Agriculture, seems to be the most neglected sector in India. It employs millions, its the largest employer formally and informally and is the bedrock of the ‘social economy’ of our nation. Civilization wise, India has been a grain basket-self sufficient in food grains ever since the green revolution ofcourse with some help from USAID. In recent years, agriculture is the sick man of our economic ecosystem, with no structural reforms as have taken place with the financial and the telecom sectors. There has been all talk and no action. People are deserting agriculture as a means of sustenance, as they see no future in post-liberalized India.  The result of this is catastrophic in nature, India has started importing food grains on a large scale from the international market which is contributing to inflation for the ‘aam admi’. The commodity trading has impacted prices for the end consumer and also the farmer with the traders making big bucks.

Futures trading in essential food items is criminal as steep fluctuations in food prices drive even more vulnerable poor into poverty. Millions were driven into destitution when corn prices sky rocketed with the agri feed-stock being diverted from the plate to the pump in the avatar of biofuels. Running SUV’s are far more important than feeding undernourished kids. This Ethical Poverty leading to dehumanistic behavior. It is implicit slow murder of people.  There was civil unrest in Mexico and Philippines in 2008 with price rise. Every society is three skipped meals from a revolution as Marx said, poverty and price rise of food grains were the catalyst for Tahrir in to blowing out of proportion into an inferno.

Then there are climatic vagaries to deal with as Indian agriculture is mainly subsistence in form. Climate Change is making things worse. And then we do not have an integrated strategy to deal with the impacts of Climate Change on agriculture while our agriculture minister is more interested in running the global body of Cricket from Dubai and pandering to Western Maharashtra districts- his pocket Burroughs  rather than dealing with thousands of farmer suicides. An one off loan waiver such as in Vidharbha  can win an election but cannot prevent more from committing the same act one again.

Food prices can rock the electoral boat, onion made the BJP led Delhi Government to cry, as onion is a staple of the North Indian palate. The congress is fearing this in 2014, hence has brought in the Food Security legislation like RTI, Jan Lok Pal and NREGA to save the day. An admirable legislation, for millions of destitute and poor; it is sure to drill a hole into the finances of this regime, although India spends a lot more on defense. A electorally driven bill, the social security net in terms of food being given by this framework is good on paper, it is the implementation with the adequate structural support with a faltering Public Distribution System, a hornets nest of graft is not ideal. Although corruption should not be an excuse for not providing food to the people of the country. India is a rich country, an additional cess or a cut in unwanted spending on defense would foot the bill.

Its time for a second green revolution , otherwise the time is not too far when people will be protesting for food instead of corruption at Azad Maidan.

This year, the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Report is on the theme of ‘Sustainability and Equity’, which is very apt topic in the light of the run up to the Millennium Development Goals deadline of 2015, as finally Sustainability has got the attention that it deserved as a developmental matter. It is a community focused issue, and in its finality boils down to livability and quality of life. Social variables of Equity, Gender, Race are crucial in playing out the Sustainability discourse in the grassroots. When we discuss environmental protection issues, such as clean water, air and land, we are conversing regarding the resource commons. Lots of communities in the developing world live on the environmental resources. Fishing, agriculture and forestry are regular vocations which   millions engage in, for their livelihood in the developing part of the world. Environmental Sustainability is a social issue, as much as it is a technical construct. Technological Determinism will enable us to have the tools to combat ecological degradation but to implement it is another matter altogether, as it is at the end of the day people groups who would use it.

Sustainability is the current discourse, is used in the environmental context, but for sustainability to impact communities, businesses and governments to be incorporated in the everyday functioning, would mean that this dimension needs to be scaled up. Sustainability needs to move beyond its ‘environmental limitations’. The social dimension is recognized but not fully manifested in the  meaning and functioning of the construct.  In order for the social dimension to bloom in its entirety, political and institutional dimension should be made a component of sustainability. Environment and Society are not decoupled but very much integrated, and politics as is demonstrated by the COP 17 talks, makes or breaks any good work carried out by the scientific community towards achieving environmental sustainability. Climate Change for instance is a very politically and ideologically supercharged issue.

