers: http://www.studentsforbhopal.org/MarchToDelhi.htm
Monday, April 10, 2006
The man in the mirror
Countdown: 11 days
I've been having a fairly difficult time in the last week or so. I've been thinking about (as usual) what I should do and what interests me. In the course of this, I find that if I look back at my life, nothing really stands out. Overall, there is no strong sense of accomplishment or fulfillment. Pretty rough. Also, I find that I haven't got a 'core competence'. Ie. something that I specialize in and know inside out and can bring to the table to any venture that I join or start. There are some small things like good written communication in English (which is what I am going to be using at Timbaktu), but that seems hardly enough ya ? I've not gone in depth enough in whatever I've done and learnt. Bluntly -- pretty sad.
Well, this is kindof why I'm doing this sabbatical thing, so -- bring it on. Open that can of worms.
There are a few things that I now feel are important and that I should use to help me navigate going forward. One is the things above -- I should do things that I feel really good about and I should structure it to get a sense of accomplishment. Then, I should find a way to dive deep instead of scratching the surface. I don't know how to do this, in the past I've just run into a wall when I try to push deep enough and I don't know what I did wrong or how to have a breakthrough. Related to the above is some thinking around 'problem solving'. I'm bad at problem solving, and occasionally I get very frustrated because I feel I'm sinking in a sea of unresolved issues. The only way to break the impasse it seems is to give problems a lot of importance as soon as they arise and prioritise and focus on them and solve them. Whereas usually they get lost in other seemingly urgent tasks or distractors and they keep hanging around the background. At another level, problem solving is a highly satisfactory and fulfilling process. So more reason to take it on. At yet another level -- whatever I want to do in life either in social work type things or other things -- it seems the only way to do it is to find some particular problem and just work at solving it. Otherwise things become too diffuse and you can't measure progress or see results etc. So find some problem, and get to the essential heart of it and solve it there and move on. It sounds so fine in theory.
I'll stop here on this thread. May not blog too much for the next couple of weeks, while things wind up at work, and while I work my way out the funk triggered off by the reflections above.
Endnote - I've been occasionally thinking of starting another blog around books and movies. Never mind the question of readership (will all two of you'll reading this blog be interested in that other one ?). I read a lot and see a fair amount of movies and in both cases, I feel I'm an expert in judging the quality and occasionally get a lot of satisfaction from discussing or expounding. However plain reviewing books/movies sounds dull and I would get sick of it myself. So I'm not sure how to structure it. One thing I would like to do is answer questions from people (how is this book, what's an interesting book I can read on xxx topic ?). Dunno how many people would have questions and be interested in my answers. The other direction would be a highly interactive thing with many people all writing in the blog (group blogs are doable on blogspot and it should be a lot of fun). Anyone interested, please say so.
Ciao amore.
I've been having a fairly difficult time in the last week or so. I've been thinking about (as usual) what I should do and what interests me. In the course of this, I find that if I look back at my life, nothing really stands out. Overall, there is no strong sense of accomplishment or fulfillment. Pretty rough. Also, I find that I haven't got a 'core competence'. Ie. something that I specialize in and know inside out and can bring to the table to any venture that I join or start. There are some small things like good written communication in English (which is what I am going to be using at Timbaktu), but that seems hardly enough ya ? I've not gone in depth enough in whatever I've done and learnt. Bluntly -- pretty sad.
Well, this is kindof why I'm doing this sabbatical thing, so -- bring it on. Open that can of worms.
There are a few things that I now feel are important and that I should use to help me navigate going forward. One is the things above -- I should do things that I feel really good about and I should structure it to get a sense of accomplishment. Then, I should find a way to dive deep instead of scratching the surface. I don't know how to do this, in the past I've just run into a wall when I try to push deep enough and I don't know what I did wrong or how to have a breakthrough. Related to the above is some thinking around 'problem solving'. I'm bad at problem solving, and occasionally I get very frustrated because I feel I'm sinking in a sea of unresolved issues. The only way to break the impasse it seems is to give problems a lot of importance as soon as they arise and prioritise and focus on them and solve them. Whereas usually they get lost in other seemingly urgent tasks or distractors and they keep hanging around the background. At another level, problem solving is a highly satisfactory and fulfilling process. So more reason to take it on. At yet another level -- whatever I want to do in life either in social work type things or other things -- it seems the only way to do it is to find some particular problem and just work at solving it. Otherwise things become too diffuse and you can't measure progress or see results etc. So find some problem, and get to the essential heart of it and solve it there and move on. It sounds so fine in theory.
