James Watson seems to have been infected with the Prince Phillip Syndrome - this is a syndrome when otherwise intelligent men open their mouth in public and plunge head long into it…..

It is also sad to see once brilliant men, instead of evolving with society and new thoughts — remaining fossilzed in the past especially in areas of society and culture. These sort of views on matters of society are the social sciences equivalent of those who think that the universe was created over one week…

Sure we are all racially different - and we have different core abilities based on geography, history, culture, etal….. But, i would think that it would be more a function of ’social & locational’ factors than genes.For example - a kid growing up at 18000 ft, who sprints 10 km to school everyday is probably going to have a great chance of being a marathon runner, but take that same child and put him in Mumbai and send him to school 10 minutes away walking — it is highly likely that he will be an asthmatic wreck in 10 years. But the same asthmatic kid in Mumbai may learn to speak four languages simultaneously while the kid in the village at 18,000 feet may just be comfortable in one language. …As with linguistic abilities or physical abilities, the same with intellectual abilities — if i am living to survive, then my survival skills will be honed, if survival and comfort is assured, then i will develop other skills… including academic etal…

Maybe, james watson and his ilk will be better of figuring whether it is race that makes the powerful nations & corporations interfere in the affairs of African countries, perpetuating civil war across the board….. or is it pure selfishness….And maybe, just maybe, if this question is answered and peace comes to the continent as a whole… and children can grow up without drought, civil war, rape, hunger, poverty, destruction and a constant battle to survive…. then maybe, we can figure whether it is nature, nurture or third thing…..At this point of time you cannot compare someone living in peace with basic physical & emotional security taken care of…..with someone who isn’t….. It is basic bad science… be it social science or physical science.

Also read: wired — The Science & Assumptions behind Watson’s views on Blacks

Scientific American — on Won a Nobel, Go Nuts and on James Watson’s Greatest Hits..

Technorati Tags: James Watson

Tags: Culture, Development, Science

In another world, another time, this could be a name for a cola variant in MAD magazine. Unfortunately, in our world it is a term that is used to describe colas with large doses of pesticide. Naturally the reaction to it is mixed. The Cola companies are defending their position and rubbishing the CSE report, the opposition is calling for a ban, the health minister says no action needs to be taken, and the general public is confused at all the charges, counter charges, defences and scientific techno bable that is flying around. One very simple solution is to have cola companies print the statutory warning that cigarette packs carry! And maybe, other restrictions on cigarette advertising could also be applied. Flippancy aside, it is sad to see multi national giants, who are supposed to know better, come to India and flout basic rules of health, safety and doing business. There is no point buying airtime by the kilo, and newsprint by the ton to advertise your wares - if you are going to end up slowly poisoning your target group. Corporate Social Irresponsibility any one ?

Technorati Tags: Cola

Tags: Development, Environment, India, Society

Two very different kind of stories that caught the eye today. One of a girl who said NO.

When 13-year-old Minati Gagaria from Orissa bags a bravery award from President A P J Abdul Kalam on Wednesday, she will symbolise a punchy protest against the ancient tribal custom of child marriages. Gagaria, who had almost become a victim of this practice, escaped her fate and a 50-year-old bridegroom by fleeing into a nearby forest, thereby becoming a role model for the tribal girls who face family pressures to marry young. "After spending seven days in a dense forest, I became confident of facing the situation. I can’t sacrifice my life for this evil practice. I knew that I cannot change the system but I thought one has to raise a protest. So I decided to fight it," said Gagaria, all set to receive the prestigious National Bravery Award on Republic Day eve.

And a society that stood by:

She was first forced to leave her husband’s house, and then the family was ostracised. Not content to let Dolly Bibi live in peace, about 1,000 people got together to witness her being caned 100 times, even as the local legislator and the block development officer watched.

The administration stands by as local fiefs mete out punishment!

Dolly was meted out the punishment on Sunday at Gakunda, Murshidabad, for having gone to Rajasthan with a man ‘who was not her husband’ in July 2005. Dolly claimed said she had done nothing wrong as the man concerned, Suraj Haldar, was her "dharam bhai". Haldar was also accompanied by his family.

