On a day where a dear loved parent is back in hospital, I am blessed to meet a mentor- Mohsin Bhai in KL who has meant so much to me, taught me how migration really works over the past 9 years, as the founder and editor of the only Bengali Language Monthly Paper for the Labour Migrant Community in SE Asia, Banglar Kantha and runs a vibrant cultural space for migrant workers on Desker Road in the Little India District in Singapore.

As the pioneer of the migrant movement in Singapore, he has brought out issues way before migration work was considered mainstream in Singapore. As a contributor to the initiative I have learnt more about migration and it’s inner workings especially the civil society dynamics in Singapore more than any human geographer can write about in the Geoforum or Progress in Human Geography Journals.

Sustainability at its heart is about delivering better standards of livability. Human Rights in the business context as a block within the ESG Lego structure is fundamentally about operationalizing dignity within our communities of affect. ESG gives sustainability to its legs; the indicators, the frameworks, the risk roster expressed through publicly facing ratings which drive trust and transparency.

But are we measuring impact through ESG within the Corporate Human Rights Indicators? We are trying to establish a ‘humanity hygiene’ baseline, the complaints, incident statistics, resolution numbers, access infrastructure etc. It gives a reliable performance snapshot to the investor class regarding social risk, the subliminal cues of reading between the data lines, the grid of numbers flashing in front of our screens. ESG data, as I have written earlier in a LinkedIn post, is an early warning detector of an impending crisis.

The global progressive values paradigm often colloquially labelled as woke, which is often carried over to the ESG meta framework, reflective of the culture wars in US Politics ahead of the presidential polls.

In the era of acute geopolitical crisis with the Gaza humanitarian debacle, the Ukraine War which has been moved to the backburner despite the European Winter coming up, Human Rights and its applicable iterations will gain salience, as a human tragedy is pinging on our news alerts and saturating our Instagram feeds every few hours.

‘Being Human’ is good for business and society as live in a hyper ‘risk society’ in an Ulrich Beck vain.

There are three needs which precarious migrants or temporary guest workers have:

• affordable health care including post injury care
• salary on time
• an emergency flight ticket home

Civil society can easily build solutions by borrowing corporate playbooks but band aid is all they can offer. Time to do more? Think platforms and coalitions.

Karma is everything. I knew how to do ethnography and write and still do. High end theory building needs ground level knowledge, access and trust with the communities which one is writing about. A pittance of a interview token does not cut it.

Transnational Edible Notes from Jessore.

Ilish made by @abusayed2408 for dinner with bata mach.

A plate of food is a cultural cartilage of migrant belonging.

With @liberationx for exemplary company.

Barber Shops as spaces of transnational belonging, as the barber from Gujranwala in Pakistani Punjab started speaking in Urdu but then narrated his migration journey across Oman, Dubai and Malaysia where he has run barber shops.

His knowledge of Oman really impressed me as he ran a shop in Buraimi under an Omani Balochi Arbab and worked in Deira in Dubai for three years.

He has been in Malaysia for fourteen years and is a repository of information in many languages including fluent Arabic. He spoke about Honda Road in Ruwi, where I spent many Fridays in my teens getting a haircut.

As with all migration journeys it has not been linear, with segments in Pakistan such as during the pandemic.

I got an Arabic style beard done at Habibi Salon at Bukit Bintang adjoining Berjaya Plaza, where I entered at a whiff.

The New ‘S’ in ESG (in 2023) is Security: Jane Fraser, CEO of Citi Group

Love the Bloomberg Zero Podcast, probably the best podcast series on climate change and such an education for the impact entrepreneurial hack in me.

Now time for Dr Akshat Rathi’s book on solving the biggest crisis of our generation. Released right before COP 28, I look forward to delving into the book for practical insights on configuring solutions for the climate zeitgeist.

Picked this book up at Kinokuniya bookstore at KLCC on Diwali. KL has a solid set of bookstores for the nerd in me.

At one of greatest sites of diaspora Hinduism, the Murugan Kovil at Batu Caves, Malaysia is a celebration of an Indic imagination beyond the imagination of the post colonial nation state.

The young Nepalese men speaking in Bhojpuri caught my attention, as many were trying to make reels, influencer style.

The Nusantara is a major branch of the Ummah and support on the street for the Palestinian cause is not surprising from KL to Jakarta.