A paradise called Munnar
Munnar has emerged as one of the most popular tourist spots in the country. The serene beauty of the place can enchant anyone to ecstasy. It makes you want to fall in love with god's glory as its been bestowed upon this piece of land lavishly.
THE WINDING aura atop the hills in Munnar is like a virtual detour to sheer delight. The fragrance in the air is bound to kindle the very last spark of fire in one’s romantic life. The greens, the falls, the woods, gushes and sprays and showers of occasional rain on the way are excellently engineered by nature to give the whole landscape a unique character of its own. No wonder this pristine tea caped township has become a hot-spot in the tourism map of the nation.
It is the tourism capital of god’s own country, and god’s glory is in its best here with enormous opportunities left open for all to devour nature and get delighted day in and day out. You find a calm and quite ambiance at all hotels, resorts and stay-ins that make Munnar the most sought after destination for honeymooners and couples of all age groups. It is virtually a cut off from the hustle and bustle of today’s life.
As you go up high, you get a feeling that you are getting closer to a domain where you are bound to enjoy something otherworldly, something which you have never felt before. Only when you come face to face with the hillocks , mounts and crevices, will you be able to understand what you have missed all your life. You would wish that you had lived here in all your life and could live here in all the lives to come by your way as well.
The little time you happen to have at hand at Munnar would look like manna served in a platter made up of a rare mix of divinity, delight and tranquility. This delicious dish of time has a rare feature that it would not grow old, you wouldn’t have any scars left on your skin.. You would remain contented to the core and the same feeling will add extra energy to your soul. You will drive down the hills like a feather that just got severed from the wings of a soaring dove. Falling and soaring, long to remain aloft for as long as possible. The whole experience will leave in you in a kind of honeymoon, an extremely private one-to-one encounter: One is Munnar and the other is you, who and what and wherever you are from. Nature welcomes you at HoneyMunnar.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
India needs to ink ‘present’ history
People are at their wit’s end. Power and politics make normal life of the common man miserable every passing day. The rich are getting richer and poor poorer. More and more people go to bed hungry and food security of the nation is threatened by myopic reform measures and hardhearted approach towards farmers and their pressing needs. And life goes on as usual with a lot of din and bustle and nowhere is a politician seen suffering from any sort of shortages. They are leaders and their deeds are recorded as history. That is the ‘most unkindest cut’ of all, the worst a nation could do to its future generation.
In this nation of millions and millions and millions, nothing great gets recorded or noticed, nor is anything getting abhorred either. Here everything goes. Look around and see for yourself how happy politicians and their henchmen are, how self sufficient they are when it comes to their positions and power sharing practices. They all have only one colour, the colour of power. They all have only one mission. It is election and its manipulations. Taking the nation forward is naturally done by the people who have the least say in what we call democratic participation. It is a kind of participation which means, one party or the other or a set of parties will come to rule the rest after every election.
How many elections have this nation seen so far? How many leaders worth the salt have passed by all these election processes? What has the proportion of their representation been? Are we going to have visionaries like Nehrus and Patels and Gandhis and Tilaks? Do we not have them around us? I strongly believe that we have plenty of such souls around us. Unfortunately, it is our nasty political order that keeps this nation undermined and underdeveloped. Cleansing is the need of the hour. Political cleansing. All other social, administrative and governmental evils will stop to exist if a few visionaries could be spotted from these millions and let the reins of the nation remain in their hands. Their deeds will have to be recorded as history. At present we have no history worth recording.
We do not need politics and politicians anymore. India needs true Indians. All these so called political leaders who claim to have their slots in the history of the nation need to be dumped in the bins or back burner of history, and thus redeem the nation from the clutches of corruption, red-tapism, nepotism and favouritism. These evils have done the nation enough damages, and these damages are their legacy. It is not history. We need to have a new history written by true Indians.
History need not be the record of actions that happened in the past. Rather history needs to be the record of the present. It is time our nation had some men and women of vision to ink its history as it happens day in and day out through their own words and their corresponding deeds. Power needs to be wrested from positions of all types, and positions of all types need to breathe in power to the populi. History is their words and deeds. India can hardly afford to have these ‘political brokers’ any longer.
In this nation of millions and millions and millions, nothing great gets recorded or noticed, nor is anything getting abhorred either. Here everything goes. Look around and see for yourself how happy politicians and their henchmen are, how self sufficient they are when it comes to their positions and power sharing practices. They all have only one colour, the colour of power. They all have only one mission. It is election and its manipulations. Taking the nation forward is naturally done by the people who have the least say in what we call democratic participation. It is a kind of participation which means, one party or the other or a set of parties will come to rule the rest after every election.
How many elections have this nation seen so far? How many leaders worth the salt have passed by all these election processes? What has the proportion of their representation been? Are we going to have visionaries like Nehrus and Patels and Gandhis and Tilaks? Do we not have them around us? I strongly believe that we have plenty of such souls around us. Unfortunately, it is our nasty political order that keeps this nation undermined and underdeveloped. Cleansing is the need of the hour. Political cleansing. All other social, administrative and governmental evils will stop to exist if a few visionaries could be spotted from these millions and let the reins of the nation remain in their hands. Their deeds will have to be recorded as history. At present we have no history worth recording.
We do not need politics and politicians anymore. India needs true Indians. All these so called political leaders who claim to have their slots in the history of the nation need to be dumped in the bins or back burner of history, and thus redeem the nation from the clutches of corruption, red-tapism, nepotism and favouritism. These evils have done the nation enough damages, and these damages are their legacy. It is not history. We need to have a new history written by true Indians.
History need not be the record of actions that happened in the past. Rather history needs to be the record of the present. It is time our nation had some men and women of vision to ink its history as it happens day in and day out through their own words and their corresponding deeds. Power needs to be wrested from positions of all types, and positions of all types need to breathe in power to the populi. History is their words and deeds. India can hardly afford to have these ‘political brokers’ any longer.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Why not make everyday a holiday!
IT’S AN ‘away-from-it-all experience’. It’s staying ‘far away from the maddening crowd’. Some say, “It’s staying cut off from the din and bustle of the pestering duties and killing responsibilities,” There is yet another school of holidayers who believe that holidaying is going to places and encountering excitements and differences. The attitude towards holidaying keeps on changing, and in this process, its very purpose looks hijacked by many external forces that come to play the moment one thinks of taking a break for a while.
How many people come home holidaying? How many people feel that they are in a holiday mood when they are actually undergoing the same? Do our personal concerns leave us the day we pack up and move out for a holiday trip? Lucky are those who have a kind of attitude to look at things from a distance and enjoy a sort of vicarious holidaying. This is not possible for many because most of us do not try to differentiate ourselves from the differences we are surrounded by. The fact is that we get merged with the ambience we live in so indistinguishably that we feel at times that the days are getting unattractive and it is time we had a break. What happens when we take a break? Virtually, nothing. We desperately try to redeem ourselves from the ruts we are in.
So long as that rut remains, there in us to invite us again into its very same old ways, things are not going to change. All the extravaganzas and exoticas, the holiday industry offers us are but, propaganda and they are as desperate as the holidayers themselves because their very business is nothing but a groove, and they keep telling you the same, and the same is falsely endorsed by all those who happen to fall prey to their temptations. Once you are in and have spent a sizeable chunk of money from your pocket, would you tell the rest of the world that the time you had had at a holiday stint was as boring as the very days you were running away from? No. The best way out is to learn to live life like a holiday stint.
In this cosmic dimension, the time we are ordained with is not so long, and the very same time is rapt in a rigorous material regime where we are tools and dyes that get used either by others or by some external agencies or forces. One among them is this holiday hawkers and their temptations. Again we fall prey to this mysterious spell of the unknown and we go on holidaying, doing nothing to alter our mindset. Our days offer us nothing to worry about or get bored of. It is we who make things worse. What difference does it make when we make our things worse and go for holidaying thinking that the latter is going to offset the former?
How many people come home holidaying? How many people feel that they are in a holiday mood when they are actually undergoing the same? Do our personal concerns leave us the day we pack up and move out for a holiday trip? Lucky are those who have a kind of attitude to look at things from a distance and enjoy a sort of vicarious holidaying. This is not possible for many because most of us do not try to differentiate ourselves from the differences we are surrounded by. The fact is that we get merged with the ambience we live in so indistinguishably that we feel at times that the days are getting unattractive and it is time we had a break. What happens when we take a break? Virtually, nothing. We desperately try to redeem ourselves from the ruts we are in.
