Category: About

The Triple Point of the World at Zero Degrees Humanity

MonsoonRain

I keep waiting for the real monsoons to show up in Mumbai. Do they have any thunder and lightening and huge downpours around here or does this anemic occasional rain showers pass for the monsoons? Thank goodness that I went to Lonavla last weekend with a bunch of guys from work. As we entered the Western Ghats, we passed through the mother of all rain storms. Waterfalls by the hundreds cascaded down the rocky cliffs at the edges of the Mumbai-Pune highway. When we reached Lonavla, the downpour had created fast-flowing rivers of the narrow roads of the busy tourist town. Being situated in a hilly area, shortly after the storm ended, the rivers vanished and the narrow streets reappeared. Continue reading “The Triple Point of the World at Zero Degrees Humanity”

Born Under a Wandering Star

As the song goes, I was born under a wanderin’ star. Lately my wandering has been confined to attending ICT for development shindigs around the country. But it gets mighty tiring. So I thought that it is about time to go see the world at large and renew my credentials as a truly homeless person. I suppose I am a gypsy at heart, a gypsy from a strange and distant land traveling on eternity road in search of … well, one can never be sure, can one?

This time I will be going round the world and plan to stop in Helsinki, Paris, London, Boston, New York, Washington, Atlanta, San Francisco Bay Area (Berkeley, San Jose, Saratoga, etc), and Seoul. I start mid-July and return to Mumbai around August 20th. The best part of my trip will be being back in California where I spent the best 20 years of my life so far, and being back in Berkeley would be the sweetest thing of all. As much as any place can be home to a homeless person, Berkeley is home to me.

I was born under a wanderin’ star
Home is made for coming from
Dreams for going to
Which with any luck
Will never come true…
Wheels are made for rolling
Mules are made to pack
I never seen a sight
That didn’t look better looking back …
Might can make you prisoner
The plains can bake you dry
Snow can burn your eyes
But only people make you cry …

That song is from an old western called Paint Your Wagon. There are three simple truths embedded in the quoted lines above. The first is about dreams coming true. See this quote about ideas and ideals for an elaboration of the notion that if you are lucky, your dreams will not come true. The second truth is that things always look better in retrospect. Time lends perspective. And finally, of all wounds, that caused by people hurt the most.

I think this one is fast running out of rhyme or reason, and I am getting all sentimental. So I should stop.

The Amazing Ogallala Aquifer

I have been neglecting this blog because I have been traveling to places exotic. Well, maybe not all that exotic since it was just Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh. I had gone there to speak at a conference on ICT and development.

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Continue reading “The Amazing Ogallala Aquifer”

Dollar Auctions and Deadly Games

Some years ago during the Kargil episode, I had analysed the conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir as a dollar aution (DA)and written a piece called Dollar Auctions and Deadly Games.

I believe that the model has interesting implications and is worth pondering. The DA game involves the auctioning of a dollar bill similar to an ordinary auction where the winner gets the dollar but with the special requirement that the second highest bidder has to pay the second highest bid amount to the auctioneer.
Continue reading “Dollar Auctions and Deadly Games”

It’s the Small Stuff, Stupid

An ironic bit of popular wisdom goes

  1. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
  2. It’s all small stuff.

In the context of economic development, I totally agree with the latter bit, but strongly disagree with the former bit. If we don’t sweat the small stuff, we don’t have much hope of managing the big stuff since the big stuff is exactly what arises from an aggregation of all those small bits of stuff.
Continue reading “It’s the Small Stuff, Stupid”

What I Believe

It is easy to defend the view that resource scarcity is a crucial causal factor in most conflicts. And since scarcity of resources increases with increasing populations, a greater balance between resources and population numbers could reduce strife.

I see the result of extreme imbalance between resources and populations every day in Mumbai. People lose their dignity in the face of dehumanizing poverty. I have also seen the other extreme — of affluence. I have lived in the US for over a couple of decades and witnessed their profligate over-consumption which is also unsustainable. Somewhere between the thoughtless affluence of the few and the de-humanizing poverty of the many, is the middle-path of sustainable development of all humanity. The problems of our system are easy to see and are stated easily enough though they are hard to solve.

