Author: rchenn

Would Karl Marx be right after all?

On By rchennIn Newspaper, The Hans IndiaLeave a comment

The early years of the twenty-first century have not been good for global capitalism. An international credit crisis and a widespread recession since 2008, with all their attendant anxieties and miseries, have unsurprisingly shaken public support for free-market processes – especially within many of capitalism’s traditional strongholds. In addition, with the recent Covid-19 pandemic-induced supply chain disruption and economic aftershocks, Ukraine’s first war in Europe in decades and its resulting serious energy crisis, the globalized economies of the world are facing a combination of domestic recessions questioning their welfare models, leading to rising interest rates, high inflation drifting poor and rich further apart, deepening negative climate effects and serious geopolitical uncertainty.

“Rarely do so many volatile business conditions descend at once on the world” and “Unless systemic risks are addressed, the promise of a ‘decade of action’ may become a decade of uncertainty and fragility,” warn the organizers of this year’s World Economic Forum meet at Davos from January 16 to 20, 2023 with the theme ‘Cooperation in a Fragmented World.’ But what are the ‘systemic risks’?

Many mainstream and socialist economists have an understanding that a capitalist market economy is not an automatically self-regulating system; rather, it periodically enters periods of self-generated breakdown or ‘systemic risks’. More than 150 years back, none other than Karl Marx called these periods of risk as “crises”; today, we use a gentler term, “recessions.” It looks like Marxism, which never went away, is back. Capitalism, which was for a time seen as being akin to a law of nature, something permanent and unchangeable, is now being discussed and critiqued even by its champions.

None other than billionaire Ray Dalio, the founder of the largest Hedgefonds, and author of the bestseller ‘Principles for Success’ meant for investment bankers comes to a strong conclusion that capitalism must be fundamentally reformed if it would like to survive further because richness and prosperity are distributed unequally and there is no room for ensuing equal opportunities for all. The ‘Financial Times,’ an international mouthpiece of financial markets, says it is high time that neoliberalism exits from the world stage and makes room for the state. International corporations starting from Bosch to Goldman Sachs strongly discuss today the immediate necessity of keeping the societal interests above those of the private shareholders.

It is widely believed in international schools of thought that mainly three important factors have led to a renewed interest in left alternatives to neoliberal capitalism and to which Marx is “clearly relevant to.” These are the persistence and currently deepening of the 2008 financial crisis until today, with the strong warning that chronic instability still underpins capitalism; the astonishing growth in serious economic and social inequality and concentration of wealth in few property owning classes in the last decades, and warnings about the prospects of mass unemployment currently emerging as automation proceeds towards platform capitalism. The importance of crisis theory.

It looks like Marxism, which never went away, is back. Actually, Karl Marx lived in the 19th century, an era very different from our own, if also one in which many of the features of today’s society were beginning to take shape. Coming back to ‘systemic risks,’ the deeper understanding of the drive towards crisis is central to Marx’s analysis of capitalism and to his arguments for the possibility and necessity of revolutionary change. For Marx, the existence of inequality or poverty alone is not what turns workers against the capitalist system. These problems have always been a part of the everyday workings of any “healthy” capitalist economy. Of greater social and ideological impact is the insecurity, instability, and ruin that economic crises periodically inflict on the lives of the working-class and all toiling people.

Marx presents his crisis theory in its most developed form as ‘Law of Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall’ which is considered in every respect the most important law of modern political economy. A key characteristic of these theoretical factors is that none of them are natural or accidental in origin but instead arise from systemic elements of capitalism as a mode of production and basic social order. In Marx’s words, “The real barrier of capitalist production is capital itself.” Already in the second-half of nineteenth century, Marx took note of “a new financial aristocracy, a new variety of parasites in the shape of promoters, speculators and simply nominal directors; a whole system of swindling and cheating by means of corporation promotion, stock issuance and stock speculation.” This, he observed, was closely linked with enhanced role of credit both as accelerator of growth and, when stretched beyond a limit, as harbinger of crisis.

This is explained by him very interestingly from his time as a business and financial correspondent for the New York Tribune in the 1850s, then the world’s largest newspaper. In discussing the crisis of 1857, generally regarded as the first worldwide recession, Marx focused on the policies of Crédit Mobilier, the world’s first investment bank. He noted that the bank’s statutes allowed it to borrow up to 10 times its capital. It then used the funds to purchase shares or fund IPOs (Initial Public Offering) of French railroad and industrial corporations, greatly increasing output. But when no purchasers were found for the expanded production, the bank discovered that the stocks it had bought had fallen in value, making it difficult to repay its loans. Now, just replace Crédit Mobilier with Lehman Brothers or the Anglo-Irish Bank of 2008-2009, and French railroad and industrial firms with Nevada or Irish real estate, and we have a fair picture of a major cause of the last financial crisis before us. This is absolutely in conformity with Marx’s crisis theory and the main concern here is that we seem to be, indeed, heading deeper into this crisis currently!

Since the turn of 21st century, the rise of information monopolies has created a ‘platform capitalism,’ yet another method of making money out of money bypassing the hassles of production and the rapid spread of internet connectivity. These online or digital platforms do not own productive facilities or inventories (Uber for example owns no vehicles; Facebook creates no content; Alibaba and Amazon have no inventories) but provide the vital “interface” between sellers and buyers/users, in the process stealing, assembling, using and misusing huge quantities of our data. For instance, the “Big Five” – Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google – represent more than 20% of the market and companies like Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, and Paypal are all worth tens of billions of dollars and increasingly dominate our economies and wield tremendous influence over our culture, social interactions, and political systems.

However, again here the same phenomenon of recession Karl Marx noted in 1857 is slowly emerging. For example, as the bulk of Elon Musk’s wealth is tied up in electric vehicles Tesla (TSLA), whose stock plunged 65% in 2022 as demand weakened, he lost a record $200 billion. Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos says mass layoffs of 10,000 in 2022 and 2023 are inevitable due to recession. Google is expected to fire nearly 10,000 employees for poor performance, including in India. Meta (earlier known as Facebook) is firing 11,000 people, and Twitter has fired half of its workforce. Global financial institutes conclude that like US, nearly all Eurozone economies are currently in a recession. Global Risks Report 2023 presented by World Economic Forum for discussion at Davos speaks of a set of risks that the world is facing today, such as inflation, cost of-living crises, trade wars, capital outflows from emerging markets, widespread social unrest, geopolitical confrontation, and the spectre of nuclear warfare – which few of this generation’s business leaders and public policymakers have experienced. These are being amplified by comparatively new developments in the global risks landscape, including unsustainable levels of debt, a new era of low growth, low global investment and de-globalization, a decline in human development, growing pressure of climate change impacts, all converging to shape a unique, uncertain, and turbulent decade to come. Global capitalism seems to be indeed in deep crisis. Given this background, let us hope that representatives of national governments, business and civil society meeting next week at Davos will be able to design options of shared responsibilities, which are not just aimed at business as usual, but genuinely understand and address the root causes of the risks produced periodically in the systems we live in today.

Source: https://www.thehansindia.com/hans/opinion/news-analysis/would-karl-marx-be-right-after-all-777988

Hyderabad Integration Day: Whose legacy is it?

On By rchennIn Newspaper, The New Indian ExpressLeave a comment

Major General Al-Aidroos surrenders to General JN Chaudhuri of the Indian Army

A most powerful Marxist quote and very relevant for many struggles says “social conditions determine social consciousness”. It tells us that if you put a population under conditions of extreme inequality and injustice for sufficient time, then they will eventually rise up. Social consciousness may also stimulate working towards a common goal.

‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ commemorating 75 years of independence undoubtedly reflects such social consciousness and proudly remembers the sacrifices of thousands of people to achieve the common goal of freedom to India from British Raj. People’s struggles, including those of democrats, leftists, communists, workers, and peasants have a prominent place in this saga. All those forces who have combined political independence with economic and social emancipation from the feudal landlords and the state, starting from Meerut conspiracy case in March 1929 for organizing an Indian railway strike convicting 27 leftist trade union leaders to the glorious Telangana Armed Struggle by peasants, belong to this facet. It is highly appreciated by the Telangana people today that Liberation struggle against the Nizam and the Merger of Hyderabad into the Indian Union, called “Liberation Day” and “Integration Day”, found its due place this year with the central and state governments officially conducting various activities to commemorate it.