It is strange that none of the major political parties are doing anything about ensuring that the constitutional rights of the citizen is protected. I wonder whether it is because they don’t see women as a vote block? Aside. in another conversation with mom on the state of the state - she said indians end up worshipping those that we desecrate - the cow, the woman, the river…….

Tags: Development, Discrimination, Gender Issues, India, Poverty, Society, Women

Three very different pieces of data

There will be 18 million orphans to the AIDS epedimic in Africa by the end of this decade.
95% of children with AIDS, across the world, are not receiving any treatment.
And the Pope recommends abstinence over safe sex.

I had blogged about the last of the three statements here.

Tags: Development, Poverty

For me, development is not the number of roads we build or flashy flyovers or cars on the road. For the simple reason that there will always be those in society who have the money and power to demand and receive it.

For me, development is the sight of children from abjectly poor backgrounds, especially the girl child, on their way to school. And a school set up by the capital earned by their mothers.

Last year when i was filming in rural Marathwada - that more than anything else brought hope on development.

Tags: Development, Society

About 15 months ago -has it only been that long? - i was in Marathwada making a documentary on Self Help Groups set up by destitute women that form the basis of bare foot capitalism. Starting with nothing these women have built up amazing capital - in the form of goats.The women combat the triple whammy of gender, caste and poverty. Yet, their strength is quite something else. Their perserverence and dedication to change their lot without bitterness is admirable.

With a certain amount of succes under their belt, the women are now turning their attention to something very important to them. Their Children's education. They are funding neighbourhood schools where their children can study without discrimination.

But, this little boy, like all little boys is fairly ambivalent about going into school. He would rather be playing outside:)

Tags: Caste, Cogito TV, Dalit, Development, Gender Issues, Poverty, Society

Cylcone Pyar hit AP and caused destruction to life and property.

Almost with cyclical efficience, cyclones have hit AP this year destroying property and life. Around a 60 dead (officially) and 200,000 displaced - evacuated with monotonous efficiency by the armed forces. Yet, if you read the press, or blogdom - there is nary a comment about it. Or maybe, i am not reading the press or blogs, or viewing news channels that carry extensive coverage on Cyclone Pyar.

And it may seem churlish of me to bring up this point, but in the west, if a single person dies in something like this it is a calamity. Whereas, in India, unless a 100,000 die it is routine. This is the extent of damage so far:

Authorities evacuated people in Khammam, East Godavari, West Godavari, Krishna and Guntur districts. More than 50,000 people have been shifted to safe places and relief camps since Tuesday.Not only the villages by the flooding rivers, but even large parts of towns and cities were also submerged.They include the state’s commercial capital Vijayawada in Krishna district; the pilgrim town Bhadrachalam in Khammam; Eluru in West Godavari and Rajhamundry in East Godavari.

I spoke to my periappa (father’s elder brother) and periamma (his wife) in Vishakapatname - they say that the worst seems to be over. But, there is no guarantee. You can see the sea from their house in Vizag, and they tell me that he looks very, very angry. Fishermen have told them that the rains are probably going to continue.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, when i studied the media - we looked at the impact of colonisation on how we see our selves. And example was that of Surinam (capital: Paramaribo) gaining independence. And neighbouring Southern American countries carrying a lead story on that day of a jewellery heist in New York. Classic argument for NWICO.

Except that in a India, it is not so much western focussed news as much as celeb focussed trivia! The (non) coverage of the floods in the MSM & in blogdom reminded me of that story

update:Charu pointed me in the direction of Rediff’s coverage of the cyclone. The Pics are from STR/AFP/Getty Images. QED:)

Tags: Culture, Development, Society

The Day has arrived. And after an extensive search through Indian blogdom - this week’s Bharateeya Blog Mela is finally in place. Thank you for all those who nominated. And as usual, this task would have been chaotic without Bloglines.