So long as that rut remains, there in us to invite us again into its very same old ways, things are not going to change. All the extravaganzas and exoticas, the holiday industry offers us are but, propaganda and they are as desperate as the holidayers themselves because their very business is nothing but a groove, and they keep telling you the same, and the same is falsely endorsed by all those who happen to fall prey to their temptations. Once you are in and have spent a sizeable chunk of money from your pocket, would you tell the rest of the world that the time you had had at a holiday stint was as boring as the very days you were running away from? No. The best way out is to learn to live life like a holiday stint.
In this cosmic dimension, the time we are ordained with is not so long, and the very same time is rapt in a rigorous material regime where we are tools and dyes that get used either by others or by some external agencies or forces. One among them is this holiday hawkers and their temptations. Again we fall prey to this mysterious spell of the unknown and we go on holidaying, doing nothing to alter our mindset. Our days offer us nothing to worry about or get bored of. It is we who make things worse. What difference does it make when we make our things worse and go for holidaying thinking that the latter is going to offset the former?
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Kerala Hr. Secondary Education is going to dogs
Vaatupura A. Jayaprakash
Higher Secondary Examination paper valuations camps are working in full key all over Kerala, and the results are expected to be out in record time. This year, the Higher Secondary result is bound to find a permanent place in the Guinness book of world records for its historic pass out percentage. This result is going to be manipulated in such a way as to make all other education ministries that have gone past the present one not only incompetent but most student-unfriendly also.
Prior to the valuation camps, the teachers have been given strict instructions not to fail any student who has the least chance to get through the exam. The instructions are funny as well as “Babyish”. The teaching community is all frustrated with these instructions, and they complain that the very system of examination is a mere mockery and there is no use working hard or making a mark in the result table.
All those hard working students are going to be deeply frustrated for their futile efforts to have an edge over others. All are going to have their own edges and not many can claim any meritorious position when it comes to marks and their positioning in a higher education entry-platform where unfortunately it is not going to be the merit or marks that make the real difference but the bales of money the parents vie hard to pay out for a seat.
The government is doing everything possible to help out the management education system to have their field days once the results get out. The most student friendly education environment offered by the education Minister Mr. M. A. Baby gives the following instructions to the teachers who camp in all major cities to value papers.
Let us see a few instructions given to teachers:
· There should not be any attempt to fail a student if he/she has the least quality to win. Examination is to make students win.
· When it comes to English questions, forget about spelling, punctuation and grammar errors. Teachers have no idea what English is without these three.
· Even if the student writes the key word or one of the words that constitute the answer to a question, he/she should be respected with some marks.
· Complete or incomplete are the sentences, if there is an effort to write some nonsense, the teacher should need to be considerate. The aim is to make the candidate pass out.
· Instructions given to Physics teachers are really funny. If there were out-of-the syllabus questions, the candidate should get full marks.
· If the candidate has just written the question number, that is enough to get him or her full marks for that question.
· And for extreme cases, even if the teacher finds the candidate not writing the question number, the teacher should write the number to the out-of-syllabus question and give him/her full marks.
· And finally when the pass and fail proposition is like a cup and lip affair, the candidate should be given enough marks to get him through the exam.
· If the cut off mark (minimum marks to pass-out) is 20 and the candidate gets only 15, the teacher can make it 20 and declare the candidate ‘passed’. So go the instructions.
Where are these children going to end up in? Is this present ministry prepared to give seats for all these students for higher education? Is it wrong to suspect that there is a nexus between higher education institutions and the government?
We all know that the most literate state in the nation is a huge market for higher education institutions in the neighbouring states and this new ‘marking spree’ is offering greater market potentials for these institutions. When the controversy over management seat allocation and fee structure last year was raging in the state for months, these private institutions outside the state had made millions out of paid seats, and now keralite parents have already started biting their nails thinking of their wards plight after these once-in-a-life-time pass-out exercise. Where are they going accommodate all these future aspirants in?
The poor quality curriculum, insufficient academic infrastructure, dilapidated examination exercise and the ridiculous valuation instructions together take the Kerala higher education to dogs for sure. The coming generation is destined to be good for nothing, and the preset Kerala government will be carving a niche for itself for churning out the maximum number of good-for-nothings in a single go. Let them go out passed and the Party is there to get them employment by way of pasting posters, writing graffiti, staging dharnas, shouting slogans and getting beaten by the police of the coming ministries.
Tailpiece: In Kerala education system, things have come to such a pass that it is humanly impossible not to get through an examination. If you sit an exam, you will have to shoulder a ‘passed’ certificate. We cannot complain. Some of our institutions have the rarest reputation for issuing ‘passed’ certificates to those who haven’t written the exam at all. Sitting the exam itself is enough to make one pass out.
Exam fears and the resultant fevers are passé and it is going to be pass, pass, pass all the way from the first standard to 12th standard. After that it is all about engineers and MBAs and doctors and, at times, door-to-door and street-to-street salesmen trying to sell themselves for some pittance.
Higher Secondary Examination paper valuations camps are working in full key all over Kerala, and the results are expected to be out in record time. This year, the Higher Secondary result is bound to find a permanent place in the Guinness book of world records for its historic pass out percentage. This result is going to be manipulated in such a way as to make all other education ministries that have gone past the present one not only incompetent but most student-unfriendly also.
Prior to the valuation camps, the teachers have been given strict instructions not to fail any student who has the least chance to get through the exam. The instructions are funny as well as “Babyish”. The teaching community is all frustrated with these instructions, and they complain that the very system of examination is a mere mockery and there is no use working hard or making a mark in the result table.
All those hard working students are going to be deeply frustrated for their futile efforts to have an edge over others. All are going to have their own edges and not many can claim any meritorious position when it comes to marks and their positioning in a higher education entry-platform where unfortunately it is not going to be the merit or marks that make the real difference but the bales of money the parents vie hard to pay out for a seat.
The government is doing everything possible to help out the management education system to have their field days once the results get out. The most student friendly education environment offered by the education Minister Mr. M. A. Baby gives the following instructions to the teachers who camp in all major cities to value papers.
Let us see a few instructions given to teachers:
· There should not be any attempt to fail a student if he/she has the least quality to win. Examination is to make students win.
· When it comes to English questions, forget about spelling, punctuation and grammar errors. Teachers have no idea what English is without these three.
· Even if the student writes the key word or one of the words that constitute the answer to a question, he/she should be respected with some marks.
· Complete or incomplete are the sentences, if there is an effort to write some nonsense, the teacher should need to be considerate. The aim is to make the candidate pass out.
· Instructions given to Physics teachers are really funny. If there were out-of-the syllabus questions, the candidate should get full marks.
· If the candidate has just written the question number, that is enough to get him or her full marks for that question.
· And for extreme cases, even if the teacher finds the candidate not writing the question number, the teacher should write the number to the out-of-syllabus question and give him/her full marks.
· And finally when the pass and fail proposition is like a cup and lip affair, the candidate should be given enough marks to get him through the exam.
· If the cut off mark (minimum marks to pass-out) is 20 and the candidate gets only 15, the teacher can make it 20 and declare the candidate ‘passed’. So go the instructions.
Where are these children going to end up in? Is this present ministry prepared to give seats for all these students for higher education? Is it wrong to suspect that there is a nexus between higher education institutions and the government?
We all know that the most literate state in the nation is a huge market for higher education institutions in the neighbouring states and this new ‘marking spree’ is offering greater market potentials for these institutions. When the controversy over management seat allocation and fee structure last year was raging in the state for months, these private institutions outside the state had made millions out of paid seats, and now keralite parents have already started biting their nails thinking of their wards plight after these once-in-a-life-time pass-out exercise. Where are they going accommodate all these future aspirants in?
The poor quality curriculum, insufficient academic infrastructure, dilapidated examination exercise and the ridiculous valuation instructions together take the Kerala higher education to dogs for sure. The coming generation is destined to be good for nothing, and the preset Kerala government will be carving a niche for itself for churning out the maximum number of good-for-nothings in a single go. Let them go out passed and the Party is there to get them employment by way of pasting posters, writing graffiti, staging dharnas, shouting slogans and getting beaten by the police of the coming ministries.
Tailpiece: In Kerala education system, things have come to such a pass that it is humanly impossible not to get through an examination. If you sit an exam, you will have to shoulder a ‘passed’ certificate. We cannot complain. Some of our institutions have the rarest reputation for issuing ‘passed’ certificates to those who haven’t written the exam at all. Sitting the exam itself is enough to make one pass out.
Exam fears and the resultant fevers are passé and it is going to be pass, pass, pass all the way from the first standard to 12th standard. After that it is all about engineers and MBAs and doctors and, at times, door-to-door and street-to-street salesmen trying to sell themselves for some pittance.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
way back i am my friends
I was travelling pals. it has been a week since i had a post for you. i was in trivandrum and busy with some personal schores and i will be going away for while a couple of weeks too.
it has been raining over there and the life was pritty defficult. wishing you all a great week ahead, i bid you bye for a while. take care and live life to the full. yours jaypee
it has been raining over there and the life was pritty defficult. wishing you all a great week ahead, i bid you bye for a while. take care and live life to the full. yours jaypee
Monday, March 31, 2008
Shouldn’t Indian politicians retire from active politics?