Inclusive India

The emergence of the concept of an inclusive India was a product of a continuous battle between three schools of thought and visions that emerged during the course of the independence struggle.  The mainstream Congress vision had envisioned that independent India could be a secular democratic Republic. The Communists and socialist forces, while agreeing with this, went further to say that such a secular democratic structure would be untenable, if independent India pursues the path of capitalist development. The Communists and the socialist forces, thus, envisioned that political freedom that we achieve must be extended to the socio-economic freedom of every Indian – possible only under socialism. This was also their objective during the Telangana armed struggle.

Antagonistic to both these is the third school of thought which argued that the character of independent India should be determined by the religious affiliations of its people. This vision had a twin expression – the Muslim League championing an `Islamic State’ and the RSS championing its `Hindu Rashtra’. The former succeeded with the unfortunate partition of the country, engineered, aided and abetted by the British, with all its consequences that continue to fester tensions till date. The latter, having failed to achieve their objective at the time of independence, continued with their efforts shedding away their original swadeshi concept and adopting a rigorous private monopoly capitalist mode of development to transform modern India into `Hindu Rashtra’. Today’s ideological battles, including that regarding the character of Telangana liberation or merger, and the political conflicts in different parts of the country are in a way, the continuation of this battle between these three schools of thought and their development visions.

Andhra Mahasabha: Banner of Telangana Armed Struggle

It is important to understand that peasants led by the communists, socialists and farmer organizations, based on their above mentioned vision played their key role in the evolution of an inclusive India by bringing on to the agenda of the national movement crucial issues through the struggles that they had launched. First, the struggles on the land question unleashed predominantly by the Communists in various parts of the country – Punnapra Vayalar in Kerala, the Tebhaga movement in Bengal, the Surma Valley struggle in Assam, the Warli uprising in Maharashtra etc – the highlight of which was the armed struggle in Telangana – brought the issue of land reforms and exploitation of the poor to the center stage.

As we know, before Indian independence, Hyderabad state was a princely state within the territory of British India. In one of the most feudal systems in the world, the rights and duties of Nizam, his family and the other elites were very clearly defined and protected. Nizams feudal system of ruling his state has rested on a well knitted network of Police Patel (law and order), Mali Patel (Revenue) and Patwari (land record and collection) at village level. At the upper level, there were Girdawars and Tahasildars (Revenue Inspector) and Talukdar (Collector). Important to note is the fact, that police patel, mali patel and patwari posts were hereditary and have been continued for decades by the involved loyalists of Nizam. The nature of land ownership in the region was extremely exploitative. Forty percent of the land was either directly owned by the Nizam or given by the Nizam to elites in the form of jagirs (special tenures). The remaining sixty percent was under the government’s land revenue system, which relied on powerful landlords who collected upto 50% crop rent from kauludarlu and gave no legal rights or security from eviction to the people actually cultivating the land. The vetti (forced labor) system consisted of different works performed by lower castes at the will of the landlord. Another practice was the prevalence of keeping girls as ‘slaves’ in landlords’ houses, used by landlords as concubines.

Against this background, formed in 1928, Andhra Mahasabha was organized under the leadership of Madapati Hanumantha Rao, Suravaram Pratapa Reddy and others became in those wretched and tremendously oppressive conditions in Hyderabad state, a forum, a focal point for the rising democratic aspirations of the people. In conferences, it used to pass resolutions demanding certain reforms in the administrative structure, for more schools, concessions for the landed gentry, for certain civil liberties etc. It is this background and the continued resistance of the oppressed which culminated into the historic Telangana armed struggle against the Nizam. It was the Communist Party of India which has organized this peasant-led armed rebellion against the cruel rule of Nizam landlords under the banner of Andhra Mahasabha. Few among the well-known individuals at the forefront of the movement were Ravi Narayana Reddy (President of Andhra Mahasabha in 1947), Makhdoom Mohiuddin, Hassan Nasir, Bhimreddy Narasimha Reddy, Mallu Venkata Narasimha Reddy, Mallu Swarajyam, Arutla Ramchandra Reddy, his wife Arutla Kamala Devi, Raj Bahadur Gaur, Baddam Yella Reddy, Anabheri Prabhakar, Chennamaneni Rajeswara Rao and others.

As part of this historic rebellion from 1946 to 1951, lakhs of people in Telangana resisted the feudal brutal exploitation of Nizam and his razakars as well as jagirdars, deshmukhs and deshpandeys etc. About 60 000 people left their homes and joined actively as leaders of the movement and took to the arms to wage an armed struggle against Nizam and his Razakars liberating thousands of villages and marching to overthrow them. According to the official records, 35 000 people were arrested in Hyderabad state and put to inhuman torture. About a lakh bogus cases were booked against the participants of the movement. In spite of this upsurge, Nizam continued his brutal oppression and was in no way ready to recognize independence to India in 1947. As part of this historic struggle to liberate the Hyderabad state, 4500 people sacrificed their lives.

Blast from the past:  Khasim Rizvi in a meeting with office-bearers of the original Majlis-e-Ittehadul-Momineen that he headed at the time of Police Action  Oridinary citizens watch the Indian Army march into the erstwhile Hyderabad State on September 13, 1948,  Mir Osman Ali Khan, Nizam VII on the Silver Jubilee of his ascension to the throne,  Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan welcomes Sardar Patel at the Begumpet airport after Police Action,  The Charminar wears a deserted look on September 17, 1948

Police Action against Nizam and peasants rebellion

On September 13, 1948, in a ‘police action’ aimed at countering the violence in Hyderabad, the Indian Army marched into the state. Within a week’s time, the Nizam, the razakar squads and the police surrendered. Following the capture of the razakars, a military administration was set up under General J.N. Chaudhuri, and a military offensive was directed at the peasant rebels in the Telangana region. During the next three years, in more than 2000 villages about 300,000 of people were tortured, about 50,000 were arrested and kept in detention camps for a few days to a few months. More than 5,000 were imprisoned for years. The Indian Army’s presence transformed the struggle, as it was no more a liberation struggle against the Nizam, but rather against the army of the newly-formed Indian Government.

In an effort to co-opt peasant support, the military administration issued the Jagir Abolition Regulation (August 1949) and set up an Agrarian Enquiry Committee to recommend comprehensive land reform legislation. It was clear, though, whose side the state was on; within two weeks the landlords started returning and regaining their lost land. General J.N. Chaudhuri, the military governor made a statement from Hyderabad, calling all communists to surrender within a week, failing which they would be exterminated. A debate ensued within the Communist Party. Certain sections, predominantly led by Ravi Narayana Reddy, felt that giving up arms was essential as India became independent, Nizam’s rule came to an end and people have welcomed this change. He argued that the core feudal system in the rural Telangana has been severely damaged by overthrowing Nizam’s state and the next stage of fight has to be aimed against the ruling Indian capitalist bourgeois democracy.  Other sections were skeptical, as they felt that giving up arms could lead to loss of gains and appear as a betrayal of the people. However, due to severe military repression leading to a huge loss of life, the movement has weakened leading to the CPI formally declaring the struggle as withdrawn on October 21, 1951.

Political legacy and way forward

The uniqueness of Hyderabad Liberation Day of 17th September has to be, therefore, seen in a larger context today should we make an attempt to objectively understand the causality effect underlying it. Telangana armed struggle undoubtedly paved way for the defeat of Nizam’s rule in Hyderabad State enabling its merger into Indian Union. None other than Ravi Narayana Reddy said “we would have overthrown Nizam even if Indian army would have not started police action”.

Seventy-one years after Telangana joined the Indian Union after the historic Telangana armed struggle and Nizam’s forced accession, the occasion has turned the erstwhile princely state into a testing ground for the Bharatiya Janata Party’s polarized political agenda. History establishes that neither the Arya Samaj, Hindu Mahasabha nor the RSS, from which the BJP claims to inherit its legacy, played any role in the struggle against Nizam’s feudal rule. What they did was to create religious animosity among people and break their unity, in Hyderabad State, which was until ‘a couple of decades back’, an ‘ideal place as far as relations between the various communities are concerned’. This was documented none other than the Sunderlal Committee, appointed by the Indian government to enquire into the ‘massacre of Muslims’. Over the past 75 years, this region never had a strong affiliation with any religion despite being a Nizam state in the past. Pertinently, in the historic Telangana armed struggle waged by the exploited peasantry against the Nizam – a Muslim and independent ruler under British suzerainty – none of the antecedents of the BJP had participated. The BJP thus has no history in the state to showcase, and this predicament is forcing it to hunt for an issue to soft-land the Hindu-Muslim polarization agenda in the state. The idea is to portray Telangana as the land of Hindus who fought against the Nizam, and Sardar Patel, the first Home Minister of India, would be reintroduced in the state as the true liberator of Telangana. This absolute distortion of history lies in the fact to portray the Telangana peasants’ movement against the Nizam as an anti-Muslim struggle and the merger of Hyderabad princely state with the Indian union as ‘liberation’!