I'll stop here on this thread. May not blog too much for the next couple of weeks, while things wind up at work, and while I work my way out the funk triggered off by the reflections above.
Endnote - I've been occasionally thinking of starting another blog around books and movies. Never mind the question of readership (will all two of you'll reading this blog be interested in that other one ?). I read a lot and see a fair amount of movies and in both cases, I feel I'm an expert in judging the quality and occasionally get a lot of satisfaction from discussing or expounding. However plain reviewing books/movies sounds dull and I would get sick of it myself. So I'm not sure how to structure it. One thing I would like to do is answer questions from people (how is this book, what's an interesting book I can read on xxx topic ?). Dunno how many people would have questions and be interested in my answers. The other direction would be a highly interactive thing with many people all writing in the blog (group blogs are doable on blogspot and it should be a lot of fun). Anyone interested, please say so.
Ciao amore.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
The coolest ..
Priya forwarded this to me. Its among the coolest things I've seen recently. (And no its not a con. Please check it out).
Its a sound file but it didn't work properly in my browser. So if it doesn't work for you, right click on the link and download to disk and try to play it from there. It worked with Windows Media player for me, don't know if other players also work.
Here it is.
Cheers.
Its a sound file but it didn't work properly in my browser. So if it doesn't work for you, right click on the link and download to disk and try to play it from there. It worked with Windows Media player for me, don't know if other players also work.
Here it is.
Cheers.
Oh, the horror
At Priya's instigation, I've decided to get a beard (french beard, goatee, don't know what its called). I will take a photo every day or so and then blog it to show the evolution. For now here's something to whet yawls appetites. (the image below is grainy, click to get a better one).
PS: I fiddled with some HTML, let me know if the blog isn't displaying okay. Thx
PS: I fiddled with some HTML, let me know if the blog isn't displaying okay. Thx
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Art photos
Click on the images to go to the Flickr page with some detail about the photo. (Once you are on the flickr page, you can navigate to the other photos directly without coming back to this page)
And more updates
Some follow-ups on stuff I talked about earlier in the blog:
Book business idea: One of the ideas I had was to buy good used books in the US and sell them in India. There seemed to be an 'arbitrage' opportunity here, based on talking to a bookshop owner here. Since then this idea has languished. Initial impression is that there aren't that many good used books available at really low ($1 - $2) prices. I nevertheless want to do atleast a 'pilot' for my own satisfaction and see how it goes.
Tinnitus: I had talked about a persistent ringing in the ears due to neglecting a bad cold. Its still there and is permanent as I suspected. It doesn't cause any issues, but I was pretty upset about it for a while. I haven't gone to see a doctor about it. I should.
Fab India: We went back and bought a very nice bedsheet at Fab India:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29439415@N00/121670901/
It cost about 700/- . That takes care of my perceived obligation to support Fab India. Atleast for this year.
Art: I also blogged about an art exhibition that I went to. I got the idea of taking photograps of some of the artwork, from a book I bought at the exhibition. So I'm uploading some of the photos for those who might be interested. The quality of the photos is obviously not great given how they were taken but still might be of interest. See the next post for the photos.
Endnote:
Priya and I went to Belur, Halebid and Sravanabelgola last week (on Ugadi day) on a KSTDC tour. It was very nice but not necessarily blog material. I want to write something brief about it if I get a chance. Let me just say now: Bahabuli rocks okay !
