Reading Habits

Right from my childhood days, I’ve been a bibliophile of sorts…the kind who’d sneak fiction, comics et al into class and read them (this habit continued well into my college days) I also grew up in a home full of books. So, when I first saw this post at Debosmita’s blog, I thought I’d take a crack. Dear readers, please feel free to recommend books/share anecdotes in the comments section. Would be much appreciated!

Favourite childhood book?

Many….Tintin comics and Robin Hood stories in English (was introduced to Asterix only after I turned 13) and Tenida, Feluda and pieces by Mr. Shibram Chakroborty in Bengali. And “Abol Tabol” by Mr. Sukumar Ray…I think that’s the first book I had. Loved Pagla Dashu.  

Feluda, illustration by Mr. Satyajit Ray

What are you reading right now?

“Myth = Mitthya” by Dr. Devdutt Pattnaik and “Indian Controversies: Essays on Religion in Politics” by Mr. Arun Shourie. 

Bad book habit?

There was a time when I’d read my favorite books even on the night before an exam….did it before the ICSE exams!!!

Do you have an e-reader?

No, but I have a lot of e-books. Remember reading Mr. Dan Brown’s “The Dan Vinci Code” on my computer…finished it in one go, and the whole thing took me 9 hours. 

Do you prefer to read one book at a time or several at once?

No more than two.

Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?

I get less time to read nowadays….due to work pressures et al, more than anything else. 

Least favourite book you read this year (so far)?

I’ve liked the books I’ve read so far this year…would be unfair to pick one out.

Favourite book you’ve read this year?

“The Argumentative Indian” by Prof. Amartya Sen (finished it this year).

How often do you read out of your comfort zone?

Quite often, actually.

What is your reading comfort zone?

Humour.

Can you read on the bus?

Yes, not just on the bus but whenever I’m travelling. That’s what I usually do on flights these days. 

Favourite place to read?

My bed. Always been like that.

What is your policy on book lending?

Depends on the borrower, really….guess it’s like that with most people.

Do you ever dog-ear books?

Never! 

Do you ever write in the margins of your books?

I use post-its if I really have to write something.

Not even with text books?

See above.

What is your favourite language to read in?

Bengali, my mother tongue, and English.

What makes you love a book?

If it’s fiction, I’d look for a nice plot, pace, character development….I’d also expect the the author to have an eye for detail and the language to be nice.

If it’s non-fiction, I’d look for original research. I’d also expect the author to clearly develop his arguments and present his analysis, if any.

What will inspire you to recommend a book?

If it’s non-fiction, I’d definitely recommend a book if I feel it has served as an eye-opener for me. If it’s fiction, it has to leave an impression on my mind. I have a habit of recommending books to people I know…especially close friends. 

Favourite genre?

Fiction - humour and non-fiction - politics.

Genre you rarely read (but wish you did?)

Books on the development of various legal systems.

Favourite biography/autobiography?

“Spycatcher” by Mr. Peter Wright. The book ran into all sorts of trouble after its release. For more details, see this.

Also, “Wings Of Fire”, the autobiography of India’s former president Mr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

Have you ever read a self-help book?

No….that’s a genre I stay away from.

Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction)?

Superfreakonomics. 

Favourite reading snack?

Biscuits.

Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience

“Three Mistakes of My Life” by Mr. Chetan Bhagat. Won’t say more. Thankfully, his next wasn’t half as bad.  

How often do you agree with critics about a book?

Depends on how often the critics get it right ;-)

How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?

Only if the book’s really really bad. 

If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you chose?

I want to read Asterix, Tintin and some other works in French. Started learning the language too…haven’t mastered it yet. Hope to do it someday.  

(picture taken from this website.)

Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?

Mr. Miguel de Cervantes’ “Don Quixote”…..for the size, more than anything. 

(Bronze statues of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, at the Plaza de España in Madrid.)

Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin?

I don’t think a book can be that intimidating.

Favourite Poet(s)?

Bengali: Mr. Rabindra Nath Tagore, Mr. Sukanta Bhattacharya, Mr. Sukumar Ray.

 

(Mr. R.N. Tagore (L) and Mr. Sukumar Ray (R), photos available online at wikipedia.)

English:  Mr. T. S. Eliot, Mr. Robert Frost, Mr. Walt Whitman, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Mr. Shakespeare.

Favourite fictional character(s)?

