Notes on events

China and the US have ratified the Paris Climate Agreement. The two have been called the world’s greatest emitters of green house gases. President Obama called it, “moment we finally decided to save our planet.” The agreement is a major step forward for the 180 nation deal. The ratification document was formally handed jointly by the Presidents of China and the US.

At a ceremony in the Chinese city of Hangzhou, Obama said climate change would “define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other challenge”.

FRANCE24.com

In a bid to “flush militants from its borders” Turkey thrust its way from the frontier province Kilis. This is an area that is repeatedly targeted by the Islamic State militants, firing rockets. The Turkish want to quell the advance of the ISIS militants and also the US backed Kurds against whom the Turkish state has been waging a battle.

Syrian rebels fighting the ISIS have said that they have recaptured at least eight villages from ISIS.

By supporting the rebels, mainly Arabs and Turkmen fighting under the loose banner of the Free Syrian Army, Turkey is hoping to push out Islamic State militants and check the advance of U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters.

BBC

BBC FRANCE24.com 

 

Graffiti is taking a break

Dear Readers,

You must have begun to expect these posts, informing you of Graffiti’s sudden holidays. The problem is that the main PC, ie the desktop PC is having technical problems. The posts haven’t been regular for the past few days. Therefore I decided that it was time to take a break.

I am sure my readers would understand and continue to extend their support to Graffiti. As usual you will find plenty to read.

So long. Take care!

A matter of what to wear

Burkini ban to Bikini ban the world has seen it all. From beaches of Copacabana to beaches in Mumbai there are levels of revelation. The Burkini ban should be seen in the light of ban on scarfs. The unwelcome coverage or lack of the same has caused gawping in the masses. The French are famous for being a liberal democracy that has caused great deal of anxiety in many a mullah as there are a sizable number of impressionable Muslims in that country.

Modesty is not confined to the Muslims, Hindus too frown upon the exposed skin, whereas the men can move around topless, the women have to make elaborate arrangements to prevent exposure. Pictures of immodestly clad women from the western countries abound in the main stream glossies…although the Page 3 from India too sashay in…explosive ensembles.  However, we are here concerned with us, the commoners not the stars who live in another galaxy.

Bikinis have been banned from many beaches in some parts of the world. In India, I think, the women do not like to expose themselves as they would be subject to attacks both verbal and physical…moreover a fully covered female in India is subjected to endless parade of unwarranted attention…from catcalls to lewd remark our ancient civilization seems to abhor cultural ethos when confronted by the opposite sex.

It is rather French to frown upon the modestly clad. They say that it detracts from their culture. I have come to this conclusion: whereas the Burka which is black in most parts of the world, would render a street a funerary air, if there are too many women clad similarly, the  head scarf in many cases enhances the features of the wearer.

Culturally defined mores on what should be worn and how, should be the subject of the state only when a large number of citizens who are representatives of their community protest that certain trends detract from their culture and should be subject of debate. The state should not assume the role of a cultural big brother.

I wonder if this post would result in fatwas or vigilante attacks by our own home grown Hindutva “jihadists.”

 

A little clumsy lie Mr. Minister

The minister of Human Resource Development who is responsible for education culture etc, twisted history in full view the public and the full glare of the media. he said that Nehru, Sardar Patel, and Subhash Chandra Bose were hanged by the British, forgetting that Nehru became PM and Patel became home minister in Nehru cabinet after independence. The minister perhaps thought that Nehru, Patel and Bose could be put to an early end so that history could be manipulated to suit the current dispensation.

Then to wriggle out of his predicament he said that there was a full stop after Nehru, Patel and Bose; oh dear me how could the people miss the full stop in the speech! We know how an attempt was made in a certain state that has a BJP government to stamp out Nehru, Gandhi, etc from history text books for schools. Was it wish fulfillment?

 

Curry on India

My cooker has not come today so I will have to cook myself. I am planning to make something simple. There is a recipe that was handed down from grandmother to grandmother secretly.When I was searching the cupboard I found it lying in a box.I wonder how the box survived the generations of grandmothers. Now back to cooking. The ingredients are simple. Heat a karahi. Pour some cooking oil. Put some freshly chopped lady finger or okra. stir, add some awnions. Close the lid and wait. Open the lid add ginger and garlic paste, and some turmeric powder salt to taste. Cook for sometime and add tomato.