Book business idea: One of the ideas I had was to buy good used books in the US and sell them in India. There seemed to be an 'arbitrage' opportunity here, based on talking to a bookshop owner here. Since then this idea has languished. Initial impression is that there aren't that many good used books available at really low ($1 - $2) prices. I nevertheless want to do atleast a 'pilot' for my own satisfaction and see how it goes.
Tinnitus: I had talked about a persistent ringing in the ears due to neglecting a bad cold. Its still there and is permanent as I suspected. It doesn't cause any issues, but I was pretty upset about it for a while. I haven't gone to see a doctor about it. I should.
Fab India: We went back and bought a very nice bedsheet at Fab India:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29439415@N00/121670901/
It cost about 700/- . That takes care of my perceived obligation to support Fab India. Atleast for this year.
Art: I also blogged about an art exhibition that I went to. I got the idea of taking photograps of some of the artwork, from a book I bought at the exhibition. So I'm uploading some of the photos for those who might be interested. The quality of the photos is obviously not great given how they were taken but still might be of interest. See the next post for the photos.
Endnote:
Priya and I went to Belur, Halebid and Sravanabelgola last week (on Ugadi day) on a KSTDC tour. It was very nice but not necessarily blog material. I want to write something brief about it if I get a chance. Let me just say now: Bahabuli rocks okay !
Substantive updates
Okay here are some substantive updates:
We hired my replacement at work and he comes on board on Monday April 3rd. After that I stay for 3 more weeks and leave on April 21st. I've asked that it be considered a leave of absence for 3 months, so there is some connection still to Juniper for a while.
So I can't back out now ! since my replacement is on board. Its for real !!
Of the options that I talked about in one of the early posts: I finally felt that it was not the right time to pursue eGovernments, so told Srikanth so. I would like to be more free and do stuff on a ad-hoc or part-time basis for some time rather than an intense full-time job. As I blogged earlier, I visited Timbaktu and talked to them and there seems to be something useful I can do there. Here's an email from the person I talked to there:
=====
Dear Vijay Krishna,
Thanks for your mail. Hope all is well with you and Santhosh.
The need of documentation support is much...given a chance I do
not want to sit at the table at all ..I am begining to feel less human
with too much contact with table and computer.But then, you have to make
a choice..my need is now..for me the details can all be worked out once
things start.
Anyway, it is your choice. i see taht you need to do certain things.
Please get in touch when you are free......good luck Regards... .
===
I was suprised at the plainitive tone of the email. Anyway these are very
respected people who have been doing work for a long time and it would be a privilege to work with them. So I will go ahead and work with them in the documentation support area that is talked about. Timbaktu has many donors and donor agencies, and one of the problems with that is that there is a lot of reporting and proposals that need to be made in order to make these donor relationships work. This is what is being talked about in the mail. As any reader of this blog will have found out I can write indefinitely (even if of doubtful value), so perhaps I can channelize this constructively for Timbaktu. We haven't worked out any of the details but I think it will work with me spending about 50% of my time there and the rest in Bangalore. While in Bangalore I can try to do some other stuff so I widen the range of contacts and exposures and learnings.
Sound reasonable ?
There are atleast two things that I haven't followed up on yet, one to meet the people at Rural Innovations Network, and the other to meet the IIT-ians doing organic farming somewhere in Karnataka. Initially I thought that I should rigourously follow the original plan and meet them before deciding what to do. But it just wasn't happening, I wasn't able to make the time and logistics work to meet them. Anyway the Timbuktu opportunity is a good one and I don't want to make a long drawn out decision. I will talk to these other people anyway when I get the chance.
And some other stuff:
Priya has been talking to various animation institutes about taking a course and switching to the animation/graphics industry. Prospects in that industry seem very bright, but it will be tough to make the transition.
Priya's hols are coming up and I would like very much for us to take a European vacation. There is lot of documentation for the visa formalities and I am bottlenecked there currently.
We hired my replacement at work and he comes on board on Monday April 3rd. After that I stay for 3 more weeks and leave on April 21st. I've asked that it be considered a leave of absence for 3 months, so there is some connection still to Juniper for a while.
So I can't back out now ! since my replacement is on board. Its for real !!
