America's Weapons of Mass Distortion

The United States of America probably has the largest collection of nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, missiles and other such weapons, using which it can devastate any area in a short time. It however, possesses another set of weapons, which over a longer period of time destroy the independent opinion that a society might have about any particular subject. These are the Hollywood studios that regularly dish out various movies, documentaries, serials.

Take an example of the Soviet bloc and communism. In any documentary, movie or series, the Soviets are depicted as tyrant and as autocrats who care nothing about the common man. In contrast, the American ruling class and decision making is shown as if they always had the common man's interests in mind before taking any decision. We agree to the fact that dissent was never permitted in any Communist countries. But it is too far fetching to imagine that everyone at the top would have been ruthless and heartless. I was watching a NatGeo documentary titled "Space Race". The documentary traces the development of rockets for military purposes and the race between the USSR and USA to dominate the space. The documentary is presented in a dramatised version. It starts from the fag-end of World War 2 (WW-2) and ends with the Apollo-11 mission.

Towards the end of WW-2, the Americans are the first to discover the presence of V-2 missiles which were based on the principles of a rocket. They try to dismantle a plant that manufactures the V-2 missiles (which falls in Soviet territory after Germany was divided at the end of the war) and take it to the US occupied area of Germany so the their scientists can reverse engineer the missile. Around the same time, the Soviets discover a V-2 missile in Poland. At this point, an argument between the Polish army and Red Army officers breaks out over who will take custody of the missile. Here, the Soviet Army man shoots his Polish counterpart at point-blank range. While we don't know how Americans handled WW-2 prisoners, I doubt they would have been humanitarian enough.

The first phase of the space race was a result of independent contributions two scientists- Sergey Korolyov in USSR and Wernher von Braun in the USA. Of these, von Braun was an ex-Nazi officer who was the brain behind the V-2. He surrendered to the US in hope that they might help him pursue his space dreams. So, the US authorities take him and his team to USA, where he is supposed to lead the nation's military missile programmes. On the other hand, the Soviets bring in Korolyov and "order" him to reverse engineer the missiles, failing which he is indirectly threatened with dire consequences. While the US is pretty casual about von Braun, the Soviets are shown applying pressure on Korolyov, demanding that he build missile-rockets of ranges that were unheard of in those days. Infact, in one scene, Korolyov is indirectly threatened with death. The Soviet officers are shown to be pretty impatient with failures and do not mind shooting off the person who was incharge of the part that failed.

Everybody is aware that there have been catastrophic failures in space programmes of every country. The documentary does focus on such failures in the Space Race. But, the Soviet failures are shown in great detail with excellent dramatics and a voice over which constantly emphasises that Soviets kept the failure secret for more than 20 years. The American failures (such as the US Navy's failed launch, Apollo-1 burning) have been brushed apart with very few details. While the Americans are shown to investigate their failures scientifically and seriously, the Soviet analysis is not at all mentioned. The Apollo-11 mission, which was America's greatest success finds a detailed mention in the documentary. USSR's efforts have not been detailed exhaustively. Only their efforts in building the rockets and the capsule have been mentioned.

Thus, through the entire documentary, USSR's space programme is made to look a bit ad-hoc and completed through trial and error rather than solid scientific foundation. The US space programme is made to look as if they wanted to be scientifically pretty sound about every small thing, before any rocket was launched. For e.g. von Braun is shown testing the heat shield that would go onto the capsule, but Korolyov is not shown doing any such thing.

Such depiction of Soviets has been common. Hollywood movies are known to show tyrant Soviets and compassionate Americans. The entire Rambo series (barring the latest) is one such example. In Vietnam, the US's excesses are glossed over. The US fighting the Soviets through jihadis in Afghanistan is glossed over. In Rocky-4, Rocky is shown beating a much stronger and better boxer. The movie shows Rocky being given shabby treatment facilities in USSR, while the Soviet boxer is given proper training facilities, when he had previously come to the US. There are many more examples, where Hollywood has put various communities in bad light. Most of these communities were or are involved in some kind of tussle with the US. The US has used its propaganda machinery in an admirable manner. These Weapons of Mass Distortion can twist the thinking of entire communities in the way the US government wants them to be seen.