Bengali: Felu da, Tenida, Byomkesh Bakshi and Mr. Shibram Chakroborty as himself in “Debotar Jonmo”.

English: All the Asterix characters – nothing beats the spirit of those books! The irreverence with which certain power systems are treated is simply delightful. Sherlock Holmes. And of course, Don Quixote…the idealist.  

Favourite fictional villain?

Shylock….is he really a villain?

(Shylock and Jessica by Maurycy Gottlieb, photo available here.)

Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation?

Anything that makes for a light reading. I have a habit of carrying my Asterix collection wherever I go. 

The longest I’ve gone without reading

The whole of 2009. I stayed away from books, and a whole lot of other things. For reasons very personal. 

Name a book that you could/would not finish-

I have a collection of all of Shakespeare’s works. I haven’t finished that volume yet.  

What distracts you easily when you’re reading?

Work, internet and phone calls.  

Favourite film adaptation of a novel?

Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Without any doubt whatsoever. Also, Patalghar. It was the first of its kind in Bengali cinema. Read more about the movie here.

Most disappointing film adaptation?

That’s a difficult one to answer. 

The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?

Can’t really remember. 

How often do you skim a book before reading it?

Rarely…have done it once or twice, but I don’t do it on a regular basis. 

What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?

If I find it disappointing, I’ll leave it midway.

Do you like to keep your books organized?

Yes. 

Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them?

I let people borrow my book, but I do not give them away. There’s a library of sorts at my home, and that’s where I keep my books when I am not reading them.

Are there any books you’ve been avoiding?

No, why would I?

Name a book that made you angry –

“Indian Controversies: Essays on Religion in Politics” by Mr. Arun Shourie. It exposes the manner in which religion has been used by politicians and political parties in India for their own gains. 

A book you didn’t expect to like but did?

“The Kite Runner” by Mr. Khalid Hosseini.

A book that you expected to like but didn’t?

“Myth = Mitthya” by Dr. Devdutt Pattnaik. I won’t say I didn’t like the book, but I feel it could have been better.  

Favourite guilt-free, pleasure reading?

Mr. Shibram Chakroborty (see this) and Mr. Jerome K. Jerome. These are two people who didn’t get their due, in my opinion. Few people could see beneath the humour. Mr. Shibram Chakroborty provides an excellent analysis of contemporary Bengal and its problems in his writings. As for “J”, he was quite the philosopher, wasn’t he?

Books I love or “the ones I can read again and again and again and…..”

• Anything by the two authors mentioned above, and Mr. Satyajit Ray.
• “Kamalakanter Daptar” by Mr. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee.
• Byomkesh Bakshi.
• Asterix.
• Works of Mr. H.M. Seervai, Mr. Arun Shourie and Mr. C.R. Irani.
• Mr. P. G. Wodehouse….love his works.

(Abir Chatterjee as Byomkesh Bakshi in Adim Ripu, a Byomkesh Bakshi movie by Anjan Dutt. Picture taken from this website.)

Books I love to hate:

Some works of Ms. Kamala Das and Mr. Aravind Adiga. (An aside: Has anyone read his latest article? Can anyone please explain how and why the present BJP government in Karnataka will become less corrupt if I learn Kannada? I just didn’t get his argument!)

Books that left me underwhelmed:

Nothing’s really coming to my mind right now.

P.S. I had my favourite ‘book moment’ recently, when I was present at the release of my own book, co-authored with Debosmita (a really close friend without whom this wouldn’t have been possible), recently. Now that’s one book I’m really proud of. :-)

 

(Photos from the book release: Prof. M.P. Singh and Dr. A.K. Poddar at the book release (top), the cover of our book and (below) me, in blue, and Debosmita, in white, at our book release.)

All my readers (especially the bibliophiles), feel free to do this tag. (Especially you, Paushali.) Just let me know as and when you decide to do this. I’d love to read your stuff too.  Thanks, Debosmita, for the tag.

Celebrations

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 16; the sixteenth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

All of this country has been celebrating this, that and everything else. Deepavali, for example. The ‘success’ of the Commonwealth Games. But do we even think about what we are celebrating? And how, and why?

Let’s begin with Deepavali celebrations, for example. Traditionally, Diwali has been considered to be the festival of lights. It is about the awakening of the inner ‘awareness’ ….. অন্তর মম বিকশিত করো ....that’s supposed to be the underlying philosophy.