Therefore, the uniqueness of legacy of Telangana undoubtedly lies in the fact that more than seven decades ago, it witnessed the armed struggle against feudal forces and designed its own economic and social agenda; six decades ago these predominantly leftist forces fought under the banner “Land to the Tiller” to implement agrarian and tenancy reforms for telangana peasants; five decades ago the historic students movement raised the banner for separate telangana state; four decades ago it provided the epicentre of the most vibrant civil liberties movement in the country; it has been home for marxist-leninist rythu coolie udyamam against landlordism; in the aftermath of the emergency period to the formation of the first autonomous women’s rights groups in the country in the mid-1970s; the dalit and adivasi movements are always at home here. Therefore it is of high political importance to note that again it is the culmination of these divergent forces demanded uncompromisingly a separate telangana state and achieved it. Needless to say that these forces look today at their unfinished political, economic, social and cultural agenda to be implemented in the newly emerged telangana state and absolutely not in polarizing hindu and muslim communities for political mileage.   

As India and Telangana liberation and merger into the Indian Union marks its 75th anniversary of independence, it is necessary for all of us to understand and analyze the current political and social battles of what should be the character of the political and social structure of post-independent modern India that arose during the course of our epic freedom struggle. Independent India having adopted the framework of a secular democratic republic adopted the Indian Constitution under which our political system functions today. The four foundational pillars upon which this constitution rests are: secular democracy; federalism, social justice; and economic self-reliance.  However, each one of these pillars are today under severe strain and pose a big challenge to all democrats and progressive forces to protect them!

Source: https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/telangana/2022/sep/17/hyderabad-integration-day-whose-legacy-is-it-2499101.html

Why Trump became unbearable.

On By rchennIn Newspaper, telangana todayLeave a comment

From dividing people to convincing them that they are cheating, Trump is now undermining the electoral system itself

Nicholas Goldberg wrote an interesting observation in the Los Angeles Times on Nov 4. “But this much is clear: On one level, Donald Trump has already won. He’s won because he has sown exactly the kind of discord he thrives on. He’s won because he’s divided us still further in ways that will stay with us long after he has left office. He’s turned adversaries into enemies, undermined our democratic institutions and convinced us we’re cheating one another. At the moment, he is continuing to undermine the electoral system itself with unsubstantiated charges of voter fraud.”

Though it’s still uncertain who will occupy the White House on January 20, 2021, assuming Joe Biden wins, the path ahead of him is daunting: an electorate divided; a likely Republican Senate disinclined to compromise; and a Trump-enhanced Supreme Court poised to frustrate him at every turn. Biden has, wisely and appropriately, promised to govern as President for all Americans — that is, the opposite of Trump’s divisive approach. But even winning the popular vote does not erase the fact that Biden would inherit a country whose citizens are as angry and polarised as at any moment in the recent past.

THREE DISASTERS

At least three important developments played a key role in the elections and it is necessary to know them to understand the voters’ perspective. This may also provide us some first signs of what type of a shift one may expect from the new US government.

Poor Economic Policy

As we all know, the economic policy of the Trump administration is characterised by individual and corporate tax cuts, attempts to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (‘Obamacare’), trade protectionism, immigration restriction, deregulation focused on the energy and financial sectors, and responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.

A key part of Trump’s economic strategy was to boost growth via tax cuts and additional spending, both of which significantly increased federal budget deficits. The positive economic situation he inherited from President Obama continued, with a labour market approaching full employment and measures of household income and wealth continuing to improve significantly.

Trump also implemented trade protectionism via tariffs, primarily on imports from China, as part of his ‘America First’ strategy. However, two important implications of these policies were that because of cuts in Obamacare, the number of Americans without health insurance increased under Trump, while his tax cuts worsened income inequality. The administration’s most direct and craven contribution to growing inequality, of course, is the 2017 tax cut. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, $205 billion of the roughly $325 billion in revenue foregone by changes to the tax code went into the pockets of the richest 20%. Under $40 billion went to the poorest 60% of American taxpayers—about the same share that went to foreign investors.

Since the beginning of this year, pandemic concerns and mitigation measures resulted in over 40 million people filing for unemployment insurance until the end of March 2020. This has resulted in rapidly widening inequality in wages, incomes, and wealth where the poor and vulnerable were hit hard. For example, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the number of uninsured persons under age 65 rose from 28.2 million in 2016 to 32.8 million in 2019, an increase of 4.6 million or 16%.

Trump’s failures during the pandemic run the gamut from the rhetorical to the organisational. Every time the President speaks, he seems to add to the fear and chaos surrounding the situation: telling Americans it was not serious by asserting his “hunches” about data, assuring people that everyone would be tested even when there were very few tests available, telling people we are very close to a vaccine when it is anywhere from 12 to 18 months away, etc.

Bombastic and Racist

Trump was bombastic and racist from the outset, openly courting White xenophobic voters by falsely blaming immigrants and foreign nations for many of America’s woes. It seemed hardly a recipe for political success in a nation proudly built by immigrants and their descendants and led at the time by a Black president who, like Trump himself, was the son of an immigrant.

The peak situation was that there were more than a thousand protests—most of them peaceful, though some devolved into violence—which swept across America caused by outrage over the death of George Floyd, recorded as a Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee to his neck for nearly nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down. Floyd was one of approximately 1,100 people killed annually, most of them African-American, by police use of force in the US in recent years.

Withdrawal Syndrome

The US, on November 5, became the first country across the globe to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. The Paris Agreement was drafted in 2015, with nearly 200 nations signing it to ensure and encourage a global response to the threats posed due to climate change. The US government, under the leadership of Trump, officially ended its association with the Agreement, over three years after the decision was first declared.

According to a report by BBC, the US represents around 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions and remains the world’s biggest and most powerful economy. While on one side, Trump withdrew from the Agreement, his political rival Biden took to social media and made a contrasting announcement. Biden announced that the US government, under his leadership would be rejoining the Agreement “in exactly 77 days”. This is a good sign not only to strive towards improving the global climate but also a real hope that global cooperation towards a more peaceful, fair and egalitarian world can be expected from this global leader in future.

Original post: https://telanganatoday.com/why-trump-became-unbearable

Hyderabad: ‘More days of heavy rainfall, very high temperature ahead’

On By rchennIn Newspaper, Times of IndiaLeave a comment

With a record of around 29.8 cm of rainfall been recorded at Hayathnagar and more than 21 cm in about 35 places in the city, Hyderabad witnessed the highest rainfall ever in 24 hours on October 14. These torrential rains left 33 dead in the city (across Telangana the figure was over 70), caused huge property loss and brought normal life to a halt.

Waterlogging

All predictions of monsoon arrival, withdrawal and projections about the amount of rainfall to be received failed significantly. It is now well established that monsoon is changing with climate change.

In fact, this change was predicted way back in 2009 by the Indo-German Project on Sustainable Hyderabad, in which 60 scientists worked for eight years on different subjects. Analysing 100 years of rainfall and other data at Begumpet it made very clear long-term climate change projections and their implications on Hyderabad, for the first time. The study clearly emphasised that with global warming, monsoon is changing and becoming more and more erratic and unpredictable.


CLIMATE VARIABLES IMPACTING HYDERABAD
Climate Change projections depend on global CO2-emission scenarios, best described by a high (A2, business as usual) and low (B2, global emission reduction from about 2035 on) global emission future. The level of certainty of climate system representations for Hyderabad was assessed by their degree of consensus with 17 independent climate models (provided by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change). In the following projections, two most relevant climate variables impacting urban functions are explained

VERY STRONG MONSOON RAIN EVENTS

More than 80mm/day, currently occurring once in two years are the major cause of flooding in Hyderabad, resulting in a wide range of secondary impacts: adverse health effects, traffic breakdowns and infrastructure damage. Independent of the emission scenario, we have to prepare for a 60% increase in the frequency of these events until 2050.