When your cooker does not come it becomes very difficulty. My fatty husband asks when is lunch, my fatty kid ask me when is lunch…I scream, the neighbor Mrs. Sharma comes and asks what is cooking! I tell her. She says, don’t mind but I don’t think you should cook in a karahi. If you cook in a pressure cooker then all nutrients will remain otherwise they will be gone with the wind. I say, no no, you see today my cooker has not come. She says, oh your cook! I say yes my cooker. You see I am already under pressure from my kid and my husband, I am already pressure cooker!

Mrs. Sharma leaves, just look at her as if she is about to appear in the BBC Newshour program…! She is now 50 and her husband a businessman looks like a pan wallah anyway, he came from village only. My cooker was saying there was some scandal about him! I don’t pay attention baba, I lead a simple life with my fatty husband and fatty kid. Now back to my simple recipe, it is now almost done, put some coriander leaves, stir. It is time now to make roti. Take some wheat flour and add some water, mix till it becomes like dough and then thump it around the vessel, box it and knead it. After you catch your breath, pull out rolls from the dough. Flatten with a rolling pin, keeping it round and round. Transfer it to the tawa. Wait till it puffs up and remove.

After you have done about two or three call your son to meals, not your husband…no not your husband, the neighbors will hear and make all sorts of stories. When the son arrives ask him to fetch his father. Simple recipe but too many steps.

 

Rio…and all that

Women power saved India from a medal less Olympics. Tavleen Singh in her column, Lessons from Rio (Indian Express August 21 2016) wrote, that India, a country the size of a continent came away with fewer medals than little Island nations.

CNBC and BBC asked the question why India can’t seem to get any medals. CNBC pointed out that country punches well below its weight. China, Russia walk away with many medals at every Olympic event. It points out that the country is one of the most populous, has the fastest growing economy, etc and yet the event is an exercise in despair..

However, look at Malaysia and Singapore which have managed between them 6 medals: Singapore 1 and Malaysia 5. These two countries have world class facilities for sports and people keen on sports, no one seems to ask them these questions. According to CNBC, India’s reason is neither ethnic or poverty of its people, according to experts CNBC spoke to. One explanation put forward was, lack of sports culture. Those who participated in the event are exceptional people.

Tavleen Singh points out that international sports events are not the only things that India does not shine there are events like Program for International Assessment (PISA) where students from the all over the world participate. The Indians came second last. Tavleen says that it is the failure of the government to address India’s abysmal record in human development. She points to the colonial hangover where there were one set of rules for the colonials and another for the “natives.”

I realize that the explanations put forward are the same for perhaps a number of our other failures. The nation failed its people because the leaders pandered to their ideological cronies: Nehruvians pandered to Fabianism, BJP pandered to the Hindutva ideology as a reaction, perhaps, growing “westernization of India.” The people came last.

No golds, so what!

We regale in our bronzes. We fete our athletes. The sole winner of a medal in Rio Olympics may not be getting headlines across the world but we shower her with our praise. We show the world that is swaddled in gold and silver that we as a nation are joyous with our modest achievements. The bronze won by Sakshi is equal to the gold and silver dangling from big name performers from Big League nations.

We are a modest nation. We applaud our tennis star who has won for us matches that others feel are of less value. Sania Mirza could not make it at Rio not because she and Bopanna did not try, they fought, they shed their blood, sweat and tears. I clap for them, they are our heroes. We should embrace them with warmth they so deserve. They fought a tough battle. Saina, also fought a battle with her knee injury, she was world number 5 in badminton. They fought gloriously.

We should all rise where ever we are and put our hand on our heart and pray for all those who participated. Instead of sadness we should hold our head high and applaud our athletes and sports persons. Everyone can’t go to the Olympics. It requires whole lot of guts to be there.

All those things that make up life

Copyright with the producer of the original work. This work is being used to illustrate the article below, if found to be violating please let me know through comments.

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Laughter it is said can cause belly aches. One can double up, roll on the floor with laughter. I have a problem with laughter: long after the joke has created vibes, I still get the imagery and continue with the laughter…it happened once when the director of an institution where I worked cracked a joke about the Indian army using roman in every message and communication in Hindi.

I have forgotten the joke but my predicament has stuck in my memory. The army of yore has produced copious amounts of merriment, some related by army officers themselves. The military seems to me to be a jolly lot. Look at the Sad Sack comics. This was my absolute favorite.

According to the Wikipedia, it was created by an army man, Sgt. George Baker of the US army, at the time of the World War II, in June 1942. I wonder why Indian Army officers did not come up with their own, may be it would have been frowned by the government – specifically the Defense Ministry. Or was it because of the influence of the British top brass who were in positions of command as the Indian Army was taking shape, after independence (yes the COAS from 1947 to 1949 were British).