Although I am not a religious person in the traditional sense of the word, I hold some things sacred. I believe that life in the universe is the most profound mystery second only to the mystery of why something, rather than nothing, exists. And that mystery of life is deserving of our most profound respect and wonder. Preservation of all life on Earth, therefore, is the most sacred of duties. Not just preservation but to see that it flourishes in all its infinite variety and diversity. I believe it is a moral imperative that every human being born to this life should have the opportunity to live a life of dignity, purpose, and meaning. Living in harmony with nature and with other fellow life on earth is axiomatic to a good life.

My interests lie in the interaction between the environment, the world economic order and humanity. I have spent some time thinking about growth, development, sustainability and the environment. I recognize that there is a distinction between growth and development. The natural evolution of any system in the initial stages requires growth but that there is a natural limit to the growth past that stage. Development could go on without limits at all stages without it being linked to growth. I feel that if in a system growth is a necessary condition for its continued development, then the development of that system is unsustainable due to the limits to growth in a world of finite resources. How to develop without growing is one of the greatest challenges that faces India.

We need to understand the meaning of progress, what its implications are with respect to the impact on the ecological systems we inhabit and what are the limits to growth: of populations, of the economic system’s physical throughput and other related factors.

Why don’t they feel the pain?

Ever wonder why poor nations are poor and rich nations are rich? I don’t. I believe I know why the poor stay poor and the rich get rich. Consider this from The Wall Street Journal of Jan 19th. The report is titled India and US to Improve Ties. Here is an excerpt:

Washington also sees India becoming a big buyer of U.S.-made arms. In the past two years, India has purchased roughly $200 million of American arms and is in negotiations to purchase P3 Orion maritime-patrol aircraft from the U.S. The deal, valued at about $1 billion, could be the biggest arms deal ever between the two nations.

There you have it. The rich sell arms to the poor and the poor pay for it through the blood, sweat, and tears of its starving millions. To be sure, it is not the starving millions who are interested in fighting the poor of the neighboring countries. These millions of poor unfortunates are merely the slave labor that supply through their toil goods that the rich buy in exchange for the arms they ship to the armies of the poor nations.
Continue reading “Why don’t they feel the pain?”

HMS Titanic — 4

In the last few days I have been trying to understand what caused the Titanic to sink. To belabor the obvious I must admit that I consider the sinking of the Titanic to be a metaphor. There are important lessons that I would like to draw from it. Continue reading “HMS Titanic — 4”

We are Made of Stuff

… We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

    Shakespeare’s The Tempest

Writing in the Dec 28th, 2003 edition of The Week, President Kalam says, “In the 21st century, knowledge is the primary production resource instead of capital or labour.”

I have been unable to fully comprehend that insight, fundamentally because it does not make any sense. Sounds profound but makes no sense. What is a ‘primary production resource‘? Did Kalam imply that once upon a time capital and labor were primary production resources but knowledge wasn’t? What changed so that labor and capital got displaced and now knowledge holds that position?
Continue reading “We are Made of Stuff”

Two stories about development


FOR A HUMAN CHARACTER to reveal truly exceptional qualities, one must have the good fortune to be able to observe its performance over many years. If this performance is devoid of all egoism, if its guiding motive is unparalleled generosity, if it is absolutely certain that there is no thought of recompense and that, in addition, it has left its visible mark upon the earth, then there can be no mistake.

Thus begins one of the most inspiring stories that I treasure. It is by Jean Giono and the story is called The Man who Planted Trees. It is a short story and there is a story about the story itself which I will go into another day. I have yet to meet someone who did not find it inspirational. The story concludes thus:

I am convinced that, in spite of everything, humanity is admirable. But when I compute the unfailing greatness of spirit and the tenacity of benevolence that it must have taken to achieve this result, I am taken with an immense respect for that old and unlearned peasant who was able to complete a work worthy of God.

Stories teach us a lot provided we take the trouble to think about what they mean. I like stories that teach a deep lesson — a lesson that has wide applicability. One such story I came across in Douglas Adam’s book Last Chance to See and the story is called Sifting Through the Embers.
From areas such environmental degradation to economic development to personal striving — that story has something important to say. I will not give the punch line away right now. For now, I hope you enjoy the two stories.