EXTREMELY HOT DAYS

Currently 1.2 days/year in Hyderabad according to the IMD-definition cause direct adverse health effects and a multitude of indirect impacts (accidents, labour slackening etc.). Compared to the average of days now, for the high-emission scenario (A2), we expect about 20 days until 2050 and 40 in 2100. While for the low-emission scenario (B1) the number with values of 8 and 13 days respectively are still a big challenge.

CHALLENGE FOR POLICY MAKERS, PLANNERS & ADMINISTRATORS

Hyderabad as a megacity with about a crore population is presently characterized by climatic conditions of large variations in temperature and precipitation during different seasons and these conditions are very likely to become more extreme in the future. The city is already struggling to cope with these extremes and climate change will increase the frequency and amplitude of further damage-inducing conditions for the people. In order to deal with comprehensive assessment of the future, the Project has developed a software tool (based on public domain web-GIS) enabling us to analyse spatially and temporal explicit climate change impacts for different combinations of scenarios in an interactive manner. It is called Climate Assessment Tool for Hyderabad (CATHY) This helps identify new pluvial floodaffected locations under climate change until the end of the century. By choosing a certain scenario for an area (for instance: combination of exponential population growth and usual global emission), it can show the extent of the population that would be affected.

Through this, climate variables relevant for the urban functioning of Hyderabad can be projected with a good deal of certainty. The results of this kind of assessment needs to be made available for planning processes which encompass a wide variety of institutional actors namely, the administrative and planning authority of the metropolitan region for regular and Master Plan 2031, elected council of the corporations and municipalities in the region, other elected governance units, researchers, industries, NGOs and other associations in the civil society for their realization.

(The author is MLA and Chairman of the Indo-German Climate Change Project)
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/more-days-of-heavy-rainfall-very-high-temperature-ahead/articleshow/78979928.cms

Crossover for corporates

On By rchennIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

The three farm Bills green signal corporate agriculture and parting of ways with the nationally-accepted ‘Small Farmer Economy’

Amid strong protests by opposition parties, Parliament passed three agriculture sector Bills recently without meaningful discussion and voting. The opposition parties have called them “anti-farmers”. The genuine issues and fears flagged by them include gradual end of Minimum Support Price (MSP), irrelevance of state-controlled Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) ‘mandis’, risk of losing out land rights under contract farming, reduction in price of farm produce due to market domination by big agri-businesses and exploitation of farmers by big contractors through contract farming practices.

The three Bills have to be seen holistically, as they are interdependent. Their basic objective clearly is to create enabling conditions to establish corporate agriculture in the long run, including foreign direct investment (FDI) in the retail sector. In other words, for the first time after Independence, India is preparing to part ways with its nationally accepted ‘Small Farmer Economy’ concept.

The Three Bills

The key provisions of these Bills are intended to help small and marginal farmers (86% of total farmers), who don’t have means to either bargain for their produce to get a better price or invest in technology, to improve productivity. The Bill on agri market — The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020 — seeks to allow farmers to sell their produce outside APMC ‘mandis’ to whoever they want. Most farmer organisations agree that there is excessive political interference and want reform as far as the functioning of mandis is concerned.

The Bill on contract farming — Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 — allows them to enter into a contract with agri-business firms or large retailers on pre-agreed prices of their produce. This is supposed to help small and marginal farmers as the legislation will transfer the risk of market unpredictability from the farmer to the sponsor.

The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020, seeks to remove commodities like cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion and potatoes from the list of essential commodities. This means there would be no imposition of stockholding limits on such items except under extraordinary circumstances such as war and natural calamities. This provision is expected to attract private sector/foreign direct investment into the agriculture sector.

Adverse Implications

Agriculture, together with horticulture, animal husbandry, fisheries and agro-forestry, is the main source of income for our population and is the most obvious engine for social equity and economic growth. However, due to small holdings, fragmentation, low investment capacities, lack of access to technologies, credit and marketing institutions, small farming economy is in a serious crisis.

Moreover, agri-food systems are undergoing rapid transformation. Increasing concentration in processing, trading, marketing and retailing is being observed in the production-distribution chains. So, contract farming is seen by proponents as a way to raise small-farm income by delivering technology and market information to small farmers, incorporating them into remunerative new markets. Does this work? In reality, this strategy facilitates agri-business firms to pass production risk to farmers, taking advantage of an unequal bargaining relationship. There is also a concern that contract farming will worsen rural income inequality by favouring larger farmers.

Though APMCs account for less than a fourth of total agricultural trade in the country, they do play an important role of price discovery essential for agricultural trade and production choices. The vilification of APMCs and the middlemen who facilitate trade in these mandis reflects a poor understanding of the functioning of agricultural markets. In the absence of any collective governance system of farmers, the middlemen are a part of the larger ecosystem of agricultural trade, with deep links between farmers and traders.

The dominant concern regarding MSP has been expressed by farmers of Punjab and Haryana. They are genuinely concerned about the continuance of the MSP-based public procurement given the large-scale procurement operations in these States. These fears gain strength with the experience of States such as Bihar, which abolished APMCs in 2006. After the abolition of mandis, farmers in Bihar on average received lower prices compared with the MSP for most crops. For example, as against the MSP of Rs 1,850 a quintal for maize, most farmers in Bihar reported selling their produce at less than Rs 1,000 a quintal. Despite the shortcomings and regional variations, farmers still see the APMC mandis as essential to ensuring the survival of the MSP regime.

World’s Experiences

As experiences from other parts of the world show, multinational companies are not famous for improving the situation of farmers by paying better prices. They need reliable supplies and, therefore, favour contract farming and large-scale suppliers because they are more reliable, which gags the small farmers and pushes prices down. They will definitely induce more efficient supply chains through improved infrastructure (roads, cold storages) but who will profit from these efficiencies is the question.

They will certainly introduce new technology, more variety in choice, but there is no guarantee that they will source this only from India as the earlier 30% mandatory local sourcing in FDI has been scrapped by this government. They are usually able to achieve price reductions through economies of scale, but certainly at the cost of a huge number of jobs loss in informal traditional sectors. The quality of food produced and the environmental implications of this production are also under severe criticism worldwide.

Shadows of Crony Capitalism

Economic success becomes premised on people’s capacity to harness government power to rig the game in their favour. The market economy’s outward form is preserved, but its basic protocols and institutions are slowly subverted by businesses seeking to secure preferential treatment from regulators, legislators, and governments. This can take the form of bailouts, subsidies, monopolies, access to “no-bid” contracts, price controls, preferential tax treatment, tariff protection, and special access to government-provided credit at below-market interest rates, to name just a few.

Ever since the decision towards 100% FDI in retail market, along with scrapping of earlier condition to procure 30% local sourcing, was approved by the present government in January 2018, the path towards these Bills was clear. Along with favourable conditions for the entry of FDIs, these Billsaim to do away with government interference in agricultural trade by creating trading areas free of middlemen and government taxes outside the structure of APMCs along with removing restrictions of private stockholding of agricultural produce. Given this background, farmers see these Bills as part of the larger agenda of corporatisation of agriculture and withdrawal of government support.

Although the government has clarified that these Bills do not imply withdrawal of procurement by the State at MSP, there is a genuine fear among farmers, their organisations and State governments about the true intentions of the Central government. The mistrust is not unfounded given the track record of this government on many issues, including demonetisation, introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST), CAA, privatisation efforts of railways, airports, insurance, defence, power and so on. The entry, in a big way, of two of the biggest corporate groups (Adani and Reliance) in food and agricultural retail and their timing have added to their fears.

Collective Action  

The last decades of reforms and privatisation in India have convincingly proved that the market has absolutely little to offer to a large number of producers, savers, consumers and borrowers. These are millions of small and marginal farmers, agricultural labourer, artisans and people working in petty business in informal sectors. In today’s India, where economic reforms and privatisation have shown little or no impact in combating rural poverty, special promotion programmes, collective action and cooperatives undoubtedly have more to offer to economic growth and social development than most other forms of enterprise.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao has launched a comprehensive agriculture policy to support and revive the economic viability of small farmers. Apart from recent introduction of new cropping pattern under which farmers need to cultivate crops in demand as recommended by the government to organise their remunerative marketing through own corporation, Telangana is providing free electricity, direct transfer of subsidies through investment support, free insurance, substantially increasing irrigation, crop procurement and other input facilities as well as extension services and reforms in revenue and administration to farmers in the State. This promotion, which also saw about 40% of budgetary allocations to agriculture and allied activities, ended six decades of agriculture crisis in Telangana and for the first time, small and marginal farmers have started producing large quantities of agricultural output for profitable marketing.