THERE ARE not going to be many takers for the demand that there should be a cut off age for politicians. A nation with a 100 plus crores people, is being run by octogenarians and nonagenarians and the visions these people have for the nation, is as old as themselves, and all their services to the nation, notwithstanding, they need to have a moral responsibility to leave the reins in the hands of younger bloods.
All political ideologies are fine, as so long as they do the business of “nation making”, but the moment they deviate into the realm for personal gains and powers, it is not the political parties that need to be blamed, it is the demagogic politicians. It is their incorrigible pettishness and ignominious attitude towards their voters that makes the whole nation suffer. When people cross certain age, they show some signs of retirement. Therefore, they need to be given a platform, so that they can live the rest of their life with dignity and impart advise and give counsel to the younger generation. This way the best of those, so-called political brains would not go waste, while the younger generation would carry the nation forward.
I feel that the upper house of our Parliament is the right place for all those politicians who have crossed, say, a retirement age of sixty. Our upper house is now a safe haven for all businessmen and one-time beauty queens. It is not the popular mandate that makes them sit on those chairs. It is nomination, internal voting process and outright purchase. So why can’t we convert our upper house into a haven for all those senior ‘politicians’, irrespective of their political party lines? We could be a little more democratic too, by offering them a same platform to act and interact. This would avoid a lot of inconveniences to the nation.
Primarily, they can maintain their honour; secondly, they all will work as ‘think tanks’ for guiding the upcoming political generation; thirdly, they all will be serving the nation in a different way. And finally these seniors would stay off our arterial roads. The last thing would be the biggest benefit for the common man. When a young leader moves out, the population takes up a liking for him and they accommodate him wholeheartedly, but when an old politician of70 or 80, who has been taxing on the exchequer for ages, goes out, he would not be treated by all, alike.
People are fed up with them, and no voter is ready to accommodate them any further in any of the houses, of the state or of the centre. Either, as a concession or as a collateral expenditure, many people may agree to find them in the upper house. And sitting up there, they can do minimal harm, only to the already harmed nation.
So what if we amend our Constitution, as to make provisions for converting our upper house as an old age home for our senior ‘politicians’, of all ‘hues and cries?’ The best thing these men can do to our nation is, retire when they are in their best and let young bloods hold the chairs. Are their any takers for this ‘natural initiative?’
All political ideologies are fine, as so long as they do the business of “nation making”, but the moment they deviate into the realm for personal gains and powers, it is not the political parties that need to be blamed, it is the demagogic politicians. It is their incorrigible pettishness and ignominious attitude towards their voters that makes the whole nation suffer. When people cross certain age, they show some signs of retirement. Therefore, they need to be given a platform, so that they can live the rest of their life with dignity and impart advise and give counsel to the younger generation. This way the best of those, so-called political brains would not go waste, while the younger generation would carry the nation forward.
I feel that the upper house of our Parliament is the right place for all those politicians who have crossed, say, a retirement age of sixty. Our upper house is now a safe haven for all businessmen and one-time beauty queens. It is not the popular mandate that makes them sit on those chairs. It is nomination, internal voting process and outright purchase. So why can’t we convert our upper house into a haven for all those senior ‘politicians’, irrespective of their political party lines? We could be a little more democratic too, by offering them a same platform to act and interact. This would avoid a lot of inconveniences to the nation.
Primarily, they can maintain their honour; secondly, they all will work as ‘think tanks’ for guiding the upcoming political generation; thirdly, they all will be serving the nation in a different way. And finally these seniors would stay off our arterial roads. The last thing would be the biggest benefit for the common man. When a young leader moves out, the population takes up a liking for him and they accommodate him wholeheartedly, but when an old politician of70 or 80, who has been taxing on the exchequer for ages, goes out, he would not be treated by all, alike.
People are fed up with them, and no voter is ready to accommodate them any further in any of the houses, of the state or of the centre. Either, as a concession or as a collateral expenditure, many people may agree to find them in the upper house. And sitting up there, they can do minimal harm, only to the already harmed nation.
So what if we amend our Constitution, as to make provisions for converting our upper house as an old age home for our senior ‘politicians’, of all ‘hues and cries?’ The best thing these men can do to our nation is, retire when they are in their best and let young bloods hold the chairs. Are their any takers for this ‘natural initiative?’
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Myanmar: the military (A)junta’ and human rights
It is quite common these days to find people fight for lower prices, improved healthcare, quality education and better utility services. But it is no longer common in Burama where the Burmese military junta detain people who do such fights. Demonstrations of any such types may be staged provided the parties get prior official permission.The above scenario has come about when a group of 10 civilized Myamarese thought it right to seriously fight for their basic rights.
Carrying placards and chanting slogans, they staged the protest in Yangon’s Thingangyun township, calling for lower prices and improved healthcare, quality education and better utility services. The protest ended peacefully in an hour so, but plainclothes police took away eight demonstrators as some 100 onlookers watched.
That protest was one of the first such demonstrations in recent years to challenge the junta’s economic mismanagement rather than its legal right to rule. The protesters detained in the February rally were released after signing an acknowledgment of police orders that ‘they should not hold any future public demonstrations without first obtaining official permission’.
Then the Burmese military government stated its intention to crack down on these human rights activists in the country’s official press. The announcement, that comprised a full page of the official newspaper, followed calls by human rights advocacy groups, including London-based Amnesty International, for Burmese authorities to investigate recent violent attacks on rights activists in the country.
Anti-government protests in Myanmar
Anti-government protests have been going on in Burma since mid August 2007, and on September 18 thousands of Buddhist monks took out protest demonstrations, and they were later given solidarity by Buddhist nuns on September 23. On September 24, 20,000 monks and nuns led 30,000 people in a protest march from the golden Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, past the offices of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party. On September 22, monks marched to greet Aung San Suu Kyi. But things took a serious turn on September 25, when 2,000 people defied threats from Burma's junta and marched to Shwedagon Pagoda amid army trucks and warning of Brigadier-General Thura Myint Maung not to violate Buddhist "rules and regulations." What followed was a series of arrests of prominent protesters, and matters went to the extent of troops barricading Shwedagon Pagoda and attacking the 700 people within.
Notwithstaning all these developments, 5,000 monks continued to protest in Yangon. Security forces began raiding monasteries and arresting monks throughout the country. The security forces resorted to even firing, killing nine people including Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai.
The junta’s cover up exercise, inteneded to keep things away from the international community, witnessed the blocking of Internet access to the country. If that was the case with international coverup, there were even arrests of people who carried mobile-bourne cameras. But the junta’s efforts to keep things under the carpet did neither succeed nor last for long. The violent way with which they treated the peaceful protesters invited strongly worded international condemnation leading to calls for an immediate halt to the violence.
The international comtemnation also took another dimension when Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fakuda demanded an explanation for killing their photojouranlist Nagai.
Despite increasingly strong calls for peace, the junta continued to attack monks and raid monasteries down the days. Now things have come to such a pass that thousands of monks are unaccounted for and their whereabouts unknown and more and more monasteries are being put under the military scanner. To cap it all, there are cases in which people testifying eyewitness accounts of injured protesters being burned alive by the military regime in a crematorium on the outskirts of Rangoon. And the story goes on and on.
Where do things stand internationally? When UN security council experts went for a Western-sponsored statement condemning the bloody military crackdown in Burma, China pressed for a softer and appeasing language and its Deputy UN Ambassador Liu Zhenmin prefered ‘consultations’ for a friendly and persuaive tone of language instead of the ones used in the draft submitted by the United States, Britain and France. The draft condemns "the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations" and urges the junta to "cease repressive measures" and release detainees and political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
When Italy's UN Ambassador Marcello Spatafora stressed that it was urgent for the council to send a "strong, unified' message to Burma's ruling junta, the United States, finally, has threatened to push for UN sanctions against the military regime, including an arms embargo, if it refuses to halt its crackdown on peaceful demonstrations.
How do the world powers look at Burma and its internal problem? Are things likely to come under the controle of these so-called military powers when it comes to another military will, Junta or whatever? Lucky you poor Myanmars, your oppressive junta fortunately does not have any Weapons of Mass Destruction in their reserves.
So, you revered monks, you may keep on fighting till you succeed. Meanwhile, your spiritual intelligence should come to have the reason to fabricate some evidence to show the internatinal community that the Junta possesses some WMD in their military reserves. It would surely attract interntaional intervension. If you succeed at this, the big powers would reinstate peace and even democracy in Myanmar in the following months.