Metrics of Social and Political Capital should be factored in to the assessment of sustainability, as without political backing and social well-being there can be no ‘sustainability’ even if all the environmental parameters are ideal. All the environmental actions will come to a big zero, if we do not have functioning communities with ‘strong leadership’. Healthcare too needs attention in this conversation. Unhealthy people make for unhealthy communities, low productivity and cohesion, hence low on social sustainability. Simple is’nt it?

Environmental degradation has a negative externality of health associated with it.  Climate Change alter disease patterns as well, along with pollution which makes people sick from vector borne diseases and smog, all boiling down from economic development and our notion of modernity and what constitutes progress. Does a sick, dirty society constitute to be a successful one even if it is clocking high GDP figures and great bottomlines for a company?

We need to rethink what truly makes us Sustainable, beyond the buzz…..

We just watched another episode of the political theater of the COP 17 in Durban, where the only major development was the extension of the Kyoto Protocol until 2017 and the initiation of the formulation of a new framework which is to be implemented by 2020. Well, my friends in the Carbon Trade will be breathing a sigh of relief! Climate Change is a political issue as any issue related to development is. This a systemic issue which is inter-twined with food, water and energy security dimensions to it. Of course Climate Change solutions will be technological with fuel and material substitution, carbon sequestration and retrofitting of existing  systems. But we can’t afford to take a technologically deterministic perspective. Often the differential between beautiful policy on paper and practical implementation is sensible action. The community needs have to be factored into any mitigation plan. Usually communities on the climate change warfront are so usually the most vulnerable. There are livelihood challenges which communities face, as they mostly depend on nature for their sustenance whether it is chopping off trees for fuel or are dependent on fishing or subsistence agriculture. All these vocations are intricately linked to the well being of the environment. As an old native American saying goes that, we cannot eat money after the natural resources are polluted and plundered. All Climate Change solutions have to be drafted from a local perspective. The urban poor, often excluded from the equation, are vulnerable as water access and housing are a challenge.

Policy making is politics in action, climate change is a aggravating the divide between haves and have nots in many parts of the world. Decentralizing energy generation and sourcing it from biomass and wind/solar is a way towards manufacturing independence and hence social resilience  in the light of an extreme event, the manifestation of climate change. Hot spots of climate change such as the Sudan-Chad border, where cross boundary refugee crisis is a huge problem or the Maldives where its existence is under threat itself.

Water security is a massive problem as Climate Change is changing weather precipitation patterns, and hence indirectly impacts Food production. Water storage effects hydroelectric power production. All these have ‘local’ expressions, and hence when demography gets impacted also impacts the results at the ballot box. This is Politics 101. Lets think of the Climate Challenge issue in a holistic manner, and not in a patch-work piecemeal approach till the next disaster knocks at the door.

“It should not only be power politics. Let there be politics of development and progress. That is Ram Rajya,” -Nitin Gadkari

At the recently concluded, Hindustan Times Leadership Summit one of my favorite statesman Dr. Mahathir said that more the democracy slower the progress in terms of development of a Nation. Well, the good old Doctor from Kedah has a point as he reigned over one of Malaysia’s most prosperous period in its recent history. Dr. Farooq Abdullah, also seconded the ‘Limited Democracy’ argument, that democracy stalls development.  Singapore is a development model unique to itself, where strong single party rule with exemplary meritocratic leadership has catapulted it from a third world backwater to the  global first world megapolis which it is today.  As Pratap Bhanu Mehta in his latest article in IE quoted – ‘Great leadership converts ordinary talent into something exceptional, constraint into opportunity’.  The question which crops up here is whether chaotic electoral democracies truly generate the kind of ministerial talent we find in Singapore- with all ‘A’ players in its all star team? Or is the job of governance should be left to a bureaucratic elite, which is divorced from electoral quagmire, while the mandate of passing legislation and public management should be to the honorable members of parliament.