(Photos taken by me.)

Its also about the worship of Goddess Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity and wealth. But, is Deepavali about the celebration of loud, weird sounds and noises? Is it about the celebration of wealth and prosperity, or a vulgar display of it?

(Photo taken by me.)

In Kolkata, sound pollution has been a menace, to say the least. And over the last few years, this menace has acquired demonic proportions, to say the least. I wonder, why can’t we have fireworks without the sound? I wonder why some people feel that the celebrations would somehow remain incomplete if these crackers aren’t used. What’s so special about them??!!! I have heard about babies dying due to shock upon exposure to such loud noise. Anyone with nerve and heart problems would struggle to survive those 2-3 days! There is a law prohibiting the sale and use of certain crackers that cause sound pollution, but hardly anyone seems to care!

The second problem that I have is with the vulgar display of wealth (ill-gotten, more often than not) that comes to the fore during the festivities and the celebrations. I was reading this article By Mr. Chetan Bhagat (available here) where he talks about the fact that wealth, even if ill-gotten, often tends to increase a person’s stature in society. And these celebrations often provide an excuse to flaunt one’s wealth. There’s hardly any real sense of joy involved, its just about pampering one’s ego at the end of the day. I also feel like arguing that this is one of the reasons why we see the so many weddings making it to the front pages of newspapers nowadays, simply because of the flaunting of wealth and purchasing power that’s involved. That’s for another day and another post, though.

People also tend to ignore other things like the illegal use of child labour in the fireworks industry when they are buying their stuff, even though they are aware of the use of such child labour. Guess the attitude of an entire generation of Indians towards their fellow beings need to change, and change fast.

(Picture taken from this website.)

What irks me the most is the fact that even though Deepavali, if celebrated in the right spirit, has the potential to be one of the most beautiful festivals in the world, it has become a festival that is dreaded now by people who are ill, or their family members. Like this friend of mine who made sure her father, a heart patient, spent an extra two days in a hospital in case things went wrong due to noise.

Guess the attitude of an entire generation of Indians towards their fellow beings need to change, and change fast.

P.S. Here’s wishing my very own didi a very happy Bhratridwitiya. Hope all you readers had a very nice Deepavali.

(Picture above taken from this website.)

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

The Return

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 14; the fourteenth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

The following is an excerpt from an unpublished paper that had been written by me in 2007. While I, personally, no longer subscribe to some of the views put forth in this post, some of the points below should provoke thought.

The term “indigenous” can have various imports in different spectra of usage. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines it as - “Indigenous: adj. a. (esp. flora and fauna) originating naturally in a region. b. (of people) born in a region.” (The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 692, (9th Edn., 1995.) As we can see, the dictionary meaning of the word ‘indigenous’ speaks only about the flora and fauna originating naturally in a region or the people born in a particular region. However, in common parlance, this word is used to convey a slightly different meaning. More often that not, it is used to refer to flora and fauna originating in third world countries and their appropriation by locals, using their own traditional method & practices. An example of such a combination can be found in the use of the ‘Hoodia’ cactus as a hunger suppressant by the traditionally living ‘San’ people of the Kalahari Desert.

(The Hoodia cactus - photos taken from the internet.)

The purpose of this post is primarily to critique and analyze the several ‘Intellectual Property’ norms & their functioning with respect to indigenous interests, and in that regard, it is necessary to evolve and develop a proper working definition of ‘indigenous interests’ in flora and fauna first. This definition should primarily depend on two points – the knowledge itself, coupled with the use of such knowledge on one hand and the antiquity of such customary usage on the other. A definition similar to this found recognition in the aforementioned ‘San’ example. In this case, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (C.S.I.R.) had succeeded in isolating Hoodia’s hunger suppressing chemical agent, P. 57, and had licensed Phytopharm to further develop and commercialize it after patenting the chemical. It was thought to be a cure for obesity, being a naturally occurring hunger suppressant. However, the rights of the San people were ignored completely, even though they had known this for centuries and had used it for similar purposes. In 2001, the San Council took up this issue with the C.S.I.R. and ultimately succeeded in establishing their claim. As a result, a profit sharing agreement was entered into, and the South African San Council now gets 8% of the profits from the diet drug derived from the Hoodia Cactus.

(San on a hunting trip – photo taken from the internet.)