You all should understand that fighting for lower prices, improved healthcare, quality education, better utility services and the like are passe in these days of ‘war for peace’. jaypeesukham@yahoo.com
Carrying placards and chanting slogans, they staged the protest in Yangon’s Thingangyun township, calling for lower prices and improved healthcare, quality education and better utility services. The protest ended peacefully in an hour so, but plainclothes police took away eight demonstrators as some 100 onlookers watched.
That protest was one of the first such demonstrations in recent years to challenge the junta’s economic mismanagement rather than its legal right to rule. The protesters detained in the February rally were released after signing an acknowledgment of police orders that ‘they should not hold any future public demonstrations without first obtaining official permission’.
Then the Burmese military government stated its intention to crack down on these human rights activists in the country’s official press. The announcement, that comprised a full page of the official newspaper, followed calls by human rights advocacy groups, including London-based Amnesty International, for Burmese authorities to investigate recent violent attacks on rights activists in the country.
Anti-government protests in Myanmar
Anti-government protests have been going on in Burma since mid August 2007, and on September 18 thousands of Buddhist monks took out protest demonstrations, and they were later given solidarity by Buddhist nuns on September 23. On September 24, 20,000 monks and nuns led 30,000 people in a protest march from the golden Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, past the offices of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party. On September 22, monks marched to greet Aung San Suu Kyi. But things took a serious turn on September 25, when 2,000 people defied threats from Burma's junta and marched to Shwedagon Pagoda amid army trucks and warning of Brigadier-General Thura Myint Maung not to violate Buddhist "rules and regulations." What followed was a series of arrests of prominent protesters, and matters went to the extent of troops barricading Shwedagon Pagoda and attacking the 700 people within.
Notwithstaning all these developments, 5,000 monks continued to protest in Yangon. Security forces began raiding monasteries and arresting monks throughout the country. The security forces resorted to even firing, killing nine people including Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai.
The junta’s cover up exercise, inteneded to keep things away from the international community, witnessed the blocking of Internet access to the country. If that was the case with international coverup, there were even arrests of people who carried mobile-bourne cameras. But the junta’s efforts to keep things under the carpet did neither succeed nor last for long. The violent way with which they treated the peaceful protesters invited strongly worded international condemnation leading to calls for an immediate halt to the violence.
The international comtemnation also took another dimension when Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fakuda demanded an explanation for killing their photojouranlist Nagai.
Despite increasingly strong calls for peace, the junta continued to attack monks and raid monasteries down the days. Now things have come to such a pass that thousands of monks are unaccounted for and their whereabouts unknown and more and more monasteries are being put under the military scanner. To cap it all, there are cases in which people testifying eyewitness accounts of injured protesters being burned alive by the military regime in a crematorium on the outskirts of Rangoon. And the story goes on and on.
Where do things stand internationally? When UN security council experts went for a Western-sponsored statement condemning the bloody military crackdown in Burma, China pressed for a softer and appeasing language and its Deputy UN Ambassador Liu Zhenmin prefered ‘consultations’ for a friendly and persuaive tone of language instead of the ones used in the draft submitted by the United States, Britain and France. The draft condemns "the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations" and urges the junta to "cease repressive measures" and release detainees and political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
When Italy's UN Ambassador Marcello Spatafora stressed that it was urgent for the council to send a "strong, unified' message to Burma's ruling junta, the United States, finally, has threatened to push for UN sanctions against the military regime, including an arms embargo, if it refuses to halt its crackdown on peaceful demonstrations.
How do the world powers look at Burma and its internal problem? Are things likely to come under the controle of these so-called military powers when it comes to another military will, Junta or whatever? Lucky you poor Myanmars, your oppressive junta fortunately does not have any Weapons of Mass Destruction in their reserves.
So, you revered monks, you may keep on fighting till you succeed. Meanwhile, your spiritual intelligence should come to have the reason to fabricate some evidence to show the internatinal community that the Junta possesses some WMD in their military reserves. It would surely attract interntaional intervension. If you succeed at this, the big powers would reinstate peace and even democracy in Myanmar in the following months.
You all should understand that fighting for lower prices, improved healthcare, quality education, better utility services and the like are passe in these days of ‘war for peace’. jaypeesukham@yahoo.com
Friday, March 28, 2008
Leave Pakistan alone!
IT SEEMS that reason has started prevailing over the rhetoric in the US because the deputy secretary of the State, John Negroponte’s response to a query that the US was dictating anti-terrorism policy to Pakistan’s new government sounded so. He said that the US had no plan to interfere in the policy matters of the newly born government in Pakistan. It is more so when it comes to policies on anti-terrorism. But not many in Pakistan are going to buy these words, as they are very much aware of these men.
The presence of another senior state department official, Richard Boucher, has invited some protests among Pakistanis on their belief that these people are hovering around Pakistan to undermine its natural course of democratic destiny, and there are some who claim that these officers have hidden agendas on anti-terrorism moves of the new government.
The apprehensions sound relevant because these men are around at a time when Gilani stands headed to lead a new coalition government. As the nation is slowly coming to terms with a new administrative order, the press is staying really vigilant, and some dailies have come up with editorials commenting on the ‘unsolicited’ nature of these officers. One of them described the US presence in Pak soil as “meddling in Pakistan’s internal affairs”.
However, the two officials ruled out all apprehensions and criticisms and said that the visit was already planned two months ago. The purpose of the visit was to reaffirm the US’s support for the new Pakistani government.
“There is no hidden agenda and certainly no desire to interfere or intervene in any way in the political arrangements that are developing,” Negroponte said. “This suggestion that we expect Pakistan to carry out activities on our behalf and at our behest that are not in Pakistan’s interest is simply wrong,” he added.
Meanwhile, the White House has said that it expects continued cooperation between the US and Pakistan. But the number of people, who believed that Negroponte’s visit was an attempt to shore up the President Pervez Musharraf, was very big. If the words of these two men and the clarification thereof from the White House are anything to go by, Pakistan is bound to have a coalition future and the rest of the world, barring the US, can have a great sigh of relief that these impoverished people are finally seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel.
Negroponte and Boucher had better leave the place and let the Pakistanis decide their destiny the same way they did with the elections. These men have no business there. When are these people going to understand that it is unfair to interfere in the internal affairs of others?
The presence of another senior state department official, Richard Boucher, has invited some protests among Pakistanis on their belief that these people are hovering around Pakistan to undermine its natural course of democratic destiny, and there are some who claim that these officers have hidden agendas on anti-terrorism moves of the new government.
The apprehensions sound relevant because these men are around at a time when Gilani stands headed to lead a new coalition government. As the nation is slowly coming to terms with a new administrative order, the press is staying really vigilant, and some dailies have come up with editorials commenting on the ‘unsolicited’ nature of these officers. One of them described the US presence in Pak soil as “meddling in Pakistan’s internal affairs”.
However, the two officials ruled out all apprehensions and criticisms and said that the visit was already planned two months ago. The purpose of the visit was to reaffirm the US’s support for the new Pakistani government.
“There is no hidden agenda and certainly no desire to interfere or intervene in any way in the political arrangements that are developing,” Negroponte said. “This suggestion that we expect Pakistan to carry out activities on our behalf and at our behest that are not in Pakistan’s interest is simply wrong,” he added.
Meanwhile, the White House has said that it expects continued cooperation between the US and Pakistan. But the number of people, who believed that Negroponte’s visit was an attempt to shore up the President Pervez Musharraf, was very big. If the words of these two men and the clarification thereof from the White House are anything to go by, Pakistan is bound to have a coalition future and the rest of the world, barring the US, can have a great sigh of relief that these impoverished people are finally seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel.
Negroponte and Boucher had better leave the place and let the Pakistanis decide their destiny the same way they did with the elections. These men have no business there. When are these people going to understand that it is unfair to interfere in the internal affairs of others?
Cashing in on kids’ vacation is dangerous
Vaatupura A Jayaprakash
Where does a modern child suffer the most abuse from? Any idea? The English have a saying in this line: ‘there is virtually nothing that parents cannot do for their children”. Does it not sound good? Sure it does. But this saying has anther clause at the end. It is: “either good or bad”.
So, there is virtually nothing that parents cannot do for their children, either good or bad”. Again, where does a modern child suffer the most abuse from? You know by now. Yes, it is parents who pester their kids to do things they don’t want to. It is again parents who spoil their kids by stopping them from doing whatever they desperately want to do. These two propositions are equally dangerous.
As we are living in an age where everything is taken in terms of investment, educating the kids most cost-effectively and commercially viably is one of the biggest investment challenges faced by our nuclear parents. They go to any length to ensure that their kids get the best of education and, even if they find their otherwise brilliant kid become a moron engineer or an incorrigible doctor, not by any accident but by clear intent, the parents are not moved, neither are they able to perceive the danger it poses primarily to the child, secondly to the family, thirdly to the society and finally to the nation at large.