These are million dollar questions stemming from a perpetual paradox which haunts all democracies. Successful developmental states with limited western style liberal democracy, are panned for their human rights record or the freedom of expression. I believe putting food on someone’s table is slightly more essential than upper class values of free expression. These are all vagaries of a particular stage of a developmental cycle. For a industrialized society, freedom of speech is sacred, but in a developing country strong policy action even if it means not listening to a particular constituency is logical if it serves the community at a large.  No state led policy innovation has ever been popular initially, but in the longer run people see its merits more than its pitfalls.  Such as displacing people for a hydroelectricity power project in the interests of the larger cause, is an argument which my sociology friends will not buy, but there is a price to pay for modernity, who said that there was a free lunch available?

The last polls in Singapore have shown, that people have shown an affinity albeit very minor in six seats in parliament for an alternative voice. Civil Society activism has risen in the form of internet activism has risen. Changes in the manpower policy can be seen with the tightening of regulations for hiring an expat, or the extreme selectivity in handing out Permanent Residency status currently, is in tune with the public sentiment. Political Capital expressing itself in Policy is the USP of a democracy.  But when political leaders fail us, we take refuge in technocrats such as in Italy.

The precise balance between how much political participation and technocracy is a matter of a particular dynamic of a society. India has had a technocrat Prime Minister over the past two terms, but political legitimacy seems to have been entrusted in 10, Janpath instead of 7, RCR.  The strength of Singaporean Developmental Model, is its talent at the top. Political Capital can be nurtured if there is adequate leadership at the top, which is the catalyst for development. Mass Leaders are often not the best institutional reformers, as they come from the system themselves.

Singapore is the cultural microcosm of Asia.  The ‘Uniquely Singapore’ tourism brand identity communicates that’s to a very large extent.  For a person who has very limited culinary expertise, but is a foodie by heart although recently on a calorie conscious diet; food has been a yard-stick of livability for me. On that count and many other parameters, Singapore has exceeded my expectations by a mile. I have had very interesting foodie experiences in this cultural melting pot. Such as eating Shwarma at Shiraz at Clarke Quay to Kebabs at Arab Street, it lessens my longing for the Middle East where I have been raised. Whenever i wish to remember, the City of my Birth: Mumbai, the maximum city is diluted when I am at Bombay Cafe besides one of the many entrances of the unending and ever-expanding Mustafa Centre, when I indulge in chat or a three dollar samosa at Raj’s Restaurant around the same place. Being a Bengali by ethnicity and cultural upbringing, I love the typical ‘bangali’ fare at Salimar or Khana Basmati, where the homely ethos is recreated with the food and the service in Bangla. For elite Calcuttan fare, there is the ‘Mustard’ , adjacent to Little India MRT, for the refined ambiance. There are of-course,  Andhra joints and Chetinad eateries like Sankranti and Anjappar with Saravana Bhavan for veg fare to round up the ethnic Indian overdose.

There is the Singaporean Indian palate with Tissue Paper Prata and Murtabak with the emblematic ‘Rojak’ defining the niche. My reccomendation would be Prata Planet at Clementi Avenue Four for Prata. Ameen Makan outside NUS is not too far off the charts either. Among the Chinese fare Horfun and Chicken Rice are daily favorites, with Yong Tau Foo for dinner. I wish to explore more Singaporean Chinese fare in the near future, but my personal fav is the steam boat although pricy but unbeatable.  I simply adore the steam boat at Bugis and the Satay at Makansutra beside the Esplanade theaters at the Bay. Amazing Singaporean fare indeed, open air hawker centre in the middle of CBD even makes more special.  Malay food, is all time favorite with Mee Goreng and Nasi Lemak topping the charts. cheap and hearty, they simply make my day!

I have been introduced to Vietnamese and Korean Cuisine here, and i must admit that i am a fan of the Korean Mixed Rice at the Food Republic at Suntec Center in town.  Every hawker centre has its USP. Adam Road Hawker Center has a drinks stall which serves exceptional Teh Ahlia or Ginger Tea, or the Tea at Toast Box is truly signature edition. For a Saturday evening, a beer at Penny Black or Harry’s at Boat Quay, is not bad off either.

