Lambada's in Andhra Pradesh

Lambada’s the migrant people can be found in almost all states of India. Their wealth is cattle and they live in settlements called “Thandas” in groups. Classified under scheduled tribes they speak a mixture of Sanskrit, Marathi and Rajasthani, there is no written form of their language.

Some among the community have progressed well and moved on do to well but significant majority of the lambada’s are still illiterate and suffer economically. Due to their migrant nature no one seems to own their problems.

I met a group of lambada’s in my village who came with their cattle herd from a different district in search of work during the offseason. I talked to their leader Mr. Bhikhu Naik who talked about lack of help from government for their community.

My interview with Mr. Bhikhu is posted at http://youtu.be/cFZuraCbh3o.

Elections and Debates

Last couple of weeks we saw the political drama unfold in the election going states, we can be proud of managing such complex electoral challenges (every other election in the world dwarfs to our elections in terms of size and complexity), a true tribute to the spirit of democracy in Indians. Unfortunately our achievement ends here, we are yet to mature in having real issues come out for debate in the electoral process.

We are happy to see our political leaders slug it out in the open and through abuses and allegations against each other but not engaging in real debate on the issues that impact the citizens on a daily basis. Political parties are fine doing this way since they do not have answers for the issues that need debate. They are comfortable belching out rubbish on their opponent’s day in and out.

For example In UP it is Muslims Vs Hindus (Hindus vs. Yadavs vs. OBCs vs. Dalits) vs. Regional parties vs. Regions. Political parties spend time only in managing caste and religion equations. There is no time for real issues. They know it is futile to discuss real issues. 50% of the electorate in the country is still illiterate and they are gullible, our political parties are aware of that. In UP it was promises about reservations for so and so group not about universally common issue regarding child mal-nutrition, female foeticide or education.

Parties have silly manifestos which basically promise everything to everyone.They themselves junk it post declaring the manifesto.

This is going on for a long time and is a cause of worry, when do we discuss real issues - not in the electoral process, not in legislatures (there is hardly any real debate), not in municipal councils, then where. Our aspiration to be a developed nation will take longer if we do not change the debate.

I was watching Hans Rosling’s “New insights on Poverty” – he talks about elements of “dimensions of development “ namely - Human rights, Environment, Governance, Economic growth, Education, Healthcare and Culture. All relevant for a country which aspires to be a super power, but who is talking about these.

Governance is at the heart of all the above dimensions, are we not sure that we are perhaps one of the most poorly governed country. Take any dimension of governance we will fall short.

Having said that kudos to the Election Commission for having added one more feather in its cap. EC and RBI are examples of how strengthening institutions will lead to positive outcomes. They are two shining exmaples in an other wise listless list of institutions that govern this country.

Lake Encroachment - Burgulkunta - Gachibowli - Hyderabad

We Indians are good at forming committes to look into a variety of aspects and so there is one commitee called LPC ( Lake protection committe) formed by Hyderabad Metro authority to protect and take action on Lake encroachments. They have web presence at http://www.hmda.gov.in/lakephotos4.html. They talk about some 10 lakes while there are 100s in and around the city.

As usual they keep kidding citizens about the actions they are taking on Lake encroachments. I have posted a video about Burgulkunta Lake in the heart of Gachibowli economic zone. It is a straight case of criminal negligence by the authorities while the Lake is dying. Fishermen used to fish in the lake and sell their wares in the weekend market. All fish died beacuse of sewage being dumped into the lake by a hotel and apartment complexes.

The video of the sad state of the lake is posted at this address - http://youtu.be/irUNnbRm8LY.

Land sharks eating up lakes in Hyderabad - A video about Bachukunta lake, Chandanagar, Hyderabad

Natural resources are plundered with impunity across the country on a daily basis. Lakes in cities are an object of fascination for the real estate and construction companies, they build so called“Lake view villas and apartments”.

Hyderabad city is dotted with many lakes which used to be the source of drinking water and acted as reservoirs. With rapid urbanization most have these lakes have been encroached upon. Most of them have vanished and whatever are left are being destroyed with housing complexes coming around them.

It is the filthy collaboration between municipal authorities, builders and politicians that is destroying whatever natural remains in our cities.