What all ways our parents adopt to achieve this fiat:
· It is studies all the way: from kindergarten to computer engineering. Students are supposed to study all the time.
· No play of any kind. If ever a child shows some inclination towards a game or a match or a leisure time activity, what the parents see is a catastrophe.
· Never meet or sit with pupils who are less privileged than thou. Socializing is taboo. Right to school and back to school bag and studies day in and day out is the regime.
· Short hours of the night are not meant for rejuvenating your body with a sound sleep. They are for bricking up the pillars of academic success.
· Kids ask for it, and parents have it for them no matter it is a two-wheeler for Rs. 50,000/- at the age of fifteen or an ATM card at the age of sixteen. Kids should never have any cares and worries. They are to make the life of their parents worth looked at enviously by the rest of the world.
· When the kid rams this two wheeler against a speeding lorry and ends up in four legs, the parents prove themselves again to be able to do anything to their kid, either good or bad. Forget it if a kid fires a few bullets at another.
· Today’s parents keep their kids fed (up) with any junk stuff that has an English or alien string attached even if the kid is going to swoon in the school assembly queue or collapse to death in an examination hall as result of this unhealthy food habit.
· Sun, rain, wind and mist are the most unhealthy of natural ‘discomforts’ our kids are exposed to and our parents keep their kids cocooned in, and they grow like broiler chicken. If the power fails for a couple of hours, you will find them either dead or worth culling.
· Running, walking, jumping up or down and falling in fours and threes and getting bruised, climbing trees and poking some fun up there, swimming down or upstream, playing in the mud or splashing in a rain-fed puddle, or getting wet in the rain or going cold in a winter evening are again unimaginable.
· The mother raises the kid and the cleaner of the school bus places it in a seat. In the evening, the cleaner raises the kid, and places it on the stretched hands of the waiting mother. In between these two times our kids are made to pick up the basics of what we call ‘the cutting edge’.
· When kids grow like this, we cannot expect them to be running or climbing up trees or stairs. If you read in the dailies that ‘engineering student got washed way, drowned to death, went missing, or even bitten by a stray dog’, don’t be surprised.
· Our kids know how to make money out of moth, but they do not know how to keep their breath in when they go under water or go up on a tree when a stray dog chases them.
· And come vacation, our kids are the worst affected. There is nothing called going to natal family, visiting friends, engaging in any kind of country games, sleeping for a few more hours, preparing for a personal interest, why should I say more, speaking the native language or showing some inherent signs of misbehavior or mischief. They are all anti-kid and are brutally shunned.
· And many of our kids grow into rogues of some rare orders. A few of them make it to the best of professional order, and the rest come to be called executors of crime and precipitators of many criminal tendencies.
· Snatching ornaments from unsuspecting women on the road, engaging in organized crimes like quotation work, donning some political clout and become a rogue politician, dealing in drugs or driving away stolen cars and two wheelers or taking pride in the worst forms of asocial activities like mafias.
· Our god’s own country has already become a perfect breeding ground for this rare breed of kids meticulously raised to meet the most severe test conditions. Another feather on the cap of those parents who prove again and again that there is nothing that they cannot do for their parents.
Summer vacation is round the corner. Vacation class industry has already started buying column centimeters in all major Dailies. These centres are out to catch them young and offer them the rare Midas touch in them in the long run. Private school managements and their precariously protected teachers have started hovering around families to grab the latest arrivals; infants and toddlers for future bookings. And our omnipotent parents are raking up their heads as how to find a better institution this time of the year so that their kids would make the best of hay when it shines in the long run. Where are our poor kids and their killing childhood liberties and interests going to end up in? Smoke!!!!!!
It is really difficult to be a kid. There was a time when kids were asked to live their life dangerously. Those times have gone. Now they are asked to live in perpetual dangers. These dangers include the ones pitted against them by their own parents.
Tailpiece: Summer vacation is to be made pressure-free for kids of all ages, and any effort, concerted or obvious, to make these two months tough for them, either by parents or by institutions, should be curtailed. The word ‘vacation’ includes a “vacat” in it. It needs to be defined as ‘vacate our kids from all their academic actions’. In the meantime, we need to include a lesson in our kids’ early curriculum elaborating on their own rights, privileges and responsibilities. It is this poor consciousness that makes our kids mere tools that help their parents fit themselves in the milieu they live in.
Where does a modern child suffer the most abuse from? Any idea? The English have a saying in this line: ‘there is virtually nothing that parents cannot do for their children”. Does it not sound good? Sure it does. But this saying has anther clause at the end. It is: “either good or bad”.
So, there is virtually nothing that parents cannot do for their children, either good or bad”. Again, where does a modern child suffer the most abuse from? You know by now. Yes, it is parents who pester their kids to do things they don’t want to. It is again parents who spoil their kids by stopping them from doing whatever they desperately want to do. These two propositions are equally dangerous.
As we are living in an age where everything is taken in terms of investment, educating the kids most cost-effectively and commercially viably is one of the biggest investment challenges faced by our nuclear parents. They go to any length to ensure that their kids get the best of education and, even if they find their otherwise brilliant kid become a moron engineer or an incorrigible doctor, not by any accident but by clear intent, the parents are not moved, neither are they able to perceive the danger it poses primarily to the child, secondly to the family, thirdly to the society and finally to the nation at large.
What all ways our parents adopt to achieve this fiat:
· It is studies all the way: from kindergarten to computer engineering. Students are supposed to study all the time.
· No play of any kind. If ever a child shows some inclination towards a game or a match or a leisure time activity, what the parents see is a catastrophe.
· Never meet or sit with pupils who are less privileged than thou. Socializing is taboo. Right to school and back to school bag and studies day in and day out is the regime.
· Short hours of the night are not meant for rejuvenating your body with a sound sleep. They are for bricking up the pillars of academic success.
· Kids ask for it, and parents have it for them no matter it is a two-wheeler for Rs. 50,000/- at the age of fifteen or an ATM card at the age of sixteen. Kids should never have any cares and worries. They are to make the life of their parents worth looked at enviously by the rest of the world.
· When the kid rams this two wheeler against a speeding lorry and ends up in four legs, the parents prove themselves again to be able to do anything to their kid, either good or bad. Forget it if a kid fires a few bullets at another.
· Today’s parents keep their kids fed (up) with any junk stuff that has an English or alien string attached even if the kid is going to swoon in the school assembly queue or collapse to death in an examination hall as result of this unhealthy food habit.
· Sun, rain, wind and mist are the most unhealthy of natural ‘discomforts’ our kids are exposed to and our parents keep their kids cocooned in, and they grow like broiler chicken. If the power fails for a couple of hours, you will find them either dead or worth culling.
· Running, walking, jumping up or down and falling in fours and threes and getting bruised, climbing trees and poking some fun up there, swimming down or upstream, playing in the mud or splashing in a rain-fed puddle, or getting wet in the rain or going cold in a winter evening are again unimaginable.
· The mother raises the kid and the cleaner of the school bus places it in a seat. In the evening, the cleaner raises the kid, and places it on the stretched hands of the waiting mother. In between these two times our kids are made to pick up the basics of what we call ‘the cutting edge’.
· When kids grow like this, we cannot expect them to be running or climbing up trees or stairs. If you read in the dailies that ‘engineering student got washed way, drowned to death, went missing, or even bitten by a stray dog’, don’t be surprised.
· Our kids know how to make money out of moth, but they do not know how to keep their breath in when they go under water or go up on a tree when a stray dog chases them.
· And come vacation, our kids are the worst affected. There is nothing called going to natal family, visiting friends, engaging in any kind of country games, sleeping for a few more hours, preparing for a personal interest, why should I say more, speaking the native language or showing some inherent signs of misbehavior or mischief. They are all anti-kid and are brutally shunned.
· And many of our kids grow into rogues of some rare orders. A few of them make it to the best of professional order, and the rest come to be called executors of crime and precipitators of many criminal tendencies.
· Snatching ornaments from unsuspecting women on the road, engaging in organized crimes like quotation work, donning some political clout and become a rogue politician, dealing in drugs or driving away stolen cars and two wheelers or taking pride in the worst forms of asocial activities like mafias.
· Our god’s own country has already become a perfect breeding ground for this rare breed of kids meticulously raised to meet the most severe test conditions. Another feather on the cap of those parents who prove again and again that there is nothing that they cannot do for their parents.