This example also highlights how instances of the phenomenon that is popularly known as biopiracy are on the rise throughout the third world, establishing a worldwide trend in which the ultimate beneficiary is almost always a first world corporation or government which has violated the rights of an indigenous group with impunity. Other examples of this would be the Neem tree case and the patenting of the Enola bean. (Both instances are discussed later.) The turmeric case is yet another example. In fact, this problem has even led to the coining of a new term, biopiracy. This term, in a looser sense, covers the various forms of power imbalance between richer and poorer countries, which often arise out of the third world countries’ tendency towards higher biodiversity and indigenous knowledge of natural resources, and the felt need of corporations based in first world countries (backed by a powerful nation state) to exploit and appropriate such indigenous biodiversity and knowledge systems. Such appropriation is normally carried out by means of patents, and the indigenous people do not usually receive compensatory payments.

The question that naturally arises in this context is: why do giant trans-national corporations feel the need to indulge in biopiracy? The answer to this depends squarely on two points. Firstly, the third world countries, with their enormous biodiversity and thriving indigenous cultures, provide these corporations with a fertile hunting ground. In most cases, indigenous knowledge is not properly documented but is handed down from one generation to another orally. Thus, the knowledge is in existence but is not documented. This enables corporations to get patents easily by claiming that such knowledge does not amount to ‘prior art’ as required by the patent laws in place in the developed world. In fact, in the Neem tree patenting case, one of the arguments adopted by the pharmaceutical company that had patented ‘Neem’ was based on this. The company argued that as traditional Indian knowledge of the properties of the Neem tree had never been documented or published in any academic journal or textbook, such traditional or indigenous knowledge did not amount to a ‘prior art’. (See this for an understanding of the concept of prior art.)

 

(Neem leaves – photo taken from the internet.)

Secondly, the ground realities of medicinal and pharmaceutical research demand that corporations engage in biopiracy in order to reduce research and development costs, thereby, maximizing profits. In a typical drug research scenario, investigators often have to encounter thousands of failures before tasting success. However, when coupled with indigenous knowledge, success rates often increase drastically. The Rural Advancement Foundation International reports that random testing has a success rate of only 1:10,000. This gives it some of the economic features and characteristics of a lottery or a jackpot, wherein success rates are low, but the fruits of success yield rich dividends. Economic returns are often very high, and can even be wildly out of proportions with the invested effort. As has been mentioned before, success rates improve drastically when testing is coupled with indigenous knowledge. The above-mentioned report estimates that success rates can improve up to about 1:2 when indigenous knowledge is taken into account. The revenue generated by such successful testing, however, remains the same. As a result, profits tend to increase drastically, because of a huge decline in research development expenditure. This provides a strong incentive to existing pharmaceutical giants to indulge actively in biopiracy. A news report published in 1998 has shown that 56% of the top 150 drugs in use within the U.S. are based on chemicals derived from plants, and 40% of all Western pharmaceuticals products have been found to contain Asian plant extracts. Another study conducted in 1994 found that of the 199 drugs developed from higher plants, 74% were discovered from a pool of traditional medicine. A workshop on traditional medicine in Bangkok had also come to the conclusion that there is in existence a world market for herbal medicines estimated at $43 million, with an annual growth rate of 5-15 %. These figures tell us that while the potential rewards for the third world are enormous, the temptation to commit biopiracy is also great. One only needs to add to this the fact that markets are reaching saturation levels, and that there is still no adequate therapy for about 75% of the nearly 2,500 recognised medical conditions. (See this.)

The problems do not stop just here, however. More often than not, the corporations in question have the tacit support and approval of their respective domestic governments, who have put in place patent regimes (also termed ‘Intellectual Property' laws) to support biopiracy. A case in point is that of A. 102 of the U.S. Patent Act, 1952, which refuses to recognize or acknowledge technologies, methods and knowledge in use in other nation states as a ‘prior art’. According to this provision, public use or sale in a foreign country does not constitute a 'prior art’ in the eyes of the U.S. patent regime. Since patents are supposed to be awarded for new inventions or innovations only, denial or non-recognition of a ‘prior-art’ in other countries allows patents to be taken out on knowledge already in use in a foreign country. This has been one of the methods adopted to facilitate biopiracy, especially within the U.S. The patenting of a technique to extract anti-fungal agents from the Neem tree serves as a classic example. This technique has been in use in India for centuries. However, this was conveniently ignored by the American Government when it decided to grant a patent on the anti-fungal properties of the Neem tree, and it made good use of the faulty provisions in its intellectual property rights laws to promote biopiracy.