Announcements

JK at Varnam announces the setting up of the new History Blog - The Palm Leaf
Sid at Patang announces the release of the Carpool Beta - an interesting social software that helps you share vehicles in a geographical area. And with the price of petrol being what it is (almost Rs.49 per litre) in Mumbai, VC’s might start keeping a beady eye on this software

Business

Cerebral Shangrila sallivates about the new Visa Ad starring Richard Gere .

Object Petit M - in the CSF - writes about how Yahoo’s business policies in China have led to a Chinese journalist Shi Tao being sentanced to 10 years in prison.
Sambhar Mafia blogs about Tata’s 75% stake in Landmark in an all cash deal worth 103 crores. So can we see book stores with Chai bars soon?
Kartik has an interesting take on why the Tamil publishing industry is in the doldrums.

Caste

58 years after Independence, we still havent’ managed to shrug off the evil of caste. Somehow society and religion seem to tolerate it. And even today - Dalits face atrocities that would have us screaming “human rights violations” if it happened elsewhere.
As Aparna points out

Again an upper caste ire
Set Dalit homes on fire
What leaves me aghast
Is that the issue of caste
Even today can such violence inspire!

Uma at Indianwriting in the duty of the rich castes ponders about the difference betwen big crimes - setting fire to a row of houses - and little crimes - preventing a Dalit girl from cycling to college. She recommends that we read Viramma: Life of an Untouchable. To that I would add read Untouchable by Narendra Jadhav. It is an eye opener. Abi at Nanopolitan looks at the same atrocity that happened at Gohana - and observes wrly that individuals - even those who should know better - would worry about the impact of this incident on FDI. And Anand looks at the torching of Dalit homes in much ‘more enlightened’ Maharashtra.

Development

Ruth writing in CSF - talks about her work with the Tsunami Victims in Tamil Nadu, and how after almost 7 months they are nowhere near finished.

Arzan blogs about how post independence India allowed two brilliant architects - and town planners - Le Corbusier & Louis I. Kahn to help develop a new style of architecture.

Govindraj Ethiraj - in Dateline Bombay - A Reporter’s Tales looks at the disaster that is the urban landscape of Bangalore and asks compares the work ethic of the hi-tech IT firms there with that of those who provide public services - such as roads and desilted drains.

And, Nitin writing in the Acorn - has an analysis of the Human Development Index in India and our neighbourhood. He says,

India’s ranking is also a reflection of the inertia that has come to characterise its progress towards privatisation of industry, education and social services.

Akshay of Trivial Matters has a photograph that he clicked featured on United Children of the World. It is truly a picture that symbolises hope.

Education
September 5th being Teachers’ day - there were a number of posts around that event. Patrix blogs about President Kalam’s message to create life long learners and enlightened citizens. Arzan tells us to take some time out to wish a teacher who made a difference to our life. Twillight Fairy looks at a sari wearing experience - which makes her look like chirpy Chawla (Juhi) - on the occassion of Teacher’s Day, a long time ago.

Anand writes about the need for a child inspired education system, without which learning may not be effective. Michael Higgins has an interesting post on who should guide Children’s Education.

On the occasion of International Literacy Day - Uma has a beautiful post - Post Card to Akka - her experiences of Karnataka’s adult literacy movement.

Charu writes about the need to strengthen the undergraduate programme
And finally, if it wasn’t true it would truly be funny. Sunil has a wry look at Pew’s latest survey on religion in education (in the USA). And Srikanth has a rib tickling account of how theologists want to introduce Creationism as part of the science curriculum. He quotes from Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert):

By definition, people with bad ideas cannot be swayed by logic. If they were logical, they wouldn’t have bad ideas in the first place - unless the ideas were based on bad data

Facism

Kamesh’s post on Hijacked Gods re examines the Gujarat riots after seeing Rakesh Sharma’s Final Solution. He wonders : “Why do people forget that “Man can exist without religion, but religion cannot exist without man”.

Faderu of CSF looks at Police Fascism in Mumbai in cancelling the Independence Day Rock. Kunal of Ceteris Paribus expresses his outrage elequently on the same issue, as does Amit Varma of India Uncut in Rock is Evil.