Summer vacation is round the corner. Vacation class industry has already started buying column centimeters in all major Dailies. These centres are out to catch them young and offer them the rare Midas touch in them in the long run. Private school managements and their precariously protected teachers have started hovering around families to grab the latest arrivals; infants and toddlers for future bookings. And our omnipotent parents are raking up their heads as how to find a better institution this time of the year so that their kids would make the best of hay when it shines in the long run. Where are our poor kids and their killing childhood liberties and interests going to end up in? Smoke!!!!!!
It is really difficult to be a kid. There was a time when kids were asked to live their life dangerously. Those times have gone. Now they are asked to live in perpetual dangers. These dangers include the ones pitted against them by their own parents.
Tailpiece: Summer vacation is to be made pressure-free for kids of all ages, and any effort, concerted or obvious, to make these two months tough for them, either by parents or by institutions, should be curtailed. The word ‘vacation’ includes a “vacat” in it. It needs to be defined as ‘vacate our kids from all their academic actions’. In the meantime, we need to include a lesson in our kids’ early curriculum elaborating on their own rights, privileges and responsibilities. It is this poor consciousness that makes our kids mere tools that help their parents fit themselves in the milieu they live in.
The presence of two US Officials irk Pakistanis
Vaatupura A. Jayaprakash
It seems that reason has started prevailing over rhetoric in the US, because the Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte’s response to a query that the US was dictating antiterrorism policy to Pakistan’s new government sounded so. He said that the US had no plan to interfere in the policy matters of the newly born government in Pakistan. It is more so when it comes to policies on anti-terrorism. Well and good. But not many in Pakistan are going to buy these words as they are very much aware of these men for long.
The presence of another Senior State Department official Richard Boucher has invited some protests among Pakistanis on their belief that these people are hovering around Pakistan to undermine its natural course of democratic destiny, and there are some who claim that these officers have hidden agendas on anti-terrorism moves of the new government.
The apprehensions sound relevant because these men are around at a time when Mr. Gilani stands headed to lead a new coalition government. As the nation is slowly coming to terms with a new administrative order, the press is staying really vigilant, and some Dailies have come up with editorials commenting on the “unsolicited” nature of these officers. One of them described the US presence in Pak soil as, “meddling in Pakistan’s internal affairs”.
However, the two officials ruled out all apprehensions and criticisms and said that the visit was planned two months ago. The purpose of the visit was to reaffirm US support for the new Pakistani government.
"There was no hidden agenda and certainly no desire to interfere or intervene in any way in the political arrangements that are developing," Negroponte said. "This suggestion that somehow we expect Pakistan to carry out activities, on our behalf and at our behest, that are not in Pakistan's interest is simply wrong."
Meanwhile, the White House has said that it expects continued cooperation between the US and Pakistan. But the number of people who believed that Mr. Negroponte's visit was an attempt to shore up President Pervez Musharraf was very big. If the words of these two men and the clarification thereof from the white house are anything to go by, Pakistan is bound to have a coalition future and the rest of the world, barring the US, can have a great sigh of relief that these impoverished people are finally seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel.
Mr. John Negroponte and Mr. Richard Boucher had better leave the place and let the Pakistanis decide their destiny the same way they did with elections. These men have no business there. When are these people going to understand that it is unfair to interfere in the internal affairs of others? May reason prevail over rhetoric?
It seems that reason has started prevailing over rhetoric in the US, because the Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte’s response to a query that the US was dictating antiterrorism policy to Pakistan’s new government sounded so. He said that the US had no plan to interfere in the policy matters of the newly born government in Pakistan. It is more so when it comes to policies on anti-terrorism. Well and good. But not many in Pakistan are going to buy these words as they are very much aware of these men for long.
The presence of another Senior State Department official Richard Boucher has invited some protests among Pakistanis on their belief that these people are hovering around Pakistan to undermine its natural course of democratic destiny, and there are some who claim that these officers have hidden agendas on anti-terrorism moves of the new government.
The apprehensions sound relevant because these men are around at a time when Mr. Gilani stands headed to lead a new coalition government. As the nation is slowly coming to terms with a new administrative order, the press is staying really vigilant, and some Dailies have come up with editorials commenting on the “unsolicited” nature of these officers. One of them described the US presence in Pak soil as, “meddling in Pakistan’s internal affairs”.
However, the two officials ruled out all apprehensions and criticisms and said that the visit was planned two months ago. The purpose of the visit was to reaffirm US support for the new Pakistani government.
"There was no hidden agenda and certainly no desire to interfere or intervene in any way in the political arrangements that are developing," Negroponte said. "This suggestion that somehow we expect Pakistan to carry out activities, on our behalf and at our behest, that are not in Pakistan's interest is simply wrong."
Meanwhile, the White House has said that it expects continued cooperation between the US and Pakistan. But the number of people who believed that Mr. Negroponte's visit was an attempt to shore up President Pervez Musharraf was very big. If the words of these two men and the clarification thereof from the white house are anything to go by, Pakistan is bound to have a coalition future and the rest of the world, barring the US, can have a great sigh of relief that these impoverished people are finally seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel.
Mr. John Negroponte and Mr. Richard Boucher had better leave the place and let the Pakistanis decide their destiny the same way they did with elections. These men have no business there. When are these people going to understand that it is unfair to interfere in the internal affairs of others? May reason prevail over rhetoric?
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Globalutilisation, food and food culture
A. Jayaprakash
“Globalization, in simpler terms means, global utilization; utilization of resources and services, no matter whose resources and what way one is utilizing them”.
Globalization has opened up innumerable avenues for making our life more comfortable and convenient. It is by way of exchange of markets, services, products, conveniences, technology, and opportunities that these days take a seemingly healthy and buoyant look. Of course, food is also a component that makes our life more comfortable and enjoyable. Are these exotic dishes that we devour every day going to let us enjoy this already comfortable life for long? It is a disturbing question indeed. If we look at the statistics on life style diseases, the answer to the above question is a resounding negative.
Since countries keep their borders open for commercial interaction, international food chains like Kentucky, MacDonald, Pizza and their domestic variants have started operating in the third world countries. These companies are but subsidiaries of a global capital culture and their aim is nothing but ‘capitalizing.’ They don’t look into the long-term effects of promoting an unhealthy food culture in countries such as India. They invest huge amounts in the market with a clear eye on profit, and in that pursuit, there is no room for social commitment, obligation of anything like that. Globalization in simpler terms means global utilization, utilization of resources and services, no matter whose resources and what way is one utilizing them.
Life is getting busier every passing day and time is in short supply. The number of people who relate time in terms of money is increasing and we do not have to talk about spending hours in the kitchen cooking age-old traditional dishes. The market outside our kitchens is full of eateries, restaurants, hotels, drive-ins and eat-outs. Their mouth-watering culinary creations are much more than what is needed to stop our kitchens from smoking. People, irrespective of age, are much better and cozy with tastes dished and spooned out by these outlets than with any oft-quoted delicacy we find in our tourism promotion brochures. When our dishes win foreign currency by way of tourism, a junk food culture silently, like a killer disease, eats away the very fabric of our culinary heritage. .
Our children don’t learn anything from their mothers’ hands. Our kitchens don’t smell food at all and, above all, our small kids don’t come around our dining tables. Rather they sit in front of the TV eating chips, choco-bars, wafers, lays and kur kureis. A burger with a cola, a Kentucky with a little sauce, a pizza followed by what it takes with it is more prestigious and image-promoting than a cuppa and meen curry or idli and chutni or dosa and sambar. This is a state of mind that has been created by these international food peddlers. We are addicted, addicted chronically to additives and taste boosters.
What would happen to our culinary boasts like Meen curry, Olan, Kaalan, Aviyal, Sambar and rasam after a few years? Are they going to be seen as specials only during Onams and Sankranthis or are we going to customize them for occasions like marriages and similar social functions? Our food culture is dying out of hunger, hunger for healthy habits. We are dying of more and more filling foods. Our Puttu, Appam, Idiyappam, Paper/Nei/Masaala and Onion Dosas are fast becoming Indian kitchen museum pieces. Yes, there is a positive side to it. We can market them by creating a new tourism genre called kitchen and culinary tourism. We may display our three-piece ovens, shell spoons and spatulas, earthen dishes and cups, pans and potteries and why not our chinaware, chimney sills and exhaust holes.
Consumerism takes a new avatar in this food scenario. Supermarkets are showcasing tinned, frozen, packed, cooked, semi-cooked, processed and ready-to-serve food items in large varieties and quantities and these difficult-not-to-buy food packs are helping housewives save plenty of time in their life. This lease of time unfortunately is now being wasted in front of the TVs watching programmes sponsored by these multinational food giants. It is TV commercials we watch more than TV programmes. This leads to what we call sedentary lifestyle diseases.
