Introspecting Aloud

I am not sure whether this is because of the subliminal mass indoctrination done by certain sections of the political class of this country, but I seriously disagree with the notion that Mumbai happened because India is “soft on terror”. If being “hard on terror” is like behaving like Israel or USA, then I am sorry, but we have the wrong role models.

Wouldn’t it be more correct to call India incompetent in handling terror? It might sound similar but there is a big difference in our approach to the problem if we look at it differently. After all most citizens are convinced that our political leadership is incompetent, the bureaucracy is incompetent, the police and intelligence is incompetent. Wouldn’t a mass incompetency of our entire political-police setup of the country have the same result when faced with such acts of terrorism?

Why turn incidents like the Mumbai attacks a juvenile question of virility? That doesn’t sound like a mature country!

Why not grow up and just demand better and principled administrators of this country from now on?

Question yourself. Why do we have only three pathetic major political parties in India? One, the Congress, which has no idea what it stands for and just prefers to “go with the flow”. Two, the BJP who would rather make the entire country go in flames to achieve their 80 year old thinly disguised agenda of turning India into a Hindu equivalent of Pakistan. And three, the BSP who shamelessly exploits the image of a great man(Ambedkar) and has a leader who acts like a medieval queen.

Have you ever thought why we haven’t had a single political leader since Nehru (that also in his early days), who we have unquestionably admired and respected?

Anger is justifiably the first response to what happened in Mumbai. But decisions taken in anger has rarely ever provided the best response.

Why am I not seeing a single discussion, whether in the media or in the web, where people have sat down calmly and thought “why did these terrorists do this? What was their agenda?” After all these terrorists are not murderous psychopaths who kill because they like to kill. These are highly ideologically motivated people, and their leadership always have an agenda for every act that they do. They practice a form of politics in which the instruments are not speeches, lies and horse-trading like our politicians. Rather their instruments are acts of terror. But their aims are similar to politicians – to achieve a political goal.

Political and security idiots from around the country are dismissing the whole act as merely “an act of destabilizing the country”. While that might be true, it seems to me a dangerous over-simplification. Dangerous, because it is making the rest of India to stop thinking. They think they have got their answer to “why” and then keep raising the familiar ruckus of blaming the political class.

Over the next few days, we would probably see the real reason of this attack come out in the open. Some say that it is already coming out in the open. As reports emerge of Pakistan considering moving a large part of its troops from the Afghan border to the Indian border in anticipation of a belligerent Indian response like after our parliament attack, the consequent results should be clear. The LeT and other terrorist leadership which organized the Mumbai attack were getting a lot of  heat from the combined US-Pakistani operations in Afghanistan border recently. The Indo-Pak escalations will take this heat off and help them consolidate their grip in that region.

This theory might be proven wrong with information that we get in the coming days and months, but if this is the real agenda, then by irrational response to the Mumbai attack, we would only prove ourselves to be mere puppets in the hand of terrorists.

For those eager to put labels on our country, being such a puppet would be a much better reason to call ourselves a soft state. I still prefer the term incompetent state though, even though idiot might be a better choice if it had not been so inflammatory.

So the call I would like to make out to my country men, is to first defeat the terrorist’s agenda (the real one, not the one which the political idiots have been mouthing), and then go ahead to discuss how to fix the country so as to prevent it from being so vulnerable and so easily manipulated.

Nice analysis by Time.

About the background of the attackers:

What we should be certain of, though, is that the Mumbai attackers were combat trained. You do not sustain a military assault for three days, taking only combat naps, unless you know what you are doing. You have to have been shot at before. You cannot be intimidated by flash-bang grenades, or commandos fast-roping down the side of a building. And it is almost certain that the planners of the attack understood that the only way to get into India with the amount of weapons and explosives used in the attacks was by sea — the risk of smuggling them in over land was too great.

About lessons learnt from the attack:

There are two lessons we should be taking away from Mumbai. The first is that all large cities are vulnerable to attack. Even if it doubled the size of its police force, there is no way New York City could could ever protect its hotels, schools or other public buildings from attacks of this type, short of turning them into fortresses. There is no way for the NYPD to prevent a car bombing on Wall Street, sending the stock market into an even worse plunge, or a single suicide bomber from blowing himself up in the subway. Plans are available on the Internet for making bombs like these with ingredients available in hardware stores.

