WAR IS HELL

War, history reveals that it was always fought for two reasons ‘Land and Love’. As men moved on, his purpose of war and motivation for the same started changing. A major stride towards this happened in the middle of 19th century with the evolution of imperialist concepts for the prosperity of developed nations. The rapid industrialization in the western world accelerated the rate of colonization for the control of natural resources. In no time the western world realized the necessity of a huge military for reinforcing their dominance in this small divided world. Many new concepts emerged with the extinction of many old, but human love for power and money remains omnipotent till date.

With the advent of modern science and technology, humans found many new mechanisms for mass destruction. The evolution of fighter planes, satellites, nuclear bombs, nuclear powered super carriers, ballistic missiles, all makes the statement concrete. 2009 saw the world spending 2 trillion for building up their military. Major chunk has been spent for the procurement of new weapons.

We saw World War I and II killing almost 30 million with another million added by the follow up wars created by Cold War power projection and conflict between communist and capitalist countries. We have seen many leaders coming up with new strategies for peace, most of which have never seen the light of the day. The destructive power of the modern war was revealed in the German Genocide of the Jews, American usage of Little Boy, biological weapons in Vietnam and Cluster bombs in Afghanistan. Never before, humans preferred mass destruction to bring an end to the war soon.

In a more disturbing scenario, industrial countries are competing for the establishment of Military Industrial complex which generally involve in arms export to third world countries. This is evident from the recent war on terror where Taliban fought Americans with arms produced in America. This has happened in the past and will happen in future. Have you ever imagined how these terrorists are supplied with high precision weapons or how the revolutionist happened to gain control of highly secured government armory? The close observation reveals that illegal arms export generally happens with the knowledge of the involved countries. The simple fact is that it’s their duty to keep markets open for these military industrial complexes whose major stake holders constitute the top government officials. Also the revenue these arms exports contribute to government is simply not negligible.

Furthermore, ‘Minimum Deterrence’, as the reason for arms race has been regularly communicated through media. They are well aware that people never know what the level of minimum deterrence is. It’s an adage that ‘War is Hell’, something which we speak and realize daily in our life. But we sympathize with those affected by realizing that ‘Humans fought wars, Humans are fighting wars and Humans will fight war’. But what needs to be understood is, as Jimi Hendrix said ‘When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace’.

Why Resource Rich States are Poor in India?

Hey its old news! My colleague was little lethargic when he replied his friend who mentioned that more than 500million Indians cannot afford food three times a day. It’s true that the statement is old, but what sector forms this 500 million. Are they Farmers, urban, rural, or how do you segregate them to find an exact figure? Statistics state that Bihar, MP, UP, and Orissa are the poorest states in the country. But a close observation reveals that these are the most resource rich states in the country. The enigma pertains to a ‘why and how’. And as an answer to this, we could find many obvious as well as hidden reasons.

One of the major factors that curtail the growth of these states is ‘Improper Rehabilitation policy’. Most of the natural resource centers are densely populated, with agriculture being their primary occupation of the people. Even though most politicians point at their own people being responsible for the slow development, there is a dissonance regarding the same. Lack of proper rehabilitation policy makes people uncertain about their future when most promises made in the past just vanished into thin air. Inability of the government to convince people with a well implemented example also makes the problem acute. Its time that government find an immediate solution for this problem as most of the core industries can be set up only in and around the natural resource centers. The most affected are the steel and mining industry which still could not acquire land for almost 30 billion dollar investment they proposed way back in 2005.

Being an agricultural society also adds to the misery of low industrial penetration in these states. In India, 60% of population depends on agriculture for their living and contribute almost 20 to 25% to the GDP. Often a healthy economy has to have an agriculture sector that contributes less to the country’s GDP. That means a country grows when it is successful in bringing out more and more people out of agriculture while increasing the productivity. The failure to implement the same resulted in people being reluctant to move away from their farm land.

The above stated reasons are also accompanied by the bureaucratic delay imposed on various projects in execution by the political despots who fear the loss of vote bank. One such example could be found in a recent incident in Nandigram district of West Bengal which resulted in the 350 million investments being grabbed by another state. Instead of finding a viable solution to keep the investment, people backed by political despots called for deindustrialization. The inability of State Governments to undertake mega scale projects also results in the backing off of private investors who generally cannot delay a proposed project as it can heavily impact their market performance. Also the poor social environment in these states brings out the defiance against the Government.