This avatar of modern commerce takes the life, culture and the healthy eating habits of our country by making us believe that we cannot live without their products. How about our products? They are desis. So they lack colour, prestige and value. We don’t produce. We don’t promote. We simply consume our own health and healthy eating habits, and we prestigiously end up in corporate healthcare facilities. There is a saying, ‘you are what you eat’. And now we are what we eat. Junk. A little food for thought is here for all I believe. jaypeesukhakm@gmail.com
“Globalization, in simpler terms means, global utilization; utilization of resources and services, no matter whose resources and what way one is utilizing them”.
Globalization has opened up innumerable avenues for making our life more comfortable and convenient. It is by way of exchange of markets, services, products, conveniences, technology, and opportunities that these days take a seemingly healthy and buoyant look. Of course, food is also a component that makes our life more comfortable and enjoyable. Are these exotic dishes that we devour every day going to let us enjoy this already comfortable life for long? It is a disturbing question indeed. If we look at the statistics on life style diseases, the answer to the above question is a resounding negative.
Since countries keep their borders open for commercial interaction, international food chains like Kentucky, MacDonald, Pizza and their domestic variants have started operating in the third world countries. These companies are but subsidiaries of a global capital culture and their aim is nothing but ‘capitalizing.’ They don’t look into the long-term effects of promoting an unhealthy food culture in countries such as India. They invest huge amounts in the market with a clear eye on profit, and in that pursuit, there is no room for social commitment, obligation of anything like that. Globalization in simpler terms means global utilization, utilization of resources and services, no matter whose resources and what way is one utilizing them.
Life is getting busier every passing day and time is in short supply. The number of people who relate time in terms of money is increasing and we do not have to talk about spending hours in the kitchen cooking age-old traditional dishes. The market outside our kitchens is full of eateries, restaurants, hotels, drive-ins and eat-outs. Their mouth-watering culinary creations are much more than what is needed to stop our kitchens from smoking. People, irrespective of age, are much better and cozy with tastes dished and spooned out by these outlets than with any oft-quoted delicacy we find in our tourism promotion brochures. When our dishes win foreign currency by way of tourism, a junk food culture silently, like a killer disease, eats away the very fabric of our culinary heritage. .
Our children don’t learn anything from their mothers’ hands. Our kitchens don’t smell food at all and, above all, our small kids don’t come around our dining tables. Rather they sit in front of the TV eating chips, choco-bars, wafers, lays and kur kureis. A burger with a cola, a Kentucky with a little sauce, a pizza followed by what it takes with it is more prestigious and image-promoting than a cuppa and meen curry or idli and chutni or dosa and sambar. This is a state of mind that has been created by these international food peddlers. We are addicted, addicted chronically to additives and taste boosters.
What would happen to our culinary boasts like Meen curry, Olan, Kaalan, Aviyal, Sambar and rasam after a few years? Are they going to be seen as specials only during Onams and Sankranthis or are we going to customize them for occasions like marriages and similar social functions? Our food culture is dying out of hunger, hunger for healthy habits. We are dying of more and more filling foods. Our Puttu, Appam, Idiyappam, Paper/Nei/Masaala and Onion Dosas are fast becoming Indian kitchen museum pieces. Yes, there is a positive side to it. We can market them by creating a new tourism genre called kitchen and culinary tourism. We may display our three-piece ovens, shell spoons and spatulas, earthen dishes and cups, pans and potteries and why not our chinaware, chimney sills and exhaust holes.
Consumerism takes a new avatar in this food scenario. Supermarkets are showcasing tinned, frozen, packed, cooked, semi-cooked, processed and ready-to-serve food items in large varieties and quantities and these difficult-not-to-buy food packs are helping housewives save plenty of time in their life. This lease of time unfortunately is now being wasted in front of the TVs watching programmes sponsored by these multinational food giants. It is TV commercials we watch more than TV programmes. This leads to what we call sedentary lifestyle diseases.
This avatar of modern commerce takes the life, culture and the healthy eating habits of our country by making us believe that we cannot live without their products. How about our products? They are desis. So they lack colour, prestige and value. We don’t produce. We don’t promote. We simply consume our own health and healthy eating habits, and we prestigiously end up in corporate healthcare facilities. There is a saying, ‘you are what you eat’. And now we are what we eat. Junk. A little food for thought is here for all I believe. jaypeesukhakm@gmail.com
Ecological equilibrium: The Costa Rica example
Costa Rica was once known for beef and timber. These two were the biggest foreign currency earning resources. Costa Rica is now a tourism destination and the genre of tourism this small land of timber and livestock promotes is ecotourism.
How has this switch over come about? Was it political will? Or it was innovative and extraordinary thinking? Or it is out of sheer opportunity that Cost Rica got out of serendipity? If that was so, what was that development?
It is reported that Costa Rica was thinking in innovative lines as to make their people participate in all their nation building affairs regardless of their being educated or intelligent, rich or poor, or modern or aboriginal. Yes, Cost Rica has very wisely and widely made use of their resources, both natural and human, alike in such a way as to make the government look people friendly and the contributions to the society, eco-economy friendly.
Here lies their success. And it is here we fail. Our bureaucracy is blasphemously hostile to the public initiatives, and our economy is a by product of a set of external forces: globalization, international trade, inflation, forex, FDI, stocks and stakes, currency appreciation and this index and that index. To Cost Rica their economy is a by-product of the people and their patriotism. The people are much more willed and patriotic than any other populace.
When the whole world suddenly woke up to realize the impacts of globalization, development, ecological imbalance, carbon emission, climate change, ozone depletion and the like, Costa Rica coolly realized the potential they had in their surroundings. When the whole developing world was protesting against the carbon emission caused by industrial giants, and the collective damage these giants caused to the whole world, Costa Rica stayed apart and looked around to find out what they could do to solve this problem. Since ecological balance is the only cure for this imminent environmental disaster, Costa Rica found a never-ever exhausting resource in the mountain ranges, timber farms, hill locks and lagoons.
Their innovative thinking in this line made them come up with the idea called ecosystem service. Ecosystem service is normally done by nature. When we depend on our nature in a natural way, the nature shows the generosity to keep the resources balanced. Nature has an inimitable mechanism to recycle things into resources. This has been going on for ages, and when man’s dependency crossed the level of nature’s natural ability to recycle, it started to react in the form of climate change, rising temperature, melting glaciers, fall in rainfall etc. for example, the amount of carbon emission is far beyond nature’s endurance, and nature is unable to recycle this much CO2 into Oxygen.
Cost Rica has been intelligent enough to understand this vicious circle, and Cost Ricans had been pondering over a solution to this. And finally they came up with a novel initiative: a participatory ecology maintenance endeavour in which any willing individual will be rewarded by cash if he/she is ready to protect certain area of ecology following the conditions stipulated by the State. The initiative was oversubscribed by people of all statuses, including tribal and aborigines.
The government announced that any individual land owner who has got minimum one hector of land and is willing to maintain it following the ecological standards set by the government will be given $60 per year as ecosystem cost. And the defined services for which this cost is paid are biodiversity, water, carbon sequestration and scenic beauty. And of course performance indicators are set and elaborate monitoring and assessment exercises are being periodically carried out. The result? Today, ecotourism is Costa Rica’s number one industry. Though this initiative cost the exchequer nearly 20 Million US Dollars per year, it is worth it. The revenue they generate via tourism is many times more than this.
Among those factors that have played key roles in achieving this goal, universalisation of education is the first and foremost. Other factors are: fall in the price of export items, impact of carbon trading, decentralization, commitment to financial incentives and a command and control state.
How far is the above innovative environment management system effective in our God’s own country, Kerala? Do we have enough individual land owners with not less than one hector of land? Do we have enough tourism spots that could be promoted on the basis ecological services? Do we not still have enough forest cover to keep our environment balanced or free from the shackles of global climatic fluctuations? Can our forests be protected without the participation of individuals? How many of us are conscious of the fact that there are innumerable number of eco-friendly business initiatives that could be promoted without the government’s intervention and investments? Are these ecosystem-service-related businesses not potential enough to bring in revenue, generate employment, protect the surroundings, and above all, keep the CO2 recycled and thereby maintain the most-oft-discussed ecological equilibrium? Here there is enough room for very serious thoughts and deliberations in this direction. jaypeesarefine@gmail.com
How has this switch over come about? Was it political will? Or it was innovative and extraordinary thinking? Or it is out of sheer opportunity that Cost Rica got out of serendipity? If that was so, what was that development?
It is reported that Costa Rica was thinking in innovative lines as to make their people participate in all their nation building affairs regardless of their being educated or intelligent, rich or poor, or modern or aboriginal. Yes, Cost Rica has very wisely and widely made use of their resources, both natural and human, alike in such a way as to make the government look people friendly and the contributions to the society, eco-economy friendly.