The second reminder we should take from Mumbai is that the longer the wars go on in Iraq and Afghanistan, the more combat-experienced men there will be available to planners of terror attacks. And we should count on the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan going global — there is no reason they could not blend into the waves of immigrants crossing the Mediterranean from Northern Africa to Europe every day.

Very well written story at Salon about the similarity between the Bush and Indian response to terrorism.

Any decent, civilized person watching scenes in Mumbai of extremists shooting indiscriminate machine gun fire and launching grenades into civilians crowds — deliberately slaughtering innocent people by the dozens — is going to feel disgust, fury, and a desire for vengeance against the perpetrators, regardless of what precipitated it.  The temptation is great even among the most rational to empower authority to do anything and everything — without limits — to punish those responsible and prevent repeat occurrences.  That’s a natural, even understandable, response.  And it’s the response that the attackers hope to provoke.

It’s that temptation to which most Americans — and our leading media institutions — succumbed in the wake of 9/11, and it’s exactly the reaction that’s most self-destructive.

As Salon quotes Dilip Padgaonkar from a Washington Post article:

… the Indian Government — in response to prior terrorist attacks — has been employing tactics all-too-familiar to Americans:  ”terrorism suspects have been picked up at random and denied legal rights”; “allegations of torture by police are routine”; “suspects have been held for years as their court cases have dragged on. Convictions have been few and far between”; Muslims and Hindus are subjected to vastly disparate treatment; and much of the most consequential actions take place in secrecy, shielded from public view, debate or accountability.As Padgaonkar details, many of these measures, particularly in the wake of new terrorist attacks, are emotionally satisfying, yet they do little other than exacerbate the problem, spawn further extremism and resentment, and massively increase the likelihood of further and more reckless attacks — thereby fueling this cycle endlessly — all while degrading the very institutions and values that are ostensibly being defended.

We will no longer remain passive. We should stand up against terrorism once and for all.

Enough is enough

I say no to getting used to terrorism.

Too many similar resolutions being made by people all around. And my take is that they are all the wrong ones.

This incident of unimaginable proportions came about because of our acceptance of medicority everywhere in our country. We are ok with mediocre politicians, mediocre bureaucrats, mediocre sportspeople, mediocre (rather pathetic) standard of education, mediocre(rather pathetic) police and intelligence. The whole country is just a huge celebration of mediocrity. Questioning mediocrity on the other hand is considered the act of a traitor.

If a person dies he is a martyr and automatically a hero (like this time). No matter if there is a possibility of incompetency which could have caused the death. Just mere questioning of the circumstances of death can get you lynched. That is the mediocre level of pitiful mediocre nationalism that things have come down to.

Instead of terrorism, why can’t we instead say no to “mediocrity”? Why can’t we stop being passive about the sheer incompetency of the government in every sphere – not just terrorism which is but the flavor of the day? Why don’t we ever say “enough is enough. I am tired of being passive about the pitiful state of roads and drainage every year”? Why don’t we ever say “I am tired of parochialism and irrelevant issues raised by politicians”. Why don’t we get angry about the state of our education? Every years, lakhs pass out of schools and colleges, after having spent years studying in a terribly lacking system. But so few of them, resolve that “enough is enough. this is not how school/college should be. it can be better”.

Security/anti-terrorism measures don’t exist in a vacuum. How can we demand excellence from our police and intelligence, when all around them mediocrity is what defines their environment. Whether it is mediocre politicians, mediocre bureaucrats or a  mediocre and unjust work environment.

None of all these resolutions is going to make a difference to our internal security. If anything, ham handed security experts and politicians will only make life worse for all of us, and we ,being used to our pathetic existence at their hands will just accept our even more humiliating daily lives – the one which involves more symbolic security checks everywhere and effectively no additional increase in our security.