Then there was Beetle Bailey, this was produced by the cartoonist Mort Walker. It first appeared in 1950 and is still in publication although it has been credited since Mort Walker to various cartoonists. This comic revolves around Private Bailey who finds ingenious means to avoid work. He is caught by his Sargent and is subjected to a vigorous physical punishment.

These comics used to appear as comic strips in the prominent Indian dailies. They have given me belly full of laughter and made me admire the Americans for the freedom that allowed lampooning the world’s most powerful army. I had read somewhere that the army top brass were not amused by the portrayal of their men in uniform, there was little they could do to stop these from publication though.

Annoying ad report

Always vote for graffiti | Wall that knows

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The news websites have started a battle against the browser’s defenses against intrusive ads. Now if you have your ad blocker turned on then the web page displays a notice appraising you of the fact that the ad blocker is blocking serious revenue for the website. So far I had been reporting in these posts about creepy, crawlies that manifest themselves every time you visit a page on a news site. This post is about the defense system that I installed in my browser, that hopefully would let me read the page in peace.

This was not to be. The website sensed that you are blocking ads and therefore the page would only display a notice saying that the ads bring revenue that lets us read the page for free. What a load of rubbish. When you click on the home page to read a particular story nothing happens…you are lulled into believing that the ads have started behaving themselves even with the ad blockers off, never! There it comes crawling at you…a real estate ad taking up space on the web page blocking what you are reading. You are made to visit one of the apartments, okay all very well, now will you please let me read the news story?

I think these media houses aren’t making much money – or is it greed? I think it is both!

 

 

 

Nothing remotely disagreeable about Apple ad…

The ad from the famous Cupertino, Ca. company is quite pleasant indeed. Its a pleasant departure from the usual Apple ads. The two images that caused so much consternation to an Indian newspaper are actually quite pleasant and portray India’s diversity.

Any PR department of an Indian government agency would have used those pictures, and such pictures have appeared in glossy books on Indian tourism. I think Ms. Manisha Singh was carried away by the moment and wanted to cause sensation.

Apple ad rubs India the wrong way

An Apple ad has caused dyspepsia in India. According to the Times of India, the ad shows India in stereotypical way. In one of the frames according to the newspaper, it shows sadhus (holy men), and an emaciated farmer looking towards the sky hoping for rains to come down on his parched fields. The article goes on to say that the image is as much part of India as the successful mars mission. It goes on to say that, “Apple we are proud to be an agrarian society.”

Dear Times of India, if you are so proud to be an agrarian economy then why do you tolerate the disrespect to the farmers who because of decades of neglect and misplaced priorities of the government had to take the extreme step of ending their lives. Not in the hoary past but a few years ago. And as to being information technology superpower, you should read Manu Joseph’s article in New York Times (Searching for something good to say about India, June 29 2011), it clearly states that the claim to being an IT superpower is exaggerated, there isn’t a single software in the average PC for which India holds the licence.

Indians are averse to hard realities of India. We look at ourselves with spectacles that transmit only unreal images. India’s growth statistics in GDP terms don’t show India’s prowess, but indicate that there is a lot of room for development or large industrial houses shifting their focus to India because of the saturation of markets in their own countries. The GDP growth rates of all developed countries would be somewhere below 5 percent. And look at the GDP growth figures for developing or emerging economies they show higher figures…the poorer they are the higher would be the growth figures (as always provided that everything else remains the same, this statement may not apply to certain countries experiencing inept and extremely corrupt regimes). So where does it leave us vis a vis the western propensity to stereotype India. It leaves us with cold water thrown at us to bring us back to the real world.

India-Pakistan: The questions no one in power asks

“Tell me about the birds and the bees, if you please, he got that glazed look in his eyes, I realized then and there I have to rephrase the question. (Harry Belafonte)” Something on similar lines takes place between the PMs of Pakistan and India. the Indian PM or Foreign Secretaries of the two countries meet and then it fizzles out.

The press communique says something like this:

“The woman piaba and the man piaba
and the Ton Ton call baka lemon grass,
The lily root, gully root, belly root uhmm,
And the famous grandy scratch scratch.”

The Press says “it was clear as mud but covered the ground, it made my head go round and round (Harry Belafonte).” The two nations shy away from facing realities, even today. They stick to their ground and dialogues become meaningless. Then the media war begins; Indian media attacks the PM. After all, the experts had known what would transpire. The foreign office johnnies perspire. Matters don’t move beyond the K word.