Here lies their success. And it is here we fail. Our bureaucracy is blasphemously hostile to the public initiatives, and our economy is a by product of a set of external forces: globalization, international trade, inflation, forex, FDI, stocks and stakes, currency appreciation and this index and that index. To Cost Rica their economy is a by-product of the people and their patriotism. The people are much more willed and patriotic than any other populace.
When the whole world suddenly woke up to realize the impacts of globalization, development, ecological imbalance, carbon emission, climate change, ozone depletion and the like, Costa Rica coolly realized the potential they had in their surroundings. When the whole developing world was protesting against the carbon emission caused by industrial giants, and the collective damage these giants caused to the whole world, Costa Rica stayed apart and looked around to find out what they could do to solve this problem. Since ecological balance is the only cure for this imminent environmental disaster, Costa Rica found a never-ever exhausting resource in the mountain ranges, timber farms, hill locks and lagoons.
Their innovative thinking in this line made them come up with the idea called ecosystem service. Ecosystem service is normally done by nature. When we depend on our nature in a natural way, the nature shows the generosity to keep the resources balanced. Nature has an inimitable mechanism to recycle things into resources. This has been going on for ages, and when man’s dependency crossed the level of nature’s natural ability to recycle, it started to react in the form of climate change, rising temperature, melting glaciers, fall in rainfall etc. for example, the amount of carbon emission is far beyond nature’s endurance, and nature is unable to recycle this much CO2 into Oxygen.
Cost Rica has been intelligent enough to understand this vicious circle, and Cost Ricans had been pondering over a solution to this. And finally they came up with a novel initiative: a participatory ecology maintenance endeavour in which any willing individual will be rewarded by cash if he/she is ready to protect certain area of ecology following the conditions stipulated by the State. The initiative was oversubscribed by people of all statuses, including tribal and aborigines.
The government announced that any individual land owner who has got minimum one hector of land and is willing to maintain it following the ecological standards set by the government will be given $60 per year as ecosystem cost. And the defined services for which this cost is paid are biodiversity, water, carbon sequestration and scenic beauty. And of course performance indicators are set and elaborate monitoring and assessment exercises are being periodically carried out. The result? Today, ecotourism is Costa Rica’s number one industry. Though this initiative cost the exchequer nearly 20 Million US Dollars per year, it is worth it. The revenue they generate via tourism is many times more than this.
Among those factors that have played key roles in achieving this goal, universalisation of education is the first and foremost. Other factors are: fall in the price of export items, impact of carbon trading, decentralization, commitment to financial incentives and a command and control state.
How far is the above innovative environment management system effective in our God’s own country, Kerala? Do we have enough individual land owners with not less than one hector of land? Do we have enough tourism spots that could be promoted on the basis ecological services? Do we not still have enough forest cover to keep our environment balanced or free from the shackles of global climatic fluctuations? Can our forests be protected without the participation of individuals? How many of us are conscious of the fact that there are innumerable number of eco-friendly business initiatives that could be promoted without the government’s intervention and investments? Are these ecosystem-service-related businesses not potential enough to bring in revenue, generate employment, protect the surroundings, and above all, keep the CO2 recycled and thereby maintain the most-oft-discussed ecological equilibrium? Here there is enough room for very serious thoughts and deliberations in this direction. jaypeesarefine@gmail.com
It's snowing all over here
It’s snowing all over here
It is snowing all over here,
Like a bare bed down the moonlit skies
At the short hours of the night, I lie,
And upon me they go on tapping;
the little drops of your snowy skin.
It’s snowing here all over me again,
As if you do, when we are out loving.
It’s great that they come again,
Leaving the grounds of my senses bare.
I get my senses up when they get by my skin.
Away I go, again I come, away I go again.
Our days are different but for their makes.
Know, love, ‘we go like these falling drops’
Come, fall upon and shatter into dribbles of love.
Let’s get abandoned ourselves deep in our move.
These times, unlike other times, are faster, dear.
And the day is about to break; come, let’s shatter.
It’s snowing and my mind is going free.
A beautiful melody I hear in between.
Is it the reveling of that dribbling spree?
Or of that fight which I get thinking of thee?
It is snowing all over here,
Like a bare bed down the moonlit skies
At the short hours of the night, I lie,
And upon me they go on tapping;
the little drops of your snowy skin.
It’s snowing here all over me again,
As if you do, when we are out loving.
It’s great that they come again,
Leaving the grounds of my senses bare.
I get my senses up when they get by my skin.
Away I go, again I come, away I go again.
Our days are different but for their makes.
Know, love, ‘we go like these falling drops’
Come, fall upon and shatter into dribbles of love.
Let’s get abandoned ourselves deep in our move.
These times, unlike other times, are faster, dear.
And the day is about to break; come, let’s shatter.
It’s snowing and my mind is going free.
A beautiful melody I hear in between.
Is it the reveling of that dribbling spree?
Or of that fight which I get thinking of thee?
A tribute to Amitha Nair
A tribute to Amitha Nair
I have never known this flowerlike girl
Never have I bothered of those two-wheeler invitations.
For, this mobility is nothing short of menace
Parents are at times pitiless sinners.
What is this concept called God
Which oversaw this fall, fall of dame of 19
At a premises where He should have stayed away
For, campuses are the consummation of Eden?
My eyes broke once again and sent tributaries.
When columns read the news
I fell unsettled; my jaws tighten
I feel that I have known
this girl for all her years nineteen.
What death denies is not life alone
Death denies all doctrines.
When death claimed her brain,
her heart and vision longed to live.
That self, who wouldn’t love?
that truth, near ones will never believe.
Amitha, I love you dear, from this day and on.
Amita Nair, the girl who got killed in an in-campus bike accident at engineering college Trivandrum
I have never known this flowerlike girl
Never have I bothered of those two-wheeler invitations.
For, this mobility is nothing short of menace
Parents are at times pitiless sinners.
What is this concept called God
Which oversaw this fall, fall of dame of 19
At a premises where He should have stayed away
For, campuses are the consummation of Eden?
My eyes broke once again and sent tributaries.
When columns read the news
I fell unsettled; my jaws tighten
I feel that I have known
this girl for all her years nineteen.
What death denies is not life alone
Death denies all doctrines.
When death claimed her brain,
her heart and vision longed to live.
That self, who wouldn’t love?
that truth, near ones will never believe.
Amitha, I love you dear, from this day and on.
Amita Nair, the girl who got killed in an in-campus bike accident at engineering college Trivandrum
The sound of December
The sound of December
The sound of December sun
Sends silence in everyone.
Taps of December nights shake
Beds, bedding and blankets alike.
Half-closed eyes see through the ears
Every move is wanton.
Never will I miss these nights again.
For I have another psyche who is one such.
King is being extolled
Kindness sheds light over shadows
Might be, these days make
Dumbs sing and blinds see.
Nearly a thousand December
Dichotomously stood.
This one leaves a benchmark,
But for whom the love we all make?
The loving always get loved
The loved often leaves a divide.
The divided only unite,
‘The united’ today get ‘still’ united.
This age seems proving again, “the god is the heavens
Everything is right with this world”*.
It irks to believe in this age where
Rights wronged and wrongs, you know.
Who hasn’t got something for something?
Freely we all get this or that. Feel free in giving.
A good world it will turn out to be when we give
Inadequate it seems, years two thousand,
For us all to do the reverse.
I feel the best in me when I give.
If a wheel is not free-moving
It’s but a wheel of suffering.
We suffer a lot
for what we have got.
But, ‘I do have things to give out’
is the best of words to listen to.
*Bible centred thought I treated. I don’t know when.
The sound of December sun
Sends silence in everyone.
Taps of December nights shake
Beds, bedding and blankets alike.
Half-closed eyes see through the ears
Every move is wanton.
Never will I miss these nights again.
For I have another psyche who is one such.
King is being extolled
Kindness sheds light over shadows
Might be, these days make
Dumbs sing and blinds see.
Nearly a thousand December
Dichotomously stood.
This one leaves a benchmark,
But for whom the love we all make?
The loving always get loved
The loved often leaves a divide.
The divided only unite,
‘The united’ today get ‘still’ united.
This age seems proving again, “the god is the heavens
Everything is right with this world”*.
It irks to believe in this age where
Rights wronged and wrongs, you know.
Who hasn’t got something for something?
Freely we all get this or that. Feel free in giving.
A good world it will turn out to be when we give
Inadequate it seems, years two thousand,
For us all to do the reverse.
I feel the best in me when I give.
If a wheel is not free-moving
It’s but a wheel of suffering.
We suffer a lot
for what we have got.
But, ‘I do have things to give out’
is the best of words to listen to.
*Bible centred thought I treated. I don’t know when.
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