It is clear what we really need to resolve. We should resolve that we should demand excellence from everybody out there – the police, the politician, the bureaucrat … and even each others and oneself! It is only in such an environment where excellence is but a normal expectation, can our security forces be actually effective. Otherwise all these resolutions are a load of …

This sobering video shows, very simply and beautifully, the vast difference between the visible shining India we are a part of, and the much larger part of India that we choose not to see everywhere around us. A must see for everybody to keep our feet firmly on the ground.

(Ref credit: Anuradha Bakshi, Project Why)

I have been closely observing the sudden mushrooming of electronics departmental shops  in Bangalore. Three years ago, the only “big” ones I had seen were Vivek’s and Pai’s. But the new ones like ezone, chroma, etc. are trying to start really big. Glitzy setups, they are characterised by large numbers of self-display models (as opposed to the traditional “can you show me that?” shops).

Now for over a decade I have been assembling my own PC and frequent quite a few computer/electronic shops (in Bangalore and Delhi) and keep track of prices. So it is quite shocking for me to see the terrible value-for-money proposition that these mega-stores offer.

As most component buyers like me know, the MRP price of electronics items are nowhere near the street prices if you have bought from regular small stores. e.g. a computer monitor might show an MRP of Rs. 14,000 but if you buy from the street it will cost you around Rs. 9000. These are legitimate, bill and warranty purchases, mind you! (The term “street”, for those who are not familiar with the term, are the regular retailers)!

However, if you go to these new mega-stores, they would typically display a list price of the MRP of the monitor with a stinking Rs 100 to Rs. 500 discount and mark huge banners all around exclaiming the amazing deals they are offering you. They will blare over FM channels claiming to have jaw dropping prices and some are even brazen enough to offer you the price difference if you manage to get the same item for cheap elsewhere.

So they don’t give money-for-value. So then why am I worried? Because every day I see more and more people rushing to these stores for the one advantage they have – accessible display of their offering. Whatever these mega-stores have, they have on display. If anything is not on display, they don’t have it. This is the biggest (and I consider the only significant) advantage that they have over the smaller retailers. And just like those farmers who have been crying themselves hoarse over food departmental stores, I am beginning to be afraid for the future for us consumers. It is inevitable that over time, the smaller shops who have till now been working on razor sharp margins and giving us great deals, will have to die. The future, it seems, belongs to the mega stores, and with absence of any corporations like Walmart or Amazon (yes, I know they are criticized for many things otherwise) in this country with a dedicated corporate policy of giving actual value to consumers, it seems that it is us consumers who have everything to lose. For all their big talk, retail biggies like Big Bazaar and Reliance Stores are yet to provide any significant cost advantage to consumers and nor do they appear to have any motivation too. I don’t expect anything different from the new age electronics mega stores.

For all those who have developed a liking to these stores and are reading this blog. Do what I do. Go check out these mega stores for all the items on offer. Make a note of what interests you. Then do a little bit of research or ask around your office and buy the item from a regular small retailer like the ones on SP road or if that is inconvenient, even Brigade Road. I can guarantee you that you will save hundreds if not thousands with every purchase. Whether it is computer parts or mobiles or cameras, you will always get the best deals outside these glitzy abominations.

Yesterday, our finance minister asked various sectors to cut prices.

Mr. Chidambaram said a cut in prices was the time-tested response to a demand slowdown as lower prices would stimulate consumer spending at a time when the output of manufacturing and other sectors was falling and would lead to a decline in economic growth.

This reminded me about an article written by Sunita Narain from CSE (Thanks to Munna for the ref) where she asks us to think whether there is something fundamentally wrong with the conventional economics followed by not just our government but the rest of the world.

The fact is we have been taught, and have practised what has been preached, we can consume our way to growth and consume our way through and out of any slow-down period. “Don’t worry, just consume” is the mantra. If we cannot ‘afford’ to consume, then, too, we should not worry. The financial systems will ensure we get cheap loans to buy homes, cars, washing machines, or anything else we may not need but desire. After all, it is only if we consume that growth indicators will look rosy again, and the world will remain happy.