It’s crystal clear that the only solution to bring down the poverty index in India is to bring in prosperity to these poor states, to bring in new policies which can benefit both perspectives in parallel, to show people by example and by bringing in people participation by winning their heart.

The penetration of multinationals and its cultural impacts in the emerging economies

Love of economics has always resulted in positive changes in the last century, but time has proved that love of accepting the predictions can result in unprecedented effects. Both mentioned above are no different i.e. severance is never applicable for both these loves when it comes to the passion or in fact the human greed for making money. And the same greed has prompted multinationals to peep into any opportunity that a new market creates. Thus created the jargon, ‘Emerging markets’, in the later quarter of 20^th century. The failure of socialist policies to make changes in the living standard of people and the envy that originated out of the high growth of countries following free market principles resulted in the opening up of major socialist markets to the multinationals.In no time the multinationals rushed in to grab the major pie of the mass market as 60 percent of the world population live in these Emerging countries. Along with them they brought in another mechanism to reinforce their world dominance, ‘Reinforce their status as the major soft power’ which started creating a huge cultural impact in these countries.

As we look around we cannot find a better award than Oscar, we cannot find a better language than English, we cannot find a better acceptance of restaurant chain than the acceptance of McDonalds, we cannot find a better movie than Hollywood movies, and we cannot find better music than western music. Yes, it true that they have dominated this world as the biggest soft power. Now they have the power such that if any news is communicated to the world through CNN or BBC, people believe it. The funniest thing is that people are hypnotized to believe so, even when a second thought reveals that this is not the fact. Now they have the power to enforce that what ever they have done in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq is for everyone’s goodwill when the fact remained deeply buried under. Whom we should blame for this, the people in these developing countries or the penetration of multinationals or both?

In developed countries, multinationals are backed by their foreign affairs ministry which is well aware that invasion of culture is the new mode of imperialism. At the same time we cannot ignore the benefits that these multinationals brought in through their strategy of free market and business development. Their role in wealth creation is indispensible. So we have arrived at a point where we have to decide on how we go with both these perspectives.

When we talk about cultural impacts, there is another side that helps in creating a balanced multi cultural and multi lingual society where a high cultural tolerance is observed. These corporate often have a unique working model where multi cultural and multi lingual people collaborate for the attainment of a unique goal. This often inducts a self learning of other cultures and tolerances bringing up a highly cosmopolitan society. Moreover this is more beneficial for a society like India where people tend to identify themselves based on the language they speak. But in yet another emerging market, Russia, these cultural conflicts with western world is often seen as the imposing of dominant fantasies on a failed state.

In an opposite perspective, the establishments of multinationals in these historical countries help these countries to bring up themselves as an emerging soft power by impacting the way in which these multinationals generally do business. This is evident from the western representation of doing business in Japan as ‘Doing business in Japan is easy, but only if you do it in Japanese way’. It is a general tendency in Japan that your promotions are associated with your age, if someone below your age got a promotion as your manager, it’s usual that you immediately resign. This prompted the western companies to change their strategy of hiring and adapt themselves to the Japanese culture.

As we all know that there is no reverting of the economic policies we have already put in place for the benefit of our society, but we have to decide on how to reduce its impact on the millennium old culture of most emerging markets. Moreover, the discussion about cultural impacts has to be tweaked to discuss about, learning each others culture to create a world harmony.

Infrastructure in Kerala: An insight

Kerala, Gods own country, a connotation for the success in social development in India. You look around, you find a state rich in natural diversity, highly skilled people, lowest poverty index in India, highest sex ratio, multi religious state where the national minorities constitute 40% of the population. Ok, you have achieved all this. Good. But now what? Where do you want to go from here? May be this is the most confusing question that has become so pervasive these days. And what our public sector and Government is doing to find an answer for that? And where are those people who fought to bring in the highest social development, and why they lack an answer?

Each time I visit other south Indian states, I realize about the huge wall that block the economic development in my state. That huge wall is nothing but the lack of awareness of economic development and how it can impact and degrade the status that each Keralite enjoy because of their social development. The call has to be made for a second revolution in the state, a revolution for economic development. Our so called people friendly Government proclaim that they have brought in roughly around 7 billion dollar investments in the past ten years. But they never mention how these investments are flowing in and what percentage of that in infrastructure, and how low it is for a state with 35 million populations. A state, 26% of which is forest land and where 35 million people live, government and people are not realizing the need for good infrastructure. Statistics are scary as it reveals the chaos it can create in the state after 10 to 15 years. How long can a state rely completely on its remittances when economic planning cannot be done based on the same? Out of the total 55 billion dollar that came to India in 2009, 11 billion flew into our small state of Kerala.