The efforts of the Telangana government to organise farmers and their organisations through their own Rythu Sanghalu to overcome economies of scale address precisely this gap in designing an ideal value chain and disseminating knowledge to them. This enables small farmers collectively to compete in the market through increasing their bargaining power. An ideal value chain looks forward to bring all the stakeholders engaged in production, processing system, financial and marketing agencies.

An efficient linkage of various stakeholders improves production, price realisation and profitability. This inevitably needs collective action by the producers, or in other words, they have to organise their agricultural production efficiently through their corporations, producer organisations or cooperative enterprises. This can be any producer organisation, Producers Company (Companies Act of 1956), Producers Cooperatives, registered Farmers Federations (Rythu Sanghalu), Mutually Aided Cooperative Society (1995 Act) etc.

Cooperative Economies

Today, there is an alternative, secure, stable and sustainable model of business owned and controlled by 800 million people worldwide. Agricultural cooperatives with over 400 million member farmers are responsible for over 50% of agricultural production and marketing in the world. It is a model of business that is not at the mercy of stock markets or corporates because it relies instead on member funds for its value; and is not subject to executive manipulation and greed because it is controlled by local people for local people.

It is a business where the profits are not just distributed to its shareholders, but are returned to those who trade with the business, thus keeping the wealth generated by local businesses in the local community for the good of the local environment and families. This is the cooperative sector of the global economy, which employs 100 million people worldwide. It is no coincidence that the world’s most successful and stable economies generally also happen to have the world’s most cooperative economies. There are a number of successful examples from the US and European community. Specific examples from India and Telangana also endorse this trend.  (See Shining Examples)

So, let us not forget that as an alternative to private, corporate enterprises favoured by neoliberal economic policies, there are indeed viable people-centred economic models to combine efficiency and equity, which are member-driven rather than investor-driven. There can undoubtedly be regionally organised corporations, companies and cooperatives in agriculture, horticulture, fisheries in producer and consumer spheres, artisans as small and medium business enterprises (including textile and powerloom enterprises) etc, thus establishing socio-economic stability to their members as well as the community.

Shining examples of Cooperative Economies

Amul

Dairy cooperative Amul is jointly owned by about 28 lakh milk producers in Gujarat. It is the largest food brand in India and world’s largest pouched milk brand with an annual turnover of $1,700 million.

Telangana’s Mulkanoor

Mulkanoor Cooperative Rural Bank and Marketing Society Ltd of Telangana is another role model. It has a turnover of over Rs 100 crore with total lending in a year exceeding Rs 20 crore and doesn’t have a single defaulter. Its operations range from dairies to a modern rice mill. But few know that Mulkanoor has one of the largest paddy seed growing and selling operations in the country. It consistently places the second biggest request for paddy foundation seeds to the State’s Prof Jayashankar State Agriculture University (after the State’s seed development corporation). Every year, it lifts 40 tonnes of foundation seeds of 13 paddy varieties, for multiplication into certified seeds for sale to farmers. It produces about ten million tonnes of paddy seeds that are sold across the country.

Karimnagar Dairy

Yet another cooperative success story is Karimnagar District Milk Producers Mutually Aided Cooperative Union Limited known as Karimnagar Dairy with 70,000 farmers as members. It has achieved a distinction in the Telangana region with procurement of two lakh litres per day and sales of 1.7 lakh litres per day. This has been possible through their excellent marketing network, introducing hybrid milch animals, promoting growth of fodder, constant veterinary services, etc.

Original post: https://telanganatoday.com/crossover-for-corporates

Profitable Plates

On By rchennIn Newspaper, telangana todayLeave a comment

Producing what buyers want with focus on nutrition and enabling policy prescriptions can make farming a permanently rewarding profession

Telangana has launched a comprehensive agriculture policy by introducing new cropping patterns, under which farmers will have to cultivate crops in demand as recommended by the government. The State already provides free electricity, investment support, free insurance, increasing irrigation, crop procurement and other input facilities as well as extension services to its farmers. For the first time, small and marginal farmers have started producing large quantities of agricultural output for profitable marketing.

As traditional monoculture of rice was leading to marketing problems and there is ample demand for other crops, a way forward towards sustaining farm income was designed. This policy of introducing new cropping pattern, among others, is aimed at making farming a permanently profitable profession and promote Telangana’s agricultural products at home as well as in other parts of India and the world market.

Though the initial focus is correctly on cropping pattern, thereby kicking off a win-win strategy, a comprehensive agriculture policy will have to address step by step a number of other related challenges in future, for example, the issue of reforming India’s domestic support policies, safeguarding sustainable agriculture and exploring the export potential for agriproducts.

Cropping Pattern

Agri-food systems are undergoing rapid transformation. Increasing concentration on processing, trading, marketing and retailing is being observed in all segments of production-distribution chains across regions. The traditional way in which food is produced, without farmers having a clear idea in advance of when, to whom and at what price they are going to sell their crops, is being replaced by practices, which resemble manufacturing processes, with far greater coordination between farmers, processors, retailers and others in the supply chain. Farmers have to increasingly produce to meet the requirements of buyers rather than relying on markets to absorb what they produce.

As incomes increase, food consumption is changing. Demand for fruits and vegetables (80% from outside), animal products and oilseed crops (40% from outside), red gram (70% from outside) is growing and farmers have to diversify production for profits. Cropping pattern in agriculture too has to transform from the point of view of nutrition security. This is again a win-win strategy as a change in cropping pattern has the potential to tap the demand gap for nutritious food, fully explore export possibilities, increase soil fertility, reduce investments in fertilizers and pesticides apart from containing crop damages by animals.

Therefore, this strategy of linking farmers to markets, the intervention model to achieve remunerative prices for agriculture products proposed by the Telangana government through its own corporation is highly necessary and will have to be strengthened to tame our highly imperfect conventional market.

On the production front, the choice of product to grow must take into account not just market demand but also farmer location, social structure, infrastructure, farm size, suitability of the land, land tenure situation, farmers’ assets, capacity to establish new enterprises, etc. Consideration of the risk that farmers may face in diversifying into new products is important as well as the technologies promoted by the government should be viable for the type of farmer. Research, technology transfer studies and extension guidelines will have to play a key role in this process.

Nutrition Security

Food security denotes the availability and the access of food to all people; whereas nutrition security demands the intake of a wide range of foods, which provide the essential nutrients. Despite historically high levels of food production in India, undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies persist. According to a recent National Nutrition Survey, Telangana finds itself saddled with a large number of cases of stunting, underweight and anaemia, and Vitamin A deficiency among children and adolescents. About 29% of the children below five years in Telangana have stunted growth while the national average is 34%. Close to 33.4% of children in India below the age of five are underweight, while in Telangana it is 30%.

Thus, improving the health of the people requires improving their nutrition through more nutritious food. This is where agriculture plays an important role not only as a means of producing diverse, nutritious, safer food that is affordable but is also the pathway to improved household access to nutritious food, improved income and women’s empowerment.

Strengthening the agriculture-nutrition pathway when considering food system development in Telangana is key to addressing these challenges. The main issues now in discussion are ensuring agriculture is represented in our nutrition policy so that cultivation technologies for fruits and vegetables, animal products and oil crops are developed; creating market-based solutions for producers by creating the incentives that are aligned with choices of nutrition-dense products such as vegetables, fruits and animal products near urban centres; creating incentives for consumers through price and non-price mechanisms; and addressing safety and other issues along the value chains for healthy and fresh foods.

Support System

There is ample evidence today that ineffective and inefficient implementation of Centre’s spending in the form of input subsidies, general services or support to consumers through the food distribution system has indeed led to a negative amount of total support to the farmer.