The problem with this model is that we do little to ensure we can bring the cost of the product down so that it is affordable. In other words, we do not plan, design, manufacture and sell products and services that meet the purchasing abilities of people. We don’t demand technology to work for affordability. We also don’t share wealth so that more can afford this growth—afford the house or the car—without the loans that will make the banks boom and then go bust.

Her words make so much sense. It seems a crazy world where customers are being forced to buy more to get things cheap. The whole system is geared to require people to be materialistic. If you have a scooter, go buy a car! If you already have a car, go upgrade! If you are on rent, go buy a house! Go buy that new widescreen TV! That new line of clothes which are the flavor of the season.

What if people don’t want to consume more? What if they are satisfied with what they have? Can they ever expect prices to come down? Or at least stabilize? Our finance minister doesn’t think so. And if the BJP is in power next season, that thinking will still not change. For we are wedded to an economic model, which as Sunita points out, has led the world’s largest economy to trip over itself and shake the rest of the world with the sound of it’s fall.

The us $700 billion bail-out package was explained very succinctly by us president George Bush in the interest of the ‘poor’ worker. “The banks needed to loan, as otherwise ordinary Americans would not have money to buy the car and this would mean that the factory workers in Detroit would lose their job.” Simple logic for simple economics: buy and buy to make the economy go around.

In this way, the vicious circle will go, on and on. We will consume more, because it is the only way we know to economic growth. Even if it costs us a bank or the Earth.

We will not talk about this. To do so would mean we would have to change our fundamental understanding of what constitutes growth; to what leads to happiness and what results in employment and well being for all. It would mean changes in how we measure economic growth—junking or going beyond the gross domestic product (gdp) indicator to one that is much more comprehensive in assessment of these needs.

Romila Thapar interview on UNESCO

The worrying thing is, what will happen if the Bharatiya Janata Party returns to power in the next election, which will be held within 12 months? Will they change the textbooks again? I worry for the school children who have to be examined in the subject and depend on textbooks.

Once we accept one religious group’s agenda and beliefs to be taught in the public schools, it opens the door for every other group to do the same thing. As educators, we have to make a distinction between history on the one hand, which involves questioning existing knowledge about the past where necessary, and faith on the other hand, where even myths are acceptable. The two have to be kept separate. The first is the domain of the historian and the second that of the priest.

(On Asian age, via Communalism Combat)

Arrest of Lt. Col. is an alarm bell

Hindu extremists call themselves “nationalist” and extremists of other breeds “secessionist” and “anti-national”. This is a grotesque inversion of democratic logic, especially in a country of such bewildering diversity as India. The message should be clear: if we don’t hang together, we’ll hang separately. If incursion of the extreme tendencies among the majority community into the armed forces is not eradicated with a firm hand in the incipient stage, the prognosis can be unnerving. This is how the seizure of power by unconstitutional elements began in Pakistan and in most of the dictatorships in West Asia and elsewhere. All in the name of nationalism.

(Mark Shuttleworth is the former CEO of Thawte and now the founder and leader of the Ubuntu project.)

Nice post by Mark defending capitalism over socialism, while underscoring the need for sound regulation in any capitalist model.

… state enterprises lack the forces of evolution that apply in a capitalist economy – state enterprises are rarely if ever allowed to fail. And hence bad ideas are perpetuated indefinitely, and an economy becomes dysfunctional to the point of systemic collapse. It is the fact that private enterprises fail which keeps industries vibrant. The tension between the imperative to innovate and the consequences of failure drives capitalist economies to evolve quickly.

Despite all of the nasty consequences that we have seen, and those we have yet to see, of capitalism gone wrong, I am still firmly of the view that society must tap into its capitalist strengths if it wants to move forward. But I chose my words carefully when I said “regulated capitalism”.

I used to be a fan of Adam Smith’s invisible hand, and great admirer of Ayn Rand’s vision. Now, I feel differently. Left to it’s own devices, the market will tend to reinforce the position of those who were successful in the past, at the exclusion of those who might create future successes. We see evidence of this all the time. The heavyweights that define an industry tend to do everything in their power to prevent innovation from changing the rules that enrich them.