The authoritarian imagination is now pop culture: Stand Up Comics Bharti and Krishna, on Big Boss mimicking 500 and 1000 rupees notes themselves, quipping that the 2000 rupee note has chips in it that can report excess notes, shine in the dark and what else not!
People on Big Boss being comically critical of demonetisation and PM Modi having a New Years Eve National Address. The discourse has indeed changed forever.
Month: December 2016
Dangal: more than mere sport
It is the year of the sports film, Disney has another winner after Queen of Katwe in Dangal. A technically efficient film, is a study in to patriarchy and poor sports administration more than the wrestling sequences. The underdog comeback narrative stays on course as in Mira Nair’s Queen of Katwe, or in the Malaysian Soccer Film Ola Bola. Geeta and Babita inspired Sakshi,are true trailblazers. Aamir Khan stays on his ‘intolerant’ ways challenging cinema, bringing an international film to our screens. Two years of work, is reflected on every sequence in the film. Aamir Khan digs in as the middle aged Mahavir Phogat, and lends a character which makes him the spine of the film. The sport sequences feel like live sport, and not filmy. Must watch, Sultan is a pale shadow in front of this film.
Writing as Politics: Six years of questions and critical conversations
I started this e-platform as a online note pad cum thought repository after years of writing on social media, debating and curating platforms for change. I am a strongly opinionated person, and radical politics is something which i believe runs through the little small talk that we spew. The banter, the sexist jokes, the acceptance of decisions that are questionable. So writing for me is not mere text, but as access points into an alternative imagination, alternative discourse which makes us think, question and evaluate our choices. Change Thinker has since then evolved into a platform for driving conversations for social change through writing from Film to Public Policy. Films are grossly political as is text. I have gone on to write for other media platforms (Huff Post, Corporate Citizenship, Alochonna) and have been interviewed on crucial issues of the day (Food Security Bill, Demonetisation) on Al Jazeera International, BBC World and Forbes.
Digital space is far from radical although politics is embedded in to every search through skewed algorithms and automated propaganda on Twitter, leaving the corporate media machine aside. As the noted Journalist P Sainath quips, which i will paraphrase: Digital is reflective of the biases in real life. AirBnB and Uber are instituting anti discrimination policies to safeguard against biases. How many startups in India have grievance redressal mechanisms as per the Company Law 2013 and Women Harassment Act 2014. Questioning the rhetoric, is the beginning to create a better world. Call the Bluff. This platform is not a PR job. This is activist writing towards a normative politics. Thank you Friends for reading.
Thoughts on failed M&A’s
Merger and Acquisition stakeholders should be performing institutional ethnographies to map cultural flashpoints. Speak with the folks on the floor. Resist a tickbox approach. Not everything needs to be noise neutral. Throwing cash, does not guarantee miracles.
More Forbes Interview’s on Demonetisation
Its been lovely to speak with Forbes Contributor Wade Shepard, in his series on Demonetisation crisis in India. These are two more articles which came out earlier this month:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/12/14/inside-indias-cashless-revolution/#30de32e618c7
Excerpts of my interview from the above article:
“The unbanked and informal economy is hard hit,” explained Monishankar Prasad, the New Delhi-based author and editor for Alochonaa, an Australian current events publication. “The poor do not have the access to structural and cultural resources to adapt to shock doctrine economics. The poor were taken totally off guard and the banking infrastructure in the hinterland is rather limited. The tech class has poor exposure to critical social theory in order to understand the impact on the ground. There is an empathy deficit.”
“A lot more retail outlets are accepting e-wallets, including my laundry provider and my dabbawala,” commented Prasad. “This is revolutionary, and survival of the fittest.”
“This is a public sector innovation unthought of in history. A cultural-economic revolution in the making!” exclaimed Monishankar Prasad, a New Delhi-based author and editor, about India’s demonetization initiative and subsequent drive towards developing a cashless economy.
Travel Diaries
There is something beautiful about the good old Tarmac, the roar of the A320 engine and the chilly Delhi air on a Thursday evening just reaffirms the feel that I was made for travel and for jotting down the notes from journeys near and far. Fourth city in a week, Kolkata here we meet you after half a year, of turbulences in Rana Dasgupta’s Capital and the Start Up Life.
The Sustainability rhetoric does not work any more
Reimagined or Reimagining Sustainability is often a corporate jargon, as a green washing rhetorical device. Sustainability is social and environmental justice with teeth, and the normative politics is subsumed within the pragmatic instincts of neoliberal capitalism. I have heard always that sustainability is a cost centre than a profit centre and costly measures are taken to cover the compliance requirements as per home country legal architecture. Sustainability as a reputational risk management tool is again pragmatic and does not go far enough. Sustainability is ethics, and is contextual. In a start up or the ICT sector it might be gender diversity and grievance redressal mechanisms, while for a manufacturing stakeholder it might be waste management. Indicator building and Monitoring and Evaluation help, but in a post Truth Trump Era, Sustainability might just mean an ethical work environment.
One month of deconstruction
One month of mayhem. The push towards the digital economy is happening as a mode of survival. Reflexive rather than proactive. The dabbawala took bank transfer this month. This was a watershed moment for me. The digital economy has a surveillance and a panopticon lens. Inclusion has a mainstreaming effect. The narrative frame is of the ’emancipatory’ spirit. Critical thinking needed, to unravel the various layers of this techno deterministic move. Overall, the common man is so helpless reacting to various top down policy interventions as a clueless lost kid at the train station.
Change Thinker 