Minimum Support Price or MSP, apart from export restrictions and prohibitions in certain times, is an important factor contributing towards depressing the domestic prices of agriculture. While the system covers 24 crops, it only involves significant purchases at guaranteed prices for rice, wheat and cotton. Apart from Telangana, where a 100% purchase by MSP is guaranteed, the overall India’s picture of just 6% of farmers participating reflects its inefficient implementation.

Input Subsidies constitute the largest category of government disbursements, with roughly Rs 2 lakh crore. The largest input subsidies are provided for fertilizers, electricity and irrigation, and, to a lesser extent for seeds, machinery, credit and crop insurance. While these transfers have played a critical role in increasing production, their indiscriminate use without considering natural resource management is contributing to unsustainable agriculture and fiscal deficit. The most striking example of it is agriculture in Punjab. While intensive farming played havoc with soil fertility, necessitating application of more chemical fertilizers year after year — resulting in a decrease of real output, excessive use and abuse of chemical pesticides — has contaminated the food chain.

Consumer Subsidies are implemented through PDS in India. While PDS provides a means to strengthen consumers’ purchasing power, the main weakness of the system relates to the high level of ‘leakage’ of foodgrains – due to poor targeting, wasteful management of stocks or, in certain cases, outright corruption. Purchases made to support the MSP have also tended to overshoot requirements, leading to the accumulation of stocks far in excess of the norms.

From a policy perspective, correcting the critical inefficiencies that contribute to depressing producer prices remains a priority. In this respect, the objectives of achieving simultaneously affordable food for poor consumers and remunerative prices for producers are indeed a challenge for the government. A possible way forward consists in moving from output and input subsidies towards less trade-and-production-distorting forms of support, including direct payments to producers as has been initiated for the first time by the Telangana government in the form of Rythu Bandhu.

As far as consumer support is concerned, a possible option would consist of moving from an in-kind food distribution to cash transfers to enhance the purchasing power of the target group. This could help reduce the costs of stockpiling and food distribution while addressing leakage and waste. For example, Telangana has initiated a move wherein consumer preferences of rice varieties of the local people within PDS are taken into account by encouraging the cultivation of such varieties for local consumption. The data network to identify the needy consumers for eventual cash transfers should be developed comprehensively as has been done through ‘Sakala Janula’ survey in Telangana.

Agriculture Exports

In contrast to policies of the US and Europe where farmers were offered heavy subsidies to export their produce in the past, policymakers in India used restrictive export policies for most of the agriproducts to keep domestic prices low. To compensate farmers, the government introduced MSP and input subsidies, especially for rice and wheat leading to their excessive cultivation.

One consequence of such an approach is that we are far from being secure in the field of edible oils among a number of other products such as pulses, vegetables and fruits. India produces less oilseeds and imports about 65% of its annual requirement of 23 million tonnes at a cost of Rs 75,000 crore and by 2030, it will be importing 70% of edible oils with about Rs 1 lakh crore. To make amends, certain policy reforms are necessary, including:

• Phasing out the built-in consumer bias (that is anti-farmer) in agri-policies

• Creating business space for private players (including Farmer Producer Organisations) to have integrated markets

• Using income policy approach (through direct cash/benefit transfer) to protect both poor        consumers and small farmers

• Creating a predictable and stable agri-trade policy and streamlining high Customs duties on India’s export-competing products like rice

Source: https://telanganatoday.com/profitable-plates

Follow South Korean Covid plan

On By rchennIn Newspaper, telangana todayLeave a comment

The Asian nation’s virus strategy of ‘trace, test and treat’ is helping Germany get ahead of the situation

In the race against the coronavirus, Germany is betting on widespread testing and quarantining to break the infection chain, a strategy borrowed from South Korea whose success in slowing the outbreak has become the envy of the world. There are a few important indicators, which Germany is leveraging.

Germany has a population of 83 million (8.3 crore) living in 16 States. The country’s proposed plans echo the “trace, test and treat” strategy that appears to have helped South Korea bring its outbreak under control. It has included mass screening for potential cases and heavy use of technology to monitor patients.

Leveraging Smartphones

Although Germany and South Korea are two very different countries, the Asian nation’s virus strategy “can be an example”, according to Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for disease control. Germany is already carrying out more coronavirus tests than any other European country at a rate of 300,000 to 500,000 a week, according to officials.

The government aims to ramp that up to at least 2,00,000 tests a day. The goal would be to test all those who suspect they have caught the virus, as well as the entire circle of people who have come into contact with a confirmed case. The current testing criteria are focused on those who are sick with Covid-19 symptoms and have had contact with a confirmed case.

A crucial weapon in the battle would be the use of smartphone location data to trace a patient’s recent movements, to more accurately track down and isolate potentially infected people. While government officials and epidemiologists have come out in favour of cell-phone tracking, it remains a controversial idea in privacy-minded Germany, a nation haunted by the surveillance of the Nazi era and the communist-era Stasi secret police.

The mortality rate of Germany due to Covid- 19 is 1.4% — compared with around 10% in hardest-hit Italy, 9% in France, 8% in Spain and 4% in Switzerland. Due to intensive testing, the average age of a German infected with coronavirus is 46, whereas in Italy it is 63. About 80% of all people infected in Germany are younger than 60. In Spain, the number of affected over 60s is around 50%, 12% in Italy and 7% in the Netherlands.

According to medical experts, older people are far more likely to die from the coronavirus, and most deaths occur in those with pre-existing health conditions, which are more common in older people. For example, highly older populations in the most badly affected areas, such as the Lombardy and Bergamo regions in Italy, as well as in regions of France, had very high fatality rates.

Strong Public Healthcare

The solid and publicly-funded German healthcare system is also a reason for Germany’s relatively low death rate. With 28,000 intensive care beds equipped with ventilators, Germany is in a better position than many countries to deal with an influx of patients in respiratory distress.
Germany spends $5,848 per person each year on healthcare, which is higher than most other nations. It has compulsory health insurance for all and the cost of testing is free. It also has the second-most critical care beds per capita in Europe, 621 beds per 1,00,000 people. Italy has 275, and Spain 293.

However, in recent months, some intensive care beds have had to be put out of action because of a lack of staff. Germany currently has some 17,000 unfilled vacancies in nursing care. As a result, many hospitals have resorted to drafting in retired health professionals or student medics to help with the coronavirus onslaught, including at Berlin’s renowned Charite University Hospital of Humboldt University.

Changing Strategy

In view of this situation and increasing number of infections by the day, German Health Minister Jens Spahn has warned that the country could face “a storm” of new cases in the weeks ahead. Germany’s health specialists, however, warn that the dramatic scenes at Italian hospitals at breaking point could happen in Germany as well. Therefore, the government strategy is now to replace the previous method, based on the motto “we test to confirm the situation,” by the approach “we test to get ahead of the situation”.

Germany is following South Korea, which has used mass tests and the isolation of infected people to slow down the spread of the virus without bringing public life to a standstill, as a role model. Unlike China, South Korea did not impose any general curfews.

Experts say that the testing capacity in Germany should be increased “very quickly”, with the aim to carry out 1,00,000 a day from April 13, and 2,00,000 by the end of April. Berlin-based senior virologist Christian Drosten estimated last Thursday that around 5,00,000 tests are currently being carried out per week.

Beyond the plans for mass testing and the preparedness of the healthcare system, many also see Chancellor Angela Merkel’s leadership as one reason the fatality rate has been kept low. Merkel has communicated clearly, calmly and regularly throughout the crisis, as she imposed ever-stricter social distancing measures on the country.

The restrictions, which have been crucial to slowing the spread of the pandemic, met with little political opposition and are broadly followed by all sections of the people. This is a strategy many countries could adopt.

Source: https://telanganatoday.com/follow-south-korean-covid-plan

Changing dynamics of monsoon

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More lead time for forecasts is crucial for planning and strengthening capacity to respond effectively to disasters

With global warming, monsoon is changing, breaking well-established ‘rules’, and becoming more and more erratic and unpredictable. So the criteria of monsoon onset need to be refined accordingly. Climatological norms, which are a 30-year average of a weather variable, must be reconsidered in the context of climate change.

The Indian summer monsoon is likely to withdraw from the central part of India between October 14 and 24. This unique forecast, made for 70 days in advance, is the only available forecast for India from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, which has proved successful for three years in a row.

Long-term Forecast
The monsoon withdrawal date is of crucial importance for the Indian people. In a warming world, severe storms and floods during monsoon retreat are becoming frequent. Such a long-term forecast could help the government do strategic planning, consolidate resources and strengthen capacity to respond effectively to disasters.