(Neem tree – photo taken from the internet.)

And, nothing illustrates the problems that are caused by biopiracy than the patent on the Enola bean. As a result of the patenting of the Enola bean, export sales of the bean dropped over 90% and more than 22,000 Enola bean farmers of Northern Mexico lost their only source of livelihood.

(The Enola bean – photo taken from the internet.)

In fact, at this point it can be said that these provisions have been designed deliberately to allow for biopiracy. One only needs to look at the history of U.S. patent laws for confirmation. In fact, when the modern system of I.P.R.s first emerged in the nineteenth century, they needed to fulfil only a national criteria. This practice, which is denounced as piracy today, enabled the first world countries to reach their present stages of development. Reciprocal recognition came later, and it was given a concrete shape in the Paris Industrial Property Union of 1883, and the Berne Copyright Convention of 1886. It is interesting to note that the U.S. had refused to join the Berne Convention at that point of time in order to protect low cost publishing in the country. For the first hundred years after the creation of a framework for reciprocity with respect to intellectual property rights, the U.S. refused to respect international intellectual property rights, claiming that it was freely entitled to imitate foreign works in furtherance of its social and economic development.

The TRIPS system is also to blame for this. The TRIPS draft does not contain a detailed account of the conditions required for granting patents. It only specifies three basic criteria for conferring patent rights: novelty, inventive step and applicability. The emphasis is on protecting such rights and enforcing them. Article 27 of TRIPS is based on the draft Patent Harmonization Treaty prepared by WIPO, which was abandoned in 1991. From this draft, provisions were borrowed selectively so as to favour patent owners. This emphasis on safeguarding the right of patent holders has meant that Article 27 does not define its three criteria, or for that matter, clarify the difference between a discovery and an invention/innovation. The result has been a commodification of traditional knowledge.

In fact, such overt protection to corporations indulging in biopiracy has given rise to allegations, fears & speculation that the first world countries have formulated a policy to exploit the entire world’s biodiversity as a part of their expansionist policies. Weaker third world nation states have been coerced into joining the W.T.O. and the TRIPS arrangements, thereby opening up their markets and economies for exploitation, while they are forced into implementing ‘product patent’ systems in their legal systems. This, again, ensures that the perpetrators of biopiracy have access to the third world’s biodiversity while at the same time protecting themselves from local competitors who are wiped out of these economies. This can be better appreciated if one goes deeper into trade agreements such as the W.T.O. One realizes that these agreements have been drafted in order to ensure that large corporations get to exploit the markets in poorer countries. This has been the result of a realization that there are vast markets in the third world, which are still to be exploited. Another factor has been the saturation levels reached in domestic markets in first world countries. The first world has always known that its prosperity would depend upon the successful exploitation of the underdeveloped regions of the world, and to this end, they have formulated suitable trade agreements. In fact, such agreements have very little to do with ‘free-trade’ as it should exist, but are designed to promote exploitation by corporations, thereby allowing them to do business freely in weaker countries. This is nothing but another form of protectionism in which giant corporations are protected from the actions of the people of the third world, against whose interests they have been acting.

The answers to all the problems discussed above can be found by implementing suitable legal/policy measures. Are our parliamentarians willing to act, though? More importantly, are they willing to, and capable of, understanding that this is the return of colonialism? In its latest avatar?

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Cricket in Afghanistan: An Opportunity Lost?

How many of us are familiar with the rapid progress made by Afghanistan’s national cricket team? Their’s has been an inspirational story, one that hardly finds mention in the popular media of today. In 2001, the year they formed the cricket board, Afghanistan was 90th in the world, the worst at the time. By 2010 they had made it to the World Twenty20. Their performance in the world meet was also quite commendable. What is more amazing is that they achieved this even though there was a real lack of proper infrastructure to support and nurture their talent. Most of the players first took to the game in refugee camps in Pakistan, a case in point being Mr. Hamid Hassan. (See this.)

Mr. Hamid Hassan – photo taken from Cricinfo.