People who have travelled across states could identify that roads in Kerala are lacking something. They look for potholes. Nope, nothing is there!! Perfect. But where is the quality. In retrospect, I could identify that many of the major roads were not resurfaced for the past one decade. Out of curiosity I decided to meet my friend who is working in the public works department in the capital city of Trivandrum. I have asked about the tender that was issued for the resurfacing of a major city side NH road. He revealed the shocking news that, the tender has been issued last year for resurfacing, but they do minor patch works and claim the bill for complete resurfacing. He revealed that most people in the department are corrupted and as he is against that, he is expecting a transfer quite soon. Further more, I was wondering how our state claims to be the least corrupted among all other states in India, most of which are competing against each other in building up the infrastructure which could soon become the life line of most.

In another incident that came to my notice was the construction of a small flyover in the capital city of Trivandrum. I still remember the fiscal in which the construction started as it coincided with the fiscal in which the famous Bandra Worli sea link work started. It’s been almost 6 months since the sea link was opened to the public, the small flyover for the Trivandrum city people still remain a distant dream. This was also backed by an unfortunate incident where the contractor who won the tender committed suicide in Singapore due to the inability of the government to clear his bill.

All these incidents again point to the question of ‘Where are those bold people who were holding strong for the implementation of social polices? Why are they not pointing their fingers at the government for the slow pace of economic development? Why are our schools and colleges not educating our students for the need for economic development?

The call is not for an economic model followed by our neighboring states, but to build a new economic model which can suits our social environment. Identify our strengths, and to build out economy which is backed up by a world class infrastructure. And all these reforms have to be backed by a call to make people aware of the importance of infrastructure development.

Capitalism: The biggest humanitarian effort

Corporate revenues projected in billions and millions had become the headline of today’s daily news. When most never bother to care for that, quite a few looks up on it like a hawk waiting to snatch the opportunity hidden behind it. For the above mentioned ‘Most’, the corporate projection of revenues are linked to huge profits often exploiting humanitarian reasons and causes. As they look upon the corporate with their altruistic eyes, the most important still resides in the abyss.

Even though many have tried to come up with a statistics in the past, the fact still remain in the dark. Moreover the political or social environment doesn’t want to reveal that for its own reason. The fact is that Capitalism or Capitalism lead corporate innovation and policies are the single largest humanitarian effort in the world than any other. The rate at which Capitalism can bring out people from poverty is unimaginable. We would consider an example. In India, the rate at which people are coming out of poverty after 1991 when the economy was liberated is considerably high compared to the period we followed Nehruvian policies. The rate at which the farm sector is subsidized is made possible by the taxes it collects in the form of corporate tax. And when people argue for the reliability and inequality in the society, it was not communicated that it is because of the improper implementation of Capitalism.

The revolution brought in by the hospital and automobile sector saving hundreds of thousands of human lives, is another significant indirect humanitarian effort which Capitalism brought in. Obviously there are a few places where the humanitarian approach can create disaster. One such example is how we approach the social menace of begging. In layman’s terms it’s helping the poor. But there comes the capitalist exploitation of humanitarian values, which can worsen the economic situation by increasing the number of beggars within the potential social environment instead of prompting him to find a job. Even this kind of approach is communicated as stupid capitalist thoughts.

It is another misconception that the monopoly the corporate or other world trading bodies has, can create disaster by leading people to poverty. But the fact is that, in a clear capitalist implementation, nobody is GOD, even the monopolistic organization has to follow the market rules, which in turn benefits the poor. It was a wide misconception that OPEC can decide on how world economies run, in the late 60s and early 70s. But when OPEC started to control the market, the market in turn adapted by increasing the productivity of the human resources, i.e. the worlds consumption of oil in producing one GNP unit, decreased drastically by 26% before the oil crisis. This lead to the steady decline in the oil consumption and world saw the fall of oil prices to the pre-depression period. But who finally benefited were the people who increased their productivity and their market value, in turn leading to a more money flow to the people below poverty line.

We all know that no economic or social policies are flawless. It just runs in equilibrium as of now. What needs to be communicated is, what can create a bigger change, how can it impacts the people, how we can bring those millions of poor people out of poverty, how we can educate them and how we can provide a better future for our children where nobody talks about policies but talks about people and what ever you do daily become humanitarian.