The end of the season is shifted due to very high temperature on the periphery of monsoon in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It takes longer time when the whole continent cools down to the temperature of monsoon withdrawal. The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) said, “we hope this alert in August will be taken into account at carrying out preventive measures in the system of dams in order to prevent its overfilling and floods in October.”

Crucial For Planning
Close to half of the global population depends on the monsoon rainfall. Floods in different States raise questions about the understanding of monsoon, preparedness to deal with rivers in spate to reduce the gap between climate research and its application in policy, business and societal decisions, particularly regarding agriculture, hydrology and water resources, and migration issues.

Prior knowledge of the date of monsoon onset is of vital importance in India. More lead time for monsoon forecasts is crucial for planning agriculture, water and energy resources management.

The southwest monsoon has left a trail of destruction this year. Nearly 500 people have reportedly lost their lives in Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Assam and Bihar. In Kerala, which experienced its worst deluge in a century last year, over 80 people have lost their lives in five days since August 8. In neighbouring Karnataka, the toll stands at over 48. Northern Karnataka, which was facing drought-like conditions in May, is now under water and the State is witnessing its worst floods in 45 years. In Maharashtra, more than 40 people have lost their lives in Sangli and Kolhapur districts, while the Marathwada and Vidharbha regions are reeling under a drought.

Flood Fury
The floods this year have drawn attention to the changing dynamics of the southwest monsoon. Take the case of Kerala. According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the State recorded over 25% deficit in rainfall between June 1 and August 7. But Kerala has nearly made up the deficit in the past five days. Similarly, on August 8, Karnataka received nearly five times the rainfall the State receives in a day. Kodagu, the State’s worst flood-hit district, received 460% cent above normal rainfall between August 5 and 11.

In fact, monsoon rains in the past five years have followed a pattern: A few days of intense rainfall sandwiched between dry spells. But this behaviour of monsoon has changed all over the Indian subcontinent.

The focus this year, as in the past, has been on providing relief to the flood-affected. But questions must also be asked about the ways States prepare for, and deal with, floods. The vagaries of weather, for example, demand cooperation between States that share a river basin. This year, Maharashtra and Karnataka bickered over opening the gates of the Almatti dam on the river Krishna. By the time the two States agreed over the amount of water to be discharged from the dam’s reservoirs, the damage was already done.

The floods also drive home the urgency of focusing on nature’s mechanisms of resilience against extreme weather events. Policymakers and planners have shown little inclination to place wetlands, natural sponges that soak up the rainwater, at the centre of flood control projects.

Misplaced Priorities
Flood governance in the country has placed inordinate emphasis on embankments. But the floods in Bihar and Assam showed — for the umpteenth time — that these structures are no security against swollen rivers. Of course, what is true for the Western Ghats States may not hold for Assam and Bihar. But the message from the floods this year is clear: there is a need to revisit the understanding of the monsoon, particularly under changing climatic conditions, and find ways to deal with its fury.

According to the World Meteorological Organization, July’s global average temperature matched (and maybe broken) the record for the warmest-ever logged month – July 2016. Global heat in July was replaced by torrential rains in August in Asia and North part of Europe. Heavy rainfall has also triggered flooding in central and northern parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal leaving tens of thousands displaced and millions affected.

The summer monsoon rainfall is the most important source of water in India. About 80% of the river flow occurs during the four to five months of this season. India collects and stores rainwater in the system of dams in the monsoon season to sustain itself in the dry season. In particular, hydroelectric power plants are driven by the water collected during the monsoon.

Taking into account very intensive rainfall in August, dams are supposed to be full in September. It is very important to alert the management of the dams that monsoon is unlikely to stop at the beginning of October in the central part of India.

Looking back to 2018, the severe cyclonic storm Titli appeared unexpectedly around October 11, and it was still rainy until October 18. In 2017, monsoon withdrew from the region around October 15. It is now well-established that the monsoon is changing with climate change. In view of this, a new approach must be evolved.

Source: https://telanganatoday.com/changing-dynamics-of-monsoon

Rise, Fall and Rise of the Right

On By rchennIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Eight decades after World War II and 30 years after the fall of Berlin Wall, the world is seeing a retreat of liberalism and an upsurge in right-wing nationalism

Ralph, 8 years old, will never forget that cold December day in 1938 when he and his sister, 17 years, boarded a train in Hamburg, Germany, bound for England with few belongings, but many questions. “I remember it like yesterday,” he says. “The first thing I said to my sister was: ‘Where are our parents?” His sister tried to calm her little brother’s nerves. Their parents would join the siblings in England in three months, she replied. Then they would all sail to America together to start a new life. “I always thought about them, that they’ll come,” said Ralph. “But they never did. They couldn’t.”

Ralph hadn’t the slightest clue what was in store for them after arrival — or the tragic fate of their parents. “I got a card from the International Red Cross in 1942 saying that “your parents were victims of the Holocaust, we’re very sorry, and we have to tell you that they’re murdered,” he recounted.

Ralph was part of 10,000 mostly Jewish children transported from Nazi Germany to England between December 1938 and September 1939, a rescue effort known as the ‘Kindertransport’, or ‘children’s transport.’

Nazi Regime
Eight decades have passed since the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe in September 1939. Nazism and the acts of the Nazi German state profoundly affected many countries, communities, and people before, during and after the war. The regime’s attempt to exterminate several groups viewed as subhuman by Nazi ideology was eventually stopped by the combined efforts of the wartime allies headed by Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States.

Of the world’s 15 million Jews in 1939, over a third was killed in the Holocaust (3 million in Poland alone). Of the estimated 50 million deaths in WWII, about 26 million Soviet citizens perished as a result of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, including around 10 million soldiers who died in battle against Hitler’s armies or died as prisoners in camps. Millions of civilians also died from starvation, atrocities and massacres. Undoubtedly, it was the patriotic Red Army’s advancement from the East and its other Allied armies (the US, Britain and France) from the West converging on Berlin that ended the war in Europe on May 8, 1945.

Devastated Germany
Over 8 million Germans, including almost 2 million civilians, died. Germany and its economy were devastated, with most major cities destroyed by the bombings of the Allied forces, sovereignty taken away by the Allies and the territory filled with millions of refugees from the former eastern provinces, which the Allies had decided were to be annexed by the Soviet Union and Poland, moving the eastern German border westwards to the Oder-Neisse line and effectively reducing Germany in size by roughly 25%.

The rest of Germany was divided among the Allies and occupied by British (the north-west), French (the south-west), American (the south) and Soviet (the east) troops. The expulsions of Germans from the lost areas in the east — the Sudetenland, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe went on for years. Roughly 15 million Germans were expelled. This was the dimension of an unbelievable human tragedy and even today millions of families reel under this trauma.

The aftermath of WWII was the beginning of a new era, defined by the decline of all European colonial empires and the simultaneous rise of two superpowers: the USSR and the USA.

Post World War II
After the world viewed the Nazi death camps, Europeans began to outwardly oppose ideas of racial superiority. Liberal anti-racism became a staple of many governments, with racist publications looked down upon. Since the collapse of Nazi Germany, European populations have been wary of racial political parties and have actively discouraged white ethnocentrism, fearing the return of a catastrophe similar to the purges carried out by Nazis. It can be argued that multiculturalism as one of the pillars of contemporary European society gained importance because of the same reaction.

However, the US and the USSR –allies during WWII — became competitors and engaged in the Cold War. The United Nations, an organisation for international cooperation, was created. Members of the UN agreed to outlaw wars of aggression to avoid a third world war. The devastated great powers of Western Europe formed the European Coal and Steel Community, which later evolved into the European Economic Community and ultimately into the current European Union with 27 countries as members.

This year also marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, symbolising the collapse of Europe’s communist regimes and the end of the Cold War. For many, this moment represented the victory of freedom, the spread of liberal democracy and peaceful international relations in much of the Western and Eastern world. Consequently, a good number of former communist countries later joined the European Union. Liberal values seemed to overcome dictatorships and autocracies.

Divided Europe
However, since recent past, across the world, there has been a consistent shift to the political right, as voters abandon the centre-left and centrist parties, which once held power in many democracies, after years of austerity and economic downturn. The early years of the 21st century have not been good for global capitalism. An international credit crisis and a widespread recession have shaken public support for free-market processes within democratic setups.