Many initiatives have seen the light of the day and then fallen by the wayside, in the badlands of nihilism. Now there is another threat. The terror groups are not in favor of a dialogue between the nuclear armed countries. The pain and suffering of those living in Jammu and Kashmir are real enough. To them a day without a bullet ringing out is a day of grace. No country can prosper till such time that every man, woman and child is truly safe.

 

Education to nowhere

Cartoon by RK Lakshman

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According to the National Employability Report of the more than 1,50,000 engineering students who graduated in 2015, 80 percent are not employable. These graduates represent 650 colleges of engineering. The Corporate houses say that the graduates did not have the requisite skill set or talent (Times of India ,January 24 2016).

Low employability of engineering graduates is an indication of poor standards of education. Employment in the present context is highly dependent on multifarious skill sets, that include analytical skills, cognitive skills, command over language – for example English. In India while every parent and child either aspires to be a doctor or an engineer, opportunities that the nation offers are meager. The private institutions that claim to provide first class engineering education or IT education are actually lacking.

graffiti | Wall that knows in its post spoke about absence of quality primary education in India. The emphasis placed on the elementary education is important because it lays the foundation for individual’s future growth in higher education. India has not made a definite commitment towards improving basic education. The quality of education imparted at the primary level is in a large number of cases, abysmal. Also faculty absenteeism and their suitability to undertake classes at the primary level is also questionable – the better quality schools are beyond the reach of the average family.

When the foundation, in terms of basic primary education is insecure, then when they go into colleges, they are not able to make the best of what is being imparted and therefore they are not equipped for higher education – a professional degree that would propel them towards gaining a lucrative job. Therefore it may be safely presumed that the high unemployment and underemployment rates may be because of the poor educational infrastructure.

We cannot aspire to be a superpower in anything unless we take reforms to the educational infrastructure, starting with basic primary education.

Bombs and after

After the bombs explode…and after the trite speeches, the victim’s family, especially its women are left with silent tears and sobs. They lost a son, they lost a husband or a mother, daughter…! Every column inch of the newspapers outline the horror, blood spilled over nothing. They were there because that is where they had to be on that day, it was what they did day after day, weeks, month and year.

From France to Iraq, from Bangladesh to Pakistan, India, US…oh just about everywhere the daily news round is a bloody trail. It never ends…it may be a lone attacker, it may be a jihadist; who knows what they had in mind. It wasn’t this bad before…every day rings out with the cries of the victims families…vigils outside hospitals as the families swing from hope to despair. It may be a little girl, or a little boy…hanging on to life, sometimes barely so.

Atrocities go on. Victims join statistics; leaders give speeches – cowardly act, we will not be intimidated…a dastardly act. Then another day the scene is repeated. Same speeches are made…TVs switched off. “Just another day in paradise (Phil Collins).”

Overwhelmed by the upper castes

In a gathering of university professors, there would be a sprinkling of Dalits and Muslims. Its only in the parliament that we see representation of Dalits and Muslims in fair numbers…that is because the parties need their votes to get a berth in either house of Parliament. Whenever a Dalit assumes a high office, it his struggle as Dalit that is highlighted not his achievements in the field he comes to epitomize.

I have been in gatherings of NGO leaders who work in the rural sector, these would be upper caste gatherings. Their policies are directly motivated by their caste considerations. Even in the academic world there are these imbalances. Inequities that Graffiti has discussed in various posts are overwhelmingly between the upper castes and the Dalits or lower castes. This after more than six decades of a Constitution framed by a Dalit icon, Bhimrao Ambedkar. Believe me, I have closely been associated with NGO, at the apex level. I was born in a family of academics; I am an upper caste Indian.

The strident voices of upper caste vigilantes who attack the Muslims and the Dalits, are being heard with raucous clarity. They have stripped the vulnerable sections of our nation of dignity, they revel in this; it adds to their vanity. Why were the christian missionaries so abhorrent to our social leaders, because they were talking about equality. They wanted to convert the the Dalits so that they could enjoy the dignity that eluded the Dalits for generations. The upper caste could not stomach the fact that one day a Dalit who would otherwise grovel and remain in the shadows, would now hold up his head and walk as equal.

Whenever, there is a national event, forthcoming Graffiti urges the nation to reflect its failures. Today and tomorrow are no different when you suffer indignities, whether in the villages or in the sanctum of academia. A thousand beautiful words don’t change the life of the masses of Indians who live in the shadows, in darkness: the price they pay for being born Dalits.