When Nature helps

Ever wondered, why do the trees seem so barren in the winter? Or why do some trees litter the ground with flowers during summer? It so happens that some trees cannot withstand the winter winds, so they try to stay as barren as possible. This reduces the torque exerted by the wind force on the trunk of the tree, thus saving it from being possibly uprooted. The season of winter also brings in a lot of dryness in the weather with it. This causes the soil to lose its moisture content. The soil which was held together with the moisture, now becomes loose and has a chance of being eroded away with the winds. How does nature prevent the erosion of the fertile top layer of the soil?

Remember the fall season? In the fall season, many trees begin to shed their leaves slowly and become bare by the beginning of winter. Once the winter winds start blowing, these fallen leaves, that have covered the earth, prevent the loose top soil from being eroded, thus protecting its fertility. The soil, which benefits the tree by providing various nutrients, water, etc. is benefited by the act of trees in the winter.

Come spring-time, the trees blossom and bear new leaves and attractive flowers. During the summer, these leaves protect the earth below from getting overheated and provide passers-by a relief from the oppressive heat. By maintaining the shade, the leaves slow-down further loss of moisture. Some trees shed their flowers onto the soil below, thus protecting it from any further erosion. Thus, during summer time too, the soil is protected by the trees in return for the help provided by the soil.

What do we have to learn from this? Is there a lesson in there? Yes, I believe, there is an important lesson to be learnt. Even as the tree fights for its survival (as in the winter), it does so without harming the soil. Instead, it helps the soil survive by shedding leaves. If the top soil is lost, the fertile nutrients are lost. Also, dust flying around causes various health problems to other living species. The trees, therefore not only ensures their survival (by shedding leaves and by protecting the top layer of the soil) but also help the other species by not allowing the top soil to fly around. In their happier times too, (spring and summer) the trees maintain their helping hand. They provide shade, protect the earth from overheating and provide a visual treat in the form of blossoming flowers. Isn't this the very basic form of inclusive growth, where every stakeholder benefits from the other and every stake holder tries to protect the other by helping in every possible form?

Unfair competition

With the government being lawmaker, it can decide the rules of the game and make the others play according to those rules. Many times, these rules are in favour of the minority stake holders of the government. For e.g. government employees form a minuscule percentage of the entire workforce. But most of the employment and labour rules are in favour of these minuscule minorities, thus stifling many business plans.

Off-late, the government wants greater participation of private industries in the non-core areas of the government operated institutes, businesses, etc. But, here too, it is not ready to give the private sector a fair chance for competition. One glaring example is the case of fuel retailing. While the government has offered oil bonds to state-run oil industries in order to offset their losses, it has not provided any help to Reliance and Essar, who have to dig in their own pockets to absorb the loss due to under pricing of petrol and diesel. As a result, Reliance announced the closure of several of its petrol pumps, resulting in job loss to all those directly and indirectly employed in those pumps.

In IIT Bombay, which is a government run institute, the government slowly wants to pull out of non-core areas and instead deploy private companies to take care of those works. The institute's house keeping staff is being replaced with people from private professional house-keeping companies. The messes in new hostels are being operated by private caterers instead of government employees. But, here comes the hypocrisy in the government's intentions of privatisation. While the institute authorities have permission from the Petroleum Ministry to use domestic gas cylinders (cost = approx. Rs. 320) in the government operated messes, the private messes are asked to operate on commercial gas cylinders (cost = approx. Rs 1000). The messes require around 10 cylinders everyday (for inmate strength of around 400). In spite of this, the private mess operators are able to provide food to the hostel residents at cost that is lower than government operated messes, with better service, of course. But the private messes have to operate with a lot of constraints. For e.g., while in government operated messes, sweet, in dinner, is served with no restriction on the amount, in the private mess there is a strict restriction. The caterers running these messes themselves acknowledge that if permitted to use domestic cylinders for cooking, they could further reduce the costs. This move is beneficial to the students as it reduces the expenses on food by some extent. It also provides a fair platform for comparison of the government run messes and privatised messes. But the institute authorities have done nothing to take up this case with the Petroleum Ministry authorities. As a result, one of the most important inputs in cooking is available to the private caterer at thrice the price at which it is available to the government run messes. This is nothing but bullying by the government authorities. So, while the institute-run messes get a lot of subsidy (approx. 600*20 = Rs. 12000 per day for every mess), the privately run messes have to live with the ever fluctuating (read increasing for the past 1 year) prices of commercial cylinder. This is unfair, both, on the caterer as well as the students who are members of these messes. The students have to pay more because of the use of commercial cylinders and the caterer loses his margin because he can't go beyond a particular price he charges for the food.