With no alternative policies to such contradictions, right-wing nationalism has returned, forcefully and virulently, in an illiberal form to young democracies such as Hungary and Poland, and in a right-wing chauvinist and anti-immigrant guise to more politically established countries such as Britain, Germany and the US. Besides, issues of migration, Brexit, US-Russia trade war (which will harm Europe) have accelerated it. These anti-establishment networks are not only taking advantage of divisions across the European Union: elites Vs the public, Europhiles Vs Euroskeptics and far-right nationalism Vs liberalism, but also some ambiguous positions of the centre-right toward issues such as identity and immigration.

European societies are now more fragmented, and some traditional (especially Left-wing) parties are in decline. Identity politics has been exacerbating the contradictions of globalisation as well as Europeanisation. The overall political system has moved rightward. This has also meant the decay of anti-fascism as a main value in national institutions as well as at the European and global level. Here lies the greatest danger for democracies and democratic values all over the world.

In an unprecedented way, politics is driven even by hatred utterings poisoning the very basic democratic and human values. US President Trump recently called openly on several Democratic congresswomen of colour to “go back.” He was referring to four congresswomen — three who were born in the US and one who came as a child refugee. His remarks were widely condemned as racist.

Last month, Walter Luebcke, president of the Kassel regional council in central Germany, was shot in the head. Sixty-five-year-old Luebcke was a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democrats and an outspoken supporter of government’s pro-migrant policies in the wake of the 2015 refugee crisis. Merkel opened Germany’s doors to over a million migrants in 2015. But her policy, hailed by humanitarians all over the world, also attracted fierce criticism from the right, particularly following a number of terrorist attacks across the country in summer 2016.

In India
Recent elections in India and the European Union have resulted in gains for politicians with strident nationalist messages. In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi easily secured a second term, shrugging off a challenge to paint him as a threat to India’s secular pluralism. However, it is of serious concern that violent Hindu nationalism and anti-Muslim rhetoric are increasingly becoming socially acceptable.

Mahua Moitra, a Trinamool Congress MP, in a very thought-provoking speech in Parliament recently opined that India is displaying early signs of fascism. “We have to decide which side of history we want to be on… the side that upholds the Constitution or the side that becomes its pallbearers,” she said.

A few days ago, Aparna Sen and 48 other eminent citizens, including filmmaker Shyam Benegal, vocalist Shubha Mudgal, historian Ramchandra Guha and sociologist Ashis Nandy, wrote to Modi saying ‘Jai Shri Ram’ has become a ‘provocative war cry’ with many lynchings taking place in its name. The letter underscored the significance of dissent in a democracy. “There is no democracy without dissent. People should not be branded anti-national or urban naxal and incarcerated because of dissent against the government,” it said.

Ralph was “lucky” that he was saved. But his parents were not. The main question that haunts us is “Why”. If one critically and sensitively analyses the recent developments in the largest democracies such as in Europe, the US and India, many such questions, concerns and apprehensions arise. This, even after eight decades of the end of WWII, a war in which extremist, racist, radical authoritarian and ultra-nationalist ideologies were grown, spread out and deliberately tried to destroy the most basic humanistic rights and values of mankind.

Time is nigh to remember German Pastor Martin Niemoeller’s post-war confession of 1946, which is about the cowardice of German intellectuals and certain clergy (including, by his own admission, Niemoeller himself) following the Nazis’ rise to power and subsequent incremental purging of their chosen targets, group after group. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum quotes the following of the speech:

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Original post: https://telanganatoday.com/rise-fall-and-rise-of-the-right

Go for holistic learning

On By rchennIn NewspaperLeave a comment

Get perspectives right and develop well-rounded citizens by facilitating linkages between science, social sciences and humanities

The concept of holistic academic education was an idea of Wilhelm von Humboldt, a Prussian philosopher, government functionary and diplomat of Germany. The Humboldtian model of higher education is a concept of academic education that emerged in the early 19th century, whose core idea was a holistic combination of research and studies.

Sometimes called simply the Humboldtian model, it integrates the arts and sciences with research to achieve both comprehensive general learning and cultural knowledge, and it is still followed today. Humboldt’s model was based on two ideas of the Enlightenment: the individual and the world citizen. Humboldt believed that the university should enable students to become autonomous individuals and world citizens by developing their own reasoning powers in an environment of academic freedom.

Academic Freedom
He envisaged an ideal education, which aimed not merely to provide professional skills through schooling along with a fixed path but rather to allow students build individual character by choosing their own way.

Humboldt believed that teaching should be guided by current research, and that research should be unbiased and independent from ideological, economic, political or religious influences. The Humboldtian model strives for unconditional academic freedom in the intellectual investigation of the world, both for teachers and students. The study should be guided by humanistic ideals and free thought, and knowledge should be formed on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism rather than authority, tradition or dogma.

In line with the basic concept of Science (Wissenschaft), Humboldt regarded philosophy as the link between the different academic disciplines, which include both humanities and natural sciences. Humboldt encouraged the University of Berlin to operate according to scientific, as opposed to market-driven, principles such as curiosity, freedom of research, and internal objectives. The University of Berlin, founded in 1810 under the influence of Wilhelm von Humboldt and renamed the Humboldt University of Berlin after World War II, is seen as the model institution of the 19th century.

Driven by Research
The above mentioned principles, in particular, the idea of the research-based university, rapidly made an impact both in Germany and abroad. The Humboldtian university concept profoundly influenced higher education throughout central, eastern, and northern Europe as well as in the US. This European brand of research-intensive universities became the role model for universities in the US such as Harvard (Cambridge, MA), Yale (New Haven, CT) and Cornell (Ithaca, NY).

In the 1970s, breakthrough discoveries in biotechnology and patent legislation favouring market-oriented research such as the Bayh–Dole Act in the US allowed for the creation of research partnerships between universities and industry with the objective of rapidly bringing innovations to market.

A similar development took place in all industrial countries, based on proposals of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. This innovation of the ‘market university’ as an economic engine, which first emerged in the US, diverges from Humboldt’s principles. Recent developments and changes like widening participation in and the marketisation of higher education related to the emergence of neoliberalism have challenged those old ideals.

However, outside the academic realm, the world has also changed markedly since Humboldt’s time. The ‘advanced’ nations have been moving away from the manufacturing-based economies that sustained them throughout the 20th century, towards so-called knowledge-based economies that rely heavily on scientific research and a trained workforce. As such, these nations no longer compete for industrial capacity or access to natural resources but rather for skilled workers, intellectual property and knowledge.

In this context, philosopher Julian Nida-Ruemelin criticised discrepancies between Humboldt’s ideals and the contemporary European education policy, which narrowly understands education as a preparation for the labour market, and argued that we need to decide between McKinsey and Humboldt.

Education is free in Germany and many European countries and these countries have been taking forward and reinventing novel teaching and research experiments based on Humboldt’s model where students would receive all-around education in natural sciences, social sciences and humanities, and where teaching and research are integrated.

Life Sciences Show Way
Life Sciences truly reflect the conceptual idea of Humboldt’s model. While biology remains the centerpiece of life sciences, technological advances in molecular biology and biotechnology have led to a burgeoning of specialisations and interdisciplinary fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology and economics.

It is about creating something new by thinking across boundaries. It is related to an interdiscipline or an interdisciplinary field, which is an organisational unit that crosses traditional boundaries between academic disciplines or schools of thought, as new needs and professions emerge.

For example, the faculty of Life Sciences aims to strengthen research and teaching in the Life Sciences at Humboldt University of Berlin and in the Berlin region, anchoring it as a pioneer in the regional, national and international research landscape.

The faculty is devoted to current and future-orientated scientific, technological and social topics across the entire spectrum of life forms: from molecular building blocks to microbial, vegetable, animal and human organisms, including how they interact with their experience realm and the environment.

It primarily follows a scientific approach and supplements this with an economic perspective, with additional connection to the humanities, social sciences and medicine. Agriculture, horticulture, biology, psychology are all integrated and students have excellent opportunities for integrated learning, research and an international orientation.

It is this ‘Life Sciences’, approach, which could open new perspectives for both the Telugu States, if a sincere effort is made to fundamentally reform and restructure higher education and research.

Source: https://telanganatoday.com/go-for-holistic-learning