Faith

Atanu Dey has an extremely well written out post on Faith and its multiple facets. He points out that only the feeble minded will use faith as a crutch to deal with what happens after death. He also looks at the connection between the Hindu concpet of time - kalpa - and cosmology. Methinks that he is reading too much Fritzof Capra. Ashsih says that we are so busy admiring what we did in the past that we are somehow stuck there, like a broken clock.
Subhas provides a rather impassioned defence on why he has faith but is not feeble minded.

And of course Saket talks about why he feels completely ‘intellectually arrogant‘ in his firm faith that there is no God. Reminds of an online exchange of ideas i had with Amit on whether atheism is a faith. of course it is
Nilu has an interesting set of posts about Advaita and futility.
Sunil talks about the most cuddly of all Gods - Ganesh - and about the goodies that were made during his child hood days. Somehow, theist or atheist - when it comes to good modaks and pedas, everthing is maaf.
And finally, Hemant of Instant Kaapi says that If A R Rahman turns Prophet for a new religion and promises to use his songs for sermons, he would be the first convert. Interesting faith that would be

Gender Issues

Annie writes about missing women. Women who are never ever born. Women who are killed before they are ever born.

there are at least a million women out there who agreed to, if not actively opted to, kill their girls - born or unborn. Mothers who are not facing starvation-level poverty. Mothers who, possibly, were neither unmarried nor raped. Grandmothers who pushed their daughters-in-law into getting rid of granddaughters.

I fail to emphathize, because my imagination completely fails me.

Charu writes about empowring Sita and Draupadi, and quotes Anand Bakshi - “Sita bhi yahan badnaam huvi”
Vikrum blogs about eve teasing at 35,000 feet on Kingfisher Airlines. And how, there was really no point in complaining - becuase Kingfisher Airlines used a marketing strategy that sells sex. All you have do is see the hoardings around Mumbai to know that he is right.
Primary Red blogs about how four women were paraded half naked over a property dispute and how the police refused to file a complaint.

Sakshi writes about Alimony and asks if some women are misusing the law.

Katrina
Katrina occupies the mind space of a number of Desi bloggers. Maitri from New Orleans has a day by day post on the situation there.
Amardeep Singh asks if the Government has the right to forcibly evacuate people who don’t want to move.
Gawker is furious with Michael Brown the head of FEMA - who blamed the victims for not getting out of town. Rueben feels much the same, especially to the US Govenrment response that they didn’t know how severe Katrina could be. And he quotes a pastor on the devestation:

“New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleansnow is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion — it’s free of all of those things now,” Shanks says. “God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there — and now we’re going to start over again.”

Ouch! It redefines compassion and charity.

And this seems to redefine grace - Uma has this blistering post on Boing Boing’s response to India’s aid (5 million dollars and army assistance).

Poverty
What is poverty seems to be the topic of a cross continental debate. It all began with John Scalzi’s Being Poor. Peter Griffin, comparing the post to his rear has this in reponse :). And Dina jams in with this - being Poor in India. And Madhoo recalling her earlier years in Vizag, talks about the fact that sometimes the poor don’t really want to be helped.

And Finally

Jabberwock celebrates one year of blogging.
Neelakantan tells us how to identify anti - globalisation aunties.
Aparna has a limerical take on the Mangal Pandey fracas.
Nilu writes about the pissing contest that he has with himself Nilu, please let us know who won this one
Secrets of my Inner World has a litany on Apples.
Rashmi Bansal writes on a new form of ABCD - Apna Bharatiya Chinese Dish
Dinesh asks “to swear or not to swear is the question” (with all apologies to the bard).
Sulfury has a A to Z of the world according to George Bush.
And, Vishnupavan writes about a number of American Presidents who played cricket.
And the last one is on Bill Gates who wants his money back. Gawker blogs about how Billy Boy mistakenly donated 10 million dollars to an institute that worked in the area of Intelligent Design. They probably came up with the next version of the Microsoft OS, that crashed on start up and imploded taking everything with it.

That brings us to the end of this weeks blog mela.