Most of the players usually played the game on bumpy, dusty, uneven pitches. They used bricks for wickets, old, cracked bats and tennis balls. And they still made it to World Twenty20. Support for and popularity of the game is also spreading in Afghanistan. Tim Albone, one of the makers of “Out of the Ashes”, a documentary chronicling the rise of Afghanistan’s national cricket team, had this to say about the team's triumphant return to Kabul: "Soldiers fired guns in the air in celebration, people hung out of windows of cars and screamed around the city's streets and the players were treated like heroes. The next day I left Jalalabad for Kabul. I was travelling in a car with only a driver. On the trip we came across some police who stopped us; in the road were blood stains and spent bullet cartridges - only minutes before, we were told, the police had been in a gun battle with the Taliban, some had been killed. It was a lucky escape." (See this.) This should be of some interest to India, more so because it is now trying to increase its presence in Afghanistan and capture popular imagination.

Members of Afghanistan’s national cricket team in action – photo taken from Cricinfo.

What is worrying from the Indian point of view is that right now, cricket in Afghanistan is heavily dependent on the support that it receives from Pakistan. For example, Mr. Rashid Latif, a former captain and wicketkeeper of Pakistan’s national cricket team, had recently been appointed the batting coach of Afghanistan’s national cricket team. Afghanistan’s national cricket team is currently coached by Mr. Kabir Khan, a former fast bowler who once played for Pakistan’s national cricket team. Mr. Latif’s first training camp will be in Abbottabad, near Islamabad. (See this.) There is no Indian involvement in the development of cricket in Afghanistan. This means that the rogue state of Pakistan gets one more tool to capture the Afghan popular imagination. Public memory being fickle, people will soon forget that it was the Taliban supported by Pakistan that had brutally outlawed all sporting activities in that troubled country.

The BCCI, meanwhile, has again decided that it is just not interested in furthering national interest. Mr. Sharad Pawar will find time to replace one scamster with another in the governing council of IPL, and he will be busy wooing the PCB to ensure that Mr. John Howard is kept away from the ICC. He will, however, do nothing to ensure that India that India has a stake in the development of cricket in Afghanistan. This would have ensured that India gains a reputation as a friendly country, eager to participate actively in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. India itself has been the recipient of a number of such overtures from the erstwhile USSR, during the 1960s and the 1970s. And the BCCI, being the richest cricketing body in the world, was ideally placed to promote cricket in Afghanistan by providing infrastructure and other facilities. It could have, for example, invited Afghan teams to participate in India’s domestic cricket tournaments and opened the doors of the National Cricket Academy to talented youngsters from that country. It could also have scheduled a series of games with Afghanistan’s national cricket team, keeping in mind the fact that their coach had gone on record requesting Asian countries for more games. (See this.) Finally, it could treat cricketers from Afghanistan (and Ireland, to promote cricket in that country teeming with talented but under-paid cricketers) on a par with domestic players. That should help them gain more exposure in the shortest format of cricket and provide them with an opportunity to earn a decent livelihood. However, the BCCI is just not interested in doing anything that will promote cricket in Afghanistan, or our national interest, it seems. (For a related post on the BCCI and its lack of interest in anything but its own commercial interests, see this.)

Note: This article was previously published here.

Wish - (Blog-a-ton 12)

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 12; the twelfth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

“He tried to gather his thoughts together, but failed. The drought would mean a failure of his crops, and would bring with it financial ruin for him and his family. He could not bear to think of the shame that would come with his failure to repay the village money lender. And then he saw the bottle of pesticide, half empty. He had bought the most expensive brand of pesticide this year, hoping and praying for an excellent harvest that would take him out of poverty forever. And he realized that the potent pesticide would be an answer to his final problem. He knew then what his last wish was, the Indian farmer.”

The problems with agriculture in India are many – inadequate credit facilities for farmers, markets that are controlled by speculators, little or no support from state governments, lack of storage facilities…the list is endless. Prof. Amartya Sen once commented that if all the bags containing food crop that is rotting in India’s go-downs are put together, it would be enough for humanity to build a staircase from the earth to the moon. So one can presume that lack of foodgrains isn’t an issue, problems arise because they aren’t reaching the poor, including those who grow such crops.

More than 17,500 farmers a year killed themselves between 2002 and 2006, according to experts who have analyzed government statistics. In 2006, the state of Maharashtra, with 4,453 farmers’ suicides accounted for over a quarter of the all-India total of 17,060. According to government data, over 5,000 farmers committed suicide between 2005-2009 in Maharashtra, while 1,313 cases were reported by Andhra Pradesh between 2005 and 2007. In Karnataka the number stood at 1,003, for the period 2005 - 2009. In the last four years, cases there were about 905 cases in Kerala, 387 in Gujarat, 75 in Punjab and 26 in Tamil Nadu. In April 2009, the state of Chattisgarh reported that 1,500 farmers committed suicide due to debt and crop failure. Farmers often have to take loans from money lenders because of a lack of alternatives, and if the crops fail, they are left with no choice but to commit suicide. 

