Welfare, is not a bad word?

Welfare has unfortunately turned into an undesirable word in the political discourse from Delhi to Athens. The Greek public had an emphatic no vote to the EU Deal in terms of voting in the leftist Syriza. The Maverick Academic Finance Minister of Greece later had to tone down its rhetoric of leaving the EU. But, a bold voice never the less. A fresh breath in the hackneyed discussion. There are a few factors which brought Greece to its tether such as a huge bureaucracy but the structural transformation program (read brutal cost cutting) is simply humiliating for an ancient civilization. The Goldman Sachs instruments only added insult to injury. Since Narendra Modi’s BJP Government has come to power, Welfare has taken back seat. The Work for Employment Scheme aka MNREGA has been slashed as the Food Security Bill. While, Corporate Tax Holidays has increased in the words of Development Journalist P Sainath.

Even, the proposed projected 25.5 Billion Dollar outlay (Livemint, 27th March 2015) for the Universal Healthcare Plan in India on the lines of ObamaCare has been halted in the tracks. Billions of dollars can be spent for Defense and Tax Breaks but for treating a poor man for his heart ailment in a hospital is simply not worth it as is putting food on the table of the hungry, only to be feted by awards from the Davos Elite while sipping flutes of champagne. The AAP Victory is Delhi was a vote for welfare and compassionate capitalism where the urban poor in Mahipalpur near the airport wanted to have a voice in the discourse rather the chic GK’s, ironically both in South Delhi. I have very been pro welfare in stance since a while especially on Food Security in October 2013 when I came on Al Jazeera to make a moral case for Food Security. Welfare is often the last resort of the poor and, inefficiencies and pilferage in the political economy of service delivery should not be used as an excuse to snatch away access to basic health care from the marginalized and subaltern. The Indian State is often a far away entity to the common man on the street and a void is often filled by faith based or community organizations in healthcare. There is a point to start and then iterate with the mechanics but do not deny the facilities if proper service delivery mechanisms cannot be constructed and maintained. Building systems takes time and great systems such as the NHS in the UK and Social Security in the US have taken their own time. ObamaCare or The Affordable Care Act has brought in 16 million additional people healthcare solutions. In a recent Atlantic article it has been argued that the social security cover has made America more risk taking and entrepreneurial. In this years Budget, Singapore which has been a poster-boy of free-market capitalism in Asia has nudged to the left with increased social protection platforms for its poor. The media coverage in the Singaporean press has been covering a lot of social stories including migrant worker food issues and ways to get the urban poor at better shot at social mobility. A new social contract for a left leaning Global City as a recent Strait Times Op-Ed quipped, should be real cool.

It can be said that the author has had a comfortable upbringing and what do i know about being poor. It needs empathy as the Middle Class is three skipped mortgage payments away from developing a class consciousness. Ask about being very little money in my account and without work and I do know what it feels like in that desperate situation. Corporate Tax Breaks and access to state infrastructure to develop industry and then call for government to be not in the business of business is a flawed argument. A lot of corporate profits are cross subsidized by the state ask the Gulf Owned Air Carriers. Private profits are just but feeding a poor man is a waste of money?

Welfare with proper checks and balances creates a more equitable society over the long term. Lets create more humane communities, one neighborhood at a time. A policy push sets the direction, and welfare plays a major role.

India-Pak sport wars: Need to get Real

As Geff Boycott once quipped during the 1999 India-Pak Test Series at the Calcutta test match ; that an India-Pak match is a parallel war theatre with the bat and the ball instead of blowing up nuke bombs (in the aftermath of 1998 Pokhran and Chughai Hills), the psyche although is very unspotsmanlike though. A mix of market liberalism and irrational nationalism makes it the most watched sport game in the history. I enjoyed my military medium pace bowling in school and college but a proxy for the LOC is unfair. Expression of nationalism on the cricket pitch is a gross failure of confidence building measures and people to people contact between our countries separated at the hip in 1947. I played cricket with my mohajir friends from Karachi in Muscat while growing up along with folks from Kerala. It is the love of the pitch that connected us in the mixed teams that we played in. Salaam’s and Hellos flowed along with more colourful lingo.

Whether we bleed blue or bleed green, there are more important things in life to pander about like poverty eradication and healthcare access in both countries than a made up media manufactured, hype driven, gladiatorial contest at Adelaide where Srinivasan and his cronies make the moolah. We are indeed in what Braudrillard called the ‘Desert of the Real’. Enjoy the game for what it is for; instead of a metaphor for war.