The enclosed video is about the sad story about the death of “ Bachukunta lake” in Chandanagar, Hyderabad.


http://youtu.be/QgckmW5qoHg

Statues sans message

Symbolism is an important aspect in India's culture, it is evident in our great classics and in drama. While symbolism conveys its subtle message in lietrature and drama it is misused in politics and public life.

One of the symbolic aspects in our public life is statues of all and sundry at road junctions. There are so many of them they are an irritation and obstruction to traffic. This type of symbolism that should be used to convey a message has been abused. A statue of a great personality should convey a subtle message of what he/she stood for, for Ex Gandhi for non-violence, Ambedkar - uplifting the poor/downtrodden etc. Statue should stir your emotions, they should not make you disregard that personality, there are so many Gandhi statues no one cares for their maintenance, forget about his message.

Today we have statues of murderers, caste laeders, leaders who practice identity politics etc. They are all over the country landscape, those who have achieved little and had no universal message.

There should be a law to restict this menace. Ironically there are roads in the country named after tyrants, one of them is in Hyderabad in Banajara Hills - Ayotollah Khomenie road (former Iranian leader), does he stand for freedom of expression ? Is it not silly to have a road named after an Iranian leader who stood for what ?

Educating India

Governments across the country have abdicated their responsibility in the field of education. In fact they seem to have given up on improving education in public schools. Enrolment continues to drop in public schools with no improvement in Infrastructure and in teacher quality. The poorest in the society choose to send their kids to a private run school ( though they too provide questionable quality).

It is just one more of failures of governance in the country. Sarvashiksha Abhiyan program was supposed to be the initiative to provide ““Right of Children to free and Compulsory Education” while improving Infrastructure etc. Just last year this program was allocated INR 21,000 cr which is big by any measure. The bane of such progressive policies has been ineffective implementation, monitoring and measurement. I have seen as part of the Sarvashiksha Abhiyan many schools in the rural areas have been given Television sets and PC’s, both are not so useful in the rural areas since power in intermittent and teachers are not trained enough and of course there is not enough content to deliver. Example of lopsided execution of policies, wouldn’t blackboards, chocks, books and toilets help kids better. It is easier to dispatch a TV and PC and so a tick mark for the bureaucrat.

A recent study by Pratham throws depressing statistics-
“Government of India statistics show that 89 out of 100 children enter schools in India but 40% of those who join school dropout before completing primary education (grade IV or V). Another 30% of the remaining, dropout before completing grade VII or VIII. Thus nearly 80% of children in India do not complete elementary education in a country that has recorded 64% literacy. This is an indicator of the status of literacy in India in the third millennium.”
 Estimates suggest that the percentage of children who can read nothing and those who can read only alphabets is about 52%
 Across the country, 11% do not enter school and 40% children drop out before completing primary school. “

A huge problem at hand for the country, there needs to be no less than a mass movement to make India literate. Pratham has launched an initiative called Project Read India – it is about getting every child read in a short-predictable time frame” (www. Pratham.org).

I am doing my bit to make India read, please associate with any initiative that helps achieve the objective of 100% literacy. The deity of education “Saraswati” has left our shores, we need to bring her back.

Job Creation - Hardly anyone cares in India

One of the things that strikes me when i meet American clients on business is their concern for the community they operate in their emphasis on job creation, upskilling of their people etc. They are deeply aware about the need for their organizations to be efficient, innovative to survive the competition,at the same time they are ready to take hard decisions, all this keeping in mind job creation and what is good for the community. That is why American corporations are on the cutting edge.

According to statistics unemployment in the US is about 8.9 and last reported in India it is 9.4%. I think 9.4% unemployment in India is a joke anyway, department of labor must be churning out these meaningless numbers. If one were to look at the entire specturm of American politics all of them talk about job creation as the most important issue (some of it is obviuosly rhetoric) but still one cannot discount the political noise and its intent.

I wanted to contrast this with our political leaders, we can hardly find any of them talking about employment, job creation, industry growth,skill building, community etc. Our political space is so self serving and corrupt they do not have time for the most important aspect that drives country's productivity and economic growth. We can add the bureacracy to this list of self serving egoistic group that cares a damn for the citizen.

We should give a new syllabi to our political masters to talk about,for long they are stuck in their old rhetoric, we should force them to talk about the new agenda for India - education, health care, job creation should be the new topics they should accuse each other of failing to do much. Some thing will come out of such a battle.