 

(The table above was published in the Hindu. The link is given below.)

For a better understanding of the problems related to farmer suicide, see this, this and this.

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Gender Stereotypes and Me (Of All People!!)

A couple of days back, yours truly was tagged in a post on gender stereotypes by a fellow blogger who blogs here. Her post was about trying to prove that a girl could be a girl without being unneccesarily girly about it, and she requested me to try and come up with something similar (for the opposite sex, of course!) and after due consideration and deliberation, I decided to give it a try. (When else can a guy do when he’s egged on by a fellow blogger belonging to the opposite sex??) So, what follows is a attempt to list out a few things which I do, but which guys aren't supposed to. Proved to be one hell of a task, the making of this list!!

1. I have a penchant for crying out when in pain, especially when I am in the company of people I’m close too. (But RF does it too, as does C Ronaldo and a host of other people….so I doubt that counts anymore.)

2. I wash my clothes once every week. (Because I’m living all by myself in Bangalore.)

3. I wash my dishes every night. (For the reason given above.)

4. I clean up the house every week. (Again, for the reason given at point 2.)

5. And yes, I clean up the loo too, all by myself, week after week! (Guess why??)

So then…that’s a list of my ‘sins’ if you will. And now, after reading it all, spare a thought for me folks. If doing a ‘girly’ task can be as embarrassing for a guy as is depicted in “Asterix and Son” (picture below, copyright Uderzo), imagine how difficult it can be confessing doing them!!

P.S. I tag Debosmita, Sayak and Kamayani. Hope they too will confess to their crimes!  

P.P.S. This was initially started by IHM here.

Escape - (Blog – a – ton 10)

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 10; the tenth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

News that may have escaped our attention during the IPL and the ensuing ‘IPLGate’:

a) Political violence in West Bengal (see this);

b) Pakistan’s demand for Kasab  (see this and this);

c) News that India and Pakistan were very close to an agreement/accord on J&K (see this)

d) A tactical shift in the Central Government’s anti-Maoist policy (see this)

As for the IPL controversy itself, I would like to make a few points.

The BCCI is a private body and that makes the IPL a private tournament too. Yet, when they create franchisees, and name them after cities, they expect people from those cities to support “their teams” wholeheartedly. What they do not want us to realise is that this tournament is essentially a competition between different corporates, interest groups that have very little to do with the welfare of the regions or the people their teams are supposed to represent.

Take the example of KKR. A group of very private people sitting in Mumbai decide to create a franchisee named after Kolkata, and then they decide to assign certain rights related to this franchisee to an actor who also happens to live in Mumbai. Apparently, it is the “team from Kolkata” in a private tournament. And what is the contribution of this team to cricket in Kolkata/Bengal?

In 2008, it treats Bengal’s highest wicket taker in domestic competitions, Ranadeb Bose, very shabbily – he is dropped from the squad midway through the tournament, ostensibly to cut costs.

In 2009, it strips another very fine player of the captaincy and pushes him around in the batting order – once the tournament is moved to SA. At about the same time, it tries to drop the word ‘Kolkata’ from the team’s name so that it can appeal to a larger fan base. This is done when there are no home games in Eden. Once IPL comes back to India, we hear no more of the plan to drop Kolkata from the name of the team.

And what do we have when this team takes on a team named Mumbai Indians in the IPL? A cricket match between Red Chillies Entertainment team and a Reliance Industries team…a simple fact that often escapes our attention too!! But then, one are more blind than those who refuse to see.

I will also propose an alternate model to the IPL. Get all the teams who represent the various states to participate in an IPL like 20-20 tournament. It should be just as popular, since people are willing to support any team that they perceive to be representatives of their region. This will ensure that the tournament does not meet the fate of ICL. It will also benefit the domestic players uniformly, not just those who play international cricket or are on the fringes of the national team. The ONLY people who will lose are those running the BCCI- there will be no money from the sale of franchisees for them. May be that’s just why they chose the IPL model instead?

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