Next week Amit Varma at India Uncut is your friendly host of the BlogMela. Drop off your nominations there.
Till then bye bye.
(roll credits)

Bharateeya Blog Mela can also be found at The Truth Laid Bear’s ÜberCarnival.

Tags: Blogging, Culture, Development, Economics, Gender Issues, Mumbai, Poverty, Religion, Reviews, Science, Social Software, Society, US, World

One of the purchases that I made at the Strand Book Sale was Dr. Narendra Jadhav's book The Untouchable.
From the author's note, the book grabs your attention and keeps it rivetted.

"Every sixth human being in the world today is an Indian, and every sixth Indian is an erstwhile untouchable, a Dalit"

The book is an incredible read. In the main it is a romance - the love story between Dr.Jadhav's father - Damu - and his mother - Sonu. Caste forms the backdrop of this incredible partnership. The affection, love and mutual respect that Damu and Sonu have for each other comes through in every page. Sonu's voice and perspective and her vision of happiness completemented by Damu's vision of a society where he and his children are treated just the same as anyone else. Not much to ask for, but a lot even in today's day and age.

The story begins with Damu running away from his village to Mumbai to escape caste oppression. He does the unthinkable. Stands up for his rights as a human being. And that in a caste ridden village society is a definite no no, and he gets whipped for his troubles. In the middle of the night - he and his wife take off for Mumbai.

The book is divided into alternate Damu and Sonu chapters. So we see the unfolding of this incredible story from both points of view. Different perspectives of the same event. Parallel events in each others lives that build the narrative. Sonu's incredible story of how she as a new wife learns to 'love' her husband. Damu's own feelings of tenderness and affection towards his wife contrasted with his sense of outrage at an unfair system. And this outrage is directed as much towards the upper castes that seek to dominate and oppress Damu and his family, as it is directed towards his own community for accepting the discrimination.

Damu describes the aftermath of the Mahad water agitation - where Ambedkar had led a satyagraha to ensure that Dalits were allowed equal rights to portable water. He says (pg 24):

We returned to Mumbai only to learn that the orthodox high-born of Mahad had the Brahmin priests 'purify' the 'desecrated' water reservoir by pouring into it 108 pots of curd, milk, cow-dung and cow urine amidst loud religious chants?
Didn't these educated people realise that the notion of purification with animal urine was more ridiculous and despicable than the idea of defilement by human touch?

Obviously not. In conservative Tam Bram families even today - it is recommended that a woman who has delivered a baby has the panchamrut that is made up of milk, ghee, cow's urine, a bit of dung and something else equally yuk. It is no wonder that most of my female cousins remain unmarried and unhindered by kids!

Advice that Sonu is given on making her husband happy:

"Accept your husband. Taht is the reason why we have been given our long flowing padar for the sari. It is big enough to accomodate all the shortcomings of our men, and long enough to cover them with the shade of our understanding"

Caste oppression and discrimination are part and parcel of the book. But nowhere does the author let go of the narrative and stand on a soapbox. And, that is possibly the reason why the book makes more of an impact than anything else that I have read on caste. It is chilling in its normalcy. You care so much about Damu and Sonu that anyone who wants to harm them is the villian.

Unfortunately, I cannot find an on-line reference for the book. But, buy the book. gift the book. It is a must read for our generation. Especially because many of us believe that caste does not matter any more.

And for all of us who think that caste is history, think again. This morning while reading the newspaper this article. A Dalit woman (therefore doubly discriminated) sarpanch was not allowed to raise the flag on independence day:

In a letter to the Bundelkhand police superintendent, Anita Bai Ahirwar has alleged that government officials did not permit her to hoist the national flag on August 15 because she belongs to the Dalit community.

“I was told by the officials that chamar-chamariya (Dalits) cannot hoist the national flag at the centre of a market place,” Anita Bai wrote, giving an account of how she was prevented from raising the flag in a chowk that fell under the jurisdiction of her panchayat.

Words fail me on this one. They truly do.

Tags: Caste, Dalit, Development, Discrimination, Review, Society