Of the options that I talked about in one of the early posts: I finally felt that it was not the right time to pursue eGovernments, so told Srikanth so. I would like to be more free and do stuff on a ad-hoc or part-time basis for some time rather than an intense full-time job. As I blogged earlier, I visited Timbaktu and talked to them and there seems to be something useful I can do there. Here's an email from the person I talked to there:
=====
Dear Vijay Krishna,
Thanks for your mail. Hope all is well with you and Santhosh.
The need of documentation support is much...given a chance I do
not want to sit at the table at all ..I am begining to feel less human
with too much contact with table and computer.But then, you have to make
a choice..my need is now..for me the details can all be worked out once
things start.
Anyway, it is your choice. i see taht you need to do certain things.
Please get in touch when you are free......good luck Regards...
===
I was suprised at the plainitive tone of the email. Anyway these are very
respected people who have been doing work for a long time and it would be a privilege to work with them. So I will go ahead and work with them in the documentation support area that is talked about. Timbaktu has many donors and donor agencies, and one of the problems with that is that there is a lot of reporting and proposals that need to be made in order to make these donor relationships work. This is what is being talked about in the mail. As any reader of this blog will have found out I can write indefinitely (even if of doubtful value), so perhaps I can channelize this constructively for Timbaktu. We haven't worked out any of the details but I think it will work with me spending about 50% of my time there and the rest in Bangalore. While in Bangalore I can try to do some other stuff so I widen the range of contacts and exposures and learnings.
Sound reasonable ?
There are atleast two things that I haven't followed up on yet, one to meet the people at Rural Innovations Network, and the other to meet the IIT-ians doing organic farming somewhere in Karnataka. Initially I thought that I should rigourously follow the original plan and meet them before deciding what to do. But it just wasn't happening, I wasn't able to make the time and logistics work to meet them. Anyway the Timbuktu opportunity is a good one and I don't want to make a long drawn out decision. I will talk to these other people anyway when I get the chance.
And some other stuff:
Priya has been talking to various animation institutes about taking a course and switching to the animation/graphics industry. Prospects in that industry seem very bright, but it will be tough to make the transition.
Priya's hols are coming up and I would like very much for us to take a European vacation. There is lot of documentation for the visa formalities and I am bottlenecked there currently.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Water and stuff
I am reading a very erudite and impressive book on water called "Water: Perspectives, Issues, Concerns". Here is a solid indictment of modern life from it, in one punchy paragraph:
"Large dams are only one aspect or feature of the modern world. It is possible to marshal an impressive array of evidence against dams; but it is equally possible to build up a strong case against other symbols of 'development': coal-burning and nuclear power plants; metallurgical, chemical, hydrocarbon and petrochemical industries and mining complexes; monstrous megalopolises; the exploding number of automobiles; vast networks of railways and highways built by trenching into flood plains, drainage channels, fields, forests and wildlife habitats, and by blasting hillsides and tunnelling through mountains; the onslaught on aquatic life by giant trawlers and whaling vessels; the staggering global trade in oil and the ever-present threat of oil spills and so on. All these are manifestations of a certain conception of 'development' and a related attitude to nature. At the moment it is difficult to see how a change of direction is going to be brought about and possible doom averted."
Discuss.
"Large dams are only one aspect or feature of the modern world. It is possible to marshal an impressive array of evidence against dams; but it is equally possible to build up a strong case against other symbols of 'development': coal-burning and nuclear power plants; metallurgical, chemical, hydrocarbon and petrochemical industries and mining complexes; monstrous megalopolises; the exploding number of automobiles; vast networks of railways and highways built by trenching into flood plains, drainage channels, fields, forests and wildlife habitats, and by blasting hillsides and tunnelling through mountains; the onslaught on aquatic life by giant trawlers and whaling vessels; the staggering global trade in oil and the ever-present threat of oil spills and so on. All these are manifestations of a certain conception of 'development' and a related attitude to nature. At the moment it is difficult to see how a change of direction is going to be brought about and possible doom averted."
Discuss.
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