(This is a sample of my personal experiences regarding food and wine, the list seems to extend every day in the Lion City! I would encourage my friends for feedback on food in Singapore!)

barkha dutt @BDUTT replied to you:

BDUTT barkha dutt
@change_thinker thats my problem with it
Nov 28, 5:12 PM via web
In reply to…

change_thinker Manishankar Prasad
@BDUTT Kiranawala wil always b around, organized retail will always cater to UrbanIndia n not Bharat, Walmart promotes monoculturalization
Nov 28, 5:11 PM via web

The above exchange of views with Barkha Dutt, sets the stage for the burning rage over something deeply effecting all in India. There has been massive hype, over the FDI decision taken by the Indian Cabinet to clear the long standing proposal. Foreign Direct Investment has been a bone of contention as overseas players in organized retail have the monetary muscle, the technology and the know-how for a trade, the Brits and Americans have mastered, with the french not too far behind (Tesco, Wal-Mart and Carrefour for the uninitiated). I had encountered supermarket organized retail in Oman, the first time i traveled ‘phoren’ about 15 years back, they were clean, organised with smiling faces, although fake at supermarket counter in contrast to the kirana-wala next to our building, who used to over-charge us every time we went, with his faulty weighing gauge.  Well, the ‘udhari’ system might not work at a big bazaar, but  the friendly neighborhood ‘Guptaji’ , may lend temporary credit for a packet of milk, when you are out on a morning walk without the wallet.  The discourse in the Media, clearly seems to polarized over the issue, which has clearly diverted attention from the more pressing JanLokPal bill (a masterstroke by the Congress). This what an opposition leader said today as I read in a tweet a while back-

Sharad Yadav: “The East Indian Company came as cloth merchants but the Congress party is giving away the entire retail market ”

There has been Indian players in the organized retail space in India since the past decade. They all started with a bang, but only a few remain as the Indian consumer is very price conscious, impulse buying is not really Indian, we come with detailed budgeting with check-lists at the supermarket. The Indian retail players have constantly bled, and I guess the move for 51% FDI in organized retail is a way of bailing out the existing players, rather than big players making a dent. The technology transfer in cold storage supply chain management is something Indian players can learn from a Wal-Mart, as it offers the lowest prices due to the sheer volume game it prefers to engage in.  Farmers are at an advantage as they hope to get better prices than at APMC Mandi’s. I do not think any more players in the market will create that much of an impact as the local mom n pop store will cater to a demand that a big hyper-market cannot. They both have their own spaces to fill in. Jobs will get created in the Organized retail space as more smaller shops will close as they really cannot compete on prices and services with the Big Guys. Urban consumers are set to have more options and better prices.

A regulator needs to put in place to monitor cartelizaton for food prices, as hording on a institutional level may take shape. People need to made aware of the pitfalls of excessive consumerism. Choice is good, but addictive retail therapy ruins families. In my opinion, India is a unique market, every region in India with its special cultural and demographic needs, will be a challenge for the MNC Player. Getting into the market is easy with 100 million USD, but surviving and thriving is an altogether different battle. Welcome to India, i would say to Wal-Mart, bring it on!

The easiest and the most commonplace instrument of governance is to draft, pass and enact laws. That is the principle act of legislators at the provincial and federal level.  They are called legislators for a certain reason. India has been in the process of bringing in to force entitlement legislation’s like the right to acts: education, food, work. These are indeed commendable civil society-government joint initiatives  to bring in social security for the poor. the Rural Jobs Law- NREGA; is a well intention-ed act that offers poor rural folk employment based pay for upto 200 days per year. Huge sums are allocated without any check and balance built in hence leave a massive opportunity for earning money illicitly in the bureaucratic supply chain. The NREGA Act has worked in bits and patches such as in Andhra Pradesh, but the same cannot be said of Uttar Pradesh. Entitlement legislation needs to backed with the actual social infrastructure to efficiently deliver services to those who matter the most; the rural poor.  These are indeed the developmental front of National Security: for example in the Red Corridor. It is indeed a conflict with a tremendous human, social dimension. Implementing multi billion dollar schemes require systemic engineering, foundation need to be robust to take the load of such large scale initiatives. All stakeholders need to have convergence to a function-able degree. The objective should be the betterment of a few million people and not only their egos and pockets sadly. They need real time data, forensic analysis for fraud and professionals dedicated to program implementation. Dumping all additional workload on the District Collector, does not help the poor chap, already overburdened with work. Legislations need muscle in form of structural support to make an impact.