Economist Manmohan to politician Manmohan

The Finance Minister, Mr. P. Chidambaram, has, in consultation with the Agricultural Minister (plus cricket mal-administrator) Mr. Sharad Pawar, decided to waive of Rs. 60,000 crore of bad farm loans. This is applicable for those who have borrowed from government banking institutions. This move is absolutely acceptable considering the amount of distress farmers are facing. Some of this distress is because of the government's own policies. Changes in such policies are time-to-time scuttled by powerful lobbies, thus depriving the farmer of any reform. For e.g. the Agricultural Market Produce Committee (APMC) act says that the farmers can sell their produce only through the APMC of the city. This virtually creates a monopoly and hence denies farmers a fair price that gets decided by open competition.

Coming back to the loan waiver. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh said that the loan waiver was necessitated by the distress created due to the previous government's anti-farmer policies. Did the government notice the effect of the anti-farmer policies in the last year of its term? If yes, it is guilty of sleeping over such an important issue and should be promptly punished for doing so. If no, then the farm-loan waiver is nothing short of a political gimmick. But then why did Dr. Manmohan Singh have to say this? Most of the country (and this includes those who are anti-Congress and the mass voters) respects him because of his honesty. Why did he have to stoop to such low-level accusations? Even the farmers who are really going to benefit from the loan waiver are intelligent enough to realise that Dr. Singh's statement is nothing but pure politics. The question that should be asked to the UPA government is why did they take around four years to announce the waiver of farmers' loans, if they feel that this was necessitated because of the flawed policies of the previous regime. The UPA government did know the NDA government's policies, so there arises no question of ignorance. For the sake of a few votes, a person of the PM's stature should not make statements which can be doubted by even an 18-year old person.

Dr. Singh, India would be more happy if you can achieve more inclusive growth without getting involved in any kind of mud slinging. Also, please do something for those farmers who were honest enough to repay their loans in time. Please do not falsify the adage- "Honesty is the best policy".

Lucknow Chikan: truly "Gramudyog"

The "chikan" work based apparels are a speciality of Lucknow city. I was in the city last week with my mother. Since we had travelled all the way to Lucknow, and there would be no one travelling in the near future, everybody whom we knew asked us to buy chikan wear for them. Since the "orders" were large in number, we went to the wholesale market of chikan wear to purchase the stuff. Since most of the stuff to be bought was ladies' wear, I was trying to kill time in the city of Nawabs. So, I struck a conversation with the shopkeeper and tried to extract some history about the chikan work. This is an account of what he told me.

The art of chikan work was born out of the Nawabs' and their kins' desire to wear clothes that had exquisite designs in the form of embroidery. The First war of Independence in 1857 saw the end of the Nawabs of Lucknow. But the legacy of chikan embroidery left behind by them still lives on and is strongly thriving. And this is perhaps one of those industries which truly works on the idea of "gramudyog" or employment at village level. All the embroidery is done by hand and there is no automation involved. Automated equipment is probably not possible for such intricate designs.

This is how the making of a chikan apparel works. The cloth for the apparel comes into Lucknow from various cloth mills across India. The wholesaler who purchases the cloth is the one who sells the end product. A design of the embroidery is etched upon the cloth according to its end use (say ladies' wear or gents' wear). The pieces of cloth are then distributed, by an agent, to women in various villages in a radius of 100 km from Lucknow. All these women who do the embroidery, work from their homes. Each woman is given a fixed number of pieces of cloth for embroidering. The work of embroidery goes on for around four months. All this embroidery is carried out by the women in the premises of their homes, using their hands to sew the intricate patterns. After the embroidery is over, the agent comes and collects the clothes from the women. The agent has a fixed frequency of touring the villages to collect all the clothes. The wages depend on the amount of embroidery work that goes onto the cloth. The more the embroidery, the more is the wage paid to the woman doing it. These wages are paid when the clothes are collected by the agent. The agent then brings back all the clothes to the wholesaler, who then gets them washed by washermen before putting them out for sale. In the entire process, only manufacturing of the cloth is mechanised. In the remaining process it is the humans who rule the roost.