AAP 2.0 : Urban Activism does work

A few days back prior to the election, AAP was relegated to being an opposition player but after the electoral miracle it has captured the popular imagination of the nation. Kejriwal is the real anti thesis to Modi: Activist, Technocrat and Socialist. Both though great orators and have a down to earth connect with the masses, being original mass leaders. Modiji though with his 10 lakh rupee suit, lost his mojo. The fledgling start-up has received Series A funding from the voters to scale up and be ready for Private Equity funding in Venture Finance parlons. In short, run a total majority government for the National Capital Territory of Delhi. The anti corruption, anti VIP culture, pro poor message does indeed sell in the activism driven urban politics of the AAP. Delhi being an urban, and well educated ‘half-state’ is the microcosm of India. As the May 2014 polls for the BJP, February 2015 is a branding communications win too; this AAP victory has certainly had its messaging right. Local for local, community for community customized messaging actually very ala old Congress but very impactful, in hindsight; albeit, with too high promises and too high aspirations. A dangerous stance for governance, but an effective electoral campaign strategy nevertheless that worked. Arvind Kejriwal or AK accepted his mistake in running away from the 49 day stint, and sincerely apologized at every juncture and that connect clicked. But as the author observed during his time in Delhi during the December 2013 poll run up and the 49 day tamasha; AK was very popular with the man on the street as the core constituency was with the common man who eats ‘cholche kulche’ at the corner shop. The common man was not bothered by petty, rent seeking corruption effecting him. As AAP is an activist led entity, their eyes and ears on the ground was always present irrespective of Poll season or not. Mocked, humiliated by the Modi Brigade after the May 2014 Lok Sabha Polls, AAP went into a hibernation mode during which the Modi wave swept the nation winning state election after state election. AAP as per the corporate media was over, a one time fling. But the man on Delhi’s streets was getting impatient with a too much over confident BJP which had swept all seven parliamentary seats. BJP has always been known as the Brahmin, Baniya led Party with Punjabi support in pockets in the after partition areas. The AAP and its NGO movement progenitor India Against Corruption was a reaction against the corruption (read CWG, Coal scam) of the Congress during UPA 2. The Jan Lok Pal movement captured the moral and political imagination of the youth of Delhi. Many educated youth joined the movement as their own contribution to the country, leveraging technology of social media, and conventional communication mediums on print and radio to pass on their message to the potential voter. Catchy jingles by star music composer Vishal Dadlani mobilized the party activists to the ethos of ‘Paanch Saal Kejriwal’ or Five Years in Power for Kejriwal. This time around, the AAP’s activism was sober sans antics and the electoral management was better, Even with its depleted team with defections to the BJP (read Ilmi and Binny) they captured the right segments with a pro poor, pro minority image, leading to a transfer of votes from the Congress to AAP in addition to its own votes from December 2013. This catalyzed as landslide of 66 seats of 70. An unthinkable feat in contemporary Indian Political History for a fledgling political outfit, struggling to survive vis a vis a powerful BJP stopped its tracks. Kiran Bedi as an icon devalued her stature by accepting the BJP offer to join the party just prior to the polls. Kejriwal is a politician, Bedi is not. The veterans of the Delhi BJP did not like her and sabotaged their own campaign. In any case, the BJP has run the Municipal bodies inefficiently over the decades. Kejriwal is a street fighter with a middle class mindset and connects well with the man from the street as well as the international media in English, with Ashutosh and Prof. Yogendra Yadav; AAP has a fantastic media management team with robust research data to back up their arugments. Of course you can ‘Barely Speak’ with Arnab on the News Hour, the Fox News styled News Debate show on primetime Indian TV. Raghav and Aatishi as politicians are wonderful youth icons too. Nerdy and cool, certainly. AK and AAP defeated the supari or contract killer journalists of the corporatized media in the words of Rajdeep Sardesai (as stated in his website and also on scroll.in), himself a victim of the Big Media. The members of the AAP are normal people and that is the most powerful takeaway from the poll. Normal people can win. You don’t have to somebody’s son or daughter to win. At the inauguration ceremony today, AK was composed and collected. He is the man of the moment. His tenor was of a person in for the long haul and with sky high aspirations of the aam junta, he needs more work and less talk to start of the journey as the second term CM of the NCT of Delhi. AK chided the ‘Big Boss’ mindset paparazzi media for their 24×7 news cycle inputs and asked them to be patient for five years. AK is in here for five years for sure with the AAP. Don’t lose your activism AAP, because that is what makes you different. Ultimately Activism is about Politics.

Modi ji is losing his way: views on Nuclear Politics and Culture Wars

(This is my first post since I have moved back to Singapore to start work as a researcher at a prominent global communications hub. I look forward to writing more often on politics, media and life in general. Keep tuned!)

The Modi Government has to understand that a combination of Chicago School Economics with identity Politics is not working as people had voted for hope and aspirations to be fulfilled in May last year and not for the rhetoric of hope. Social Welfare is in the DNA of Public Governance in India. A MNREGA and Food Security Bill as Social Sector Legislations are may be deficient in its implementation but diluting them to make space for the ‘invisible hand’ of the market is simply a mistake as the buck finally lies with the masters of the day. Social Welfare provisions are the final resort of the weak.

The optics with Obama on Republic Day are as wonderful as your speech as the Madison Square Gardens but the Nuclear Industry is (long in) waiting with bated breath to enter India to so called eradicate energy poverty for the cities as the cost of the Uranium mined in Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh in tribal impacted area. Tribals unfortunately have to pay a heavy price for industrialised capitalism as the power generated is sent to light up the cities when their own houses are relegated to medival darkness.

The dilution of the nuclear liability clause is a recipe for another Fukushima. The manner in which Environmental, Social and Process Risk and Safety Assessments are done in India are non comprehensive at best with regulators prone to bureaucratic and corporate influence and with the PMO acting as a facilitator of global capital, the author is at best apprehensive about the due diligence prior to construction of these upcoming nuclear hubs. The North Block will soon transform to a branch office of the Dalal Street.

Culture Wars, Sangh Style is taking over the discourse on values in India now a days with conversations rather than proper healthcare or education equity dominating the chatter. This is a shame as more than 20% of India are minorities and diluting their voice will only weaken our nations fabric, but also corrode the very essence of the idea of India.

Please correct ones course as the biggest lesson can often be the ballot box.

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