Another Legislation which is on the horizon due to popular demand, and civil society-media mobilization is the ombudsman legislation in India in the working; The Jan Lok Pal.  The popular uproar in favor of the Anna Hazare movement is admirable as it was Delhi’s Tahrir Square moment. It awakened national consciousness after the Kargil War. People got involved in thinking about change. Those are the positive externalities of the movement. I believe India’s Occupy Movement is yet to come although Mr. Friedman of the New York Times understands otherwise.  The Jan Lok Pal agitation is a public spectacle, real changes are brought on the ground and not on New Hour with Arnab Goswami. The Ombudsman wishes to create a parallel architectural framework on top of the present vigilance apparatus. Additional bureaucracy adds power to the civil servants to extract more ‘rents’ and not to the common man as they will have another layer to negotiate, instead of a single window clearance. Governance paralysis will be another pitfall, as civil servants will be unwilling to stick their neck out to make real changes.

Legislations  are cosmetic changes, what is needed is a surgery. Corruption is a cultural malaise in South Asia, with the Bakshish tradition since the Mughal era. What is needed is strong institution building and not adding other layer of bureaucratic mess. By the way, no one has said of who will monitor the Lok Pal itself, a super Lok Pal in 20 years? Will it take the shape and ethos of the Supreme Gaurdian Council of Iran with our own Ayatollah in the form of a self righteous civil society actor, we must not let people hijack the efficacy of institutions.

Recently I have watched two films that i wanted to watch as they had soulful stories to offer, with a dash of mainstream glamour . I watched Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara- a Bachelor trip flick starring a very powerful starcast including Hrithik Roshan, Katrina Kaif and the multi talented Farhan Akhtar. The film is wonderfully shot in Spain; which is phenomenal advertorial for tourism in that part of the World. The film deals with issues of a trio of college friends who are facing different issues; one is a rich Investment Banker does not have time for anything apart from making money, had a failed relationship with his girlfriend, and who rediscovers the spirit of life when he overcomes his fear of water by scuba diving and in the process rediscovering love with their diving instructor. Another friend, a part of the trio;is dealing with the fears of having a over-possessive  would be wife. The third one, deals with the fear of meeting his biological father for the first time, who is an artist and he seems to have taken up on his genes as he is a poet himself. The film is unique in treatment and has many pointers to offer if some one is facing a quarter life crisis. Very emotional indeed.

Today, i watched Rockstar; a classy and energetic musical starring Ranbir Kapoor and the charming Nargis Fakhri. Passion seems to be dripping from the movie. It is a film loosely characteristically on Jim Morrison, but with a distinct Delhi identity. The destructive creative potential of passion and love is exemplified in the movie. Music stems from a broken, pained heart as the punchline in the film lucidly communicates.  Genius seems to have its own frailties and idiosyncratic nuances.  The differential between the real and the aspirational often causes all the genesis of miseries which our mundane existence. Expectation management is at the crux of peak performance. Procrastination happens when the paralysis of non performance results in fear.It is a viscous circle at its peak.

There has been a huge bit of hype over corporate citizenship and its onus to protect the rights of workers in the past few years. Corporate Social Responsibility and its corresponding voluntary ISO 26000 standard, includes human rights as one of the metrics for good corporate citizenship. This vocalic buzz is indeed positive for workers’ rights in general as the spotlight and accountability increases in these cases.

But the reports from the media regarding the rights of workers are not really all positive. We have had the Foxconn episode, with poor worker conditions in the factories which manufacture Apple products such as the iconic iPhone. ‘Sweatshop’ labor has been the norm in the textile industry for some time, while the sports goods industry is not a stranger as well in this discourse on worker protection. From workshops in Pakistan to Bangladesh to factories on the Chinese East Coast to Indonesia, workers’ rights are flouted without any batting of an eye lid as many a documentary has demonstrated.

The reason for the reduction in workers’ rights and protection has been due to the commodification of labor into ‘a particular exchange value’ or a cog in the ‘value chain’. Classical Marxism again makes a comeback as an analytic instrument of theoretical analysis. The whole paradigm of outsourcing compounds the matter of responsibility of implementation of rights protection and adds layers of complexity in regulatory affairs.

In this hyper-charged age of globalization, trade barriers are broken down and manufacturing is globally distributed. Some firms like the sportswear major Nike does not manufacture anything of their own. They outsource everything, and different parts of their products are made by different suppliers, and someone else finally assembles the product. How do transnational brands ensure worker safety and fairness? Suppliers competitively bid for contracts often on the lowest value offering – the minimum bid. The problem is the minimum is not simply the best for the worker.

Due to globalization, transnational corporations move to unchartered territories in search for resources and new markets. For example, Chinese mining firms in Zambia are facing labor unrest for human rights violations recently. The question which arises here is: Are standards for transnational corporations the same across various jurisdictions – developing and the developed world? Is legal compliance the same in Zambia and London? The answer is sadly no, the institutional power of the nation state differs from the global south to the industrialized west. Nation states in developing countries are simply powerless in front of multinational corporations because of the sheer wealth and ability of the corporate behemoths.

In light of the limitations mentioned above, it is time to move beyond the rhetoric and walk the talk regarding human rights and to implement the tenets, in order to truly treat the human for what the human actually is, beyond the ‘user value’ determined by the corporation.

This article was published in the Green Business Times, on the 7th of November, 2011 (http://www.greenbusinesstimes.com/2011/11/07/time-for-businesses-to-walk-the-talk-on-human-rights/)

In this hyper-charged age of globalization, where trade barriers are broken down and manufacturing is globally distributed; both in the intellectual sense and in its physical avataar. There has been a huge bit of hype over corporate citizenship and its onus to protect the rights of its workers.  Corporate Social Responsibility and its ISO 26000 standard, includes Human Rights as a metric for good corporate citizenship.  Well, this vocalic buzz, is indeed positive for workers rights in general as the spotlight and accountability increases in these cases. But the signals we get from the media regarding workers rights is not really all hunky dory. We have had the Foxconn episode, with poor workers conditions in the factories which manufacture Apple products such as the iconic iPhone. ‘Sweatshop’ labor has been the norm in the textile industry since a while, the sports goods industry is not a stranger as well in this discourse on workers protection. From Pakistan to Bangladesh to factories on the Chinese East Coast to Indonesia, workers rights are flouted without any batting of an eye lid.

The reason for the reduction in workers rights and protection has been due to the commodification of labor into  ‘a particular exchange value’, a cog in the ‘value chain’, classic Marx again makes a comeback as an analytic instrument of analysis. The whole paradigm of outsourcing compounds the matter of responsibility of implementation of rights protection and adds layers of complexity in regulatory affairs. Some firms like Nike do not manufacture anything of their own; they outsource everything, different parts of their products are made by different suppliers, and someone else finally assembles the product. How do transnational brands ensure worker safety and fairness? Suppliers competitively bid for contracts often on the lowest value offering; the minimum bid.  The problem,  is the issue of the minimum bid- the minimum is not simply the best for the worker.

Due to globalization, as transnational corporations move to un-chartered territories in search for resources and new markets. Chinese mining firms in Zambia, are facing labor unrest for human rights violations recently according to a Time Magazine online post – http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/11/04/human-rights-watch-reports-abuses-in-chinese-run-mines-in-zambia/?xid=tweetbut

The question which arises here is: Are standards for transnational corporations the same across various jurisdictions- developing and the developed world. Is legal compliance the same in Zambia and London?  The answer is sadly no, the institutional power of the nation state differs from the global south to the industrialized west. Nation States in developing countries are simply powerless in front of multinational corporations because of the sheer wealth and ability of the corporate behemoths. In the light of the limitations presented above in my analysis, it is in fact time, to move beyond the rhetoric and walk the talk regarding Human Rights and to implement the tenants of them, in order to truly treat the human for what the human actually is, beyond the the ‘user value’ determined by the corporation.