The Future Is Another Country: 2050 And Beyond

Nice article.

{{We are so eager to assert ourselves globally; our international credentials in software technology have made us welcome in every developed country, but one–fourth of our people are still illiterate.}}

...we are a country of extremes...I think many goras have been saying that for a while also...that is what allows us to achieve astounding things but still be astoundingly poor...just another a reflection of the rich-poor divide, i suppose...

our goal has to be educating the 25% of our country that is still illiterate...we fix that, and EVERYTHING will fall into place....it`s a shame no government seems to actively do anything about it...

{{But we carry our prejudices and complexes with us; whether in the US or in Fiji we prefer to live in ghettos among our own kind, prefer to marry people within our own native sub-groups, and display the same ancient animosities towards alien cultures or religions.}}

that is a problem with most Asian cultures...small minds derive comfort from the familiar...very ugly...

{{Neither was it necessary for Mr. Amartya Sen in his speech at Harvard University, also in 1998, to tell us of the dismal failure of successive Indian governments in the areas of education and social welfare.}}

fine man, that Amartya Sen...all of india takes great pride in him...but would he stop talking and actually do something for India?...man like that has immense credibility, and the power to do big things in government...would he like to be India`s next Finance Minister?...would Vinod Khosla, America`s most successful VC, like to be India`s next minister for communications & technology?...would Fareed Zakaria like Jaswant`s Singh`s job?...

talk is cheap...time for these gentlemen to do something...

Ms. Gopal

I am pleasantly surprised to see that at least one Indian with a Hindu last name is not an Anti-Muslim/Islam bigot. I hope you are not just a paid presidential speech writer and therefore carry some wieght among your own people. But with present state of mind of your people I wouldn`t be surprised if most of the Indian interlocutors here will start recommending a mental institution for you. After Farzana Versey you were a second shock to me. I always thought that all INdians were blood thirsty Kali worshipers who proudly sacrifice their fellow citizens at the altar of kali maa, dance naked with painted faces and take pride in it-just like they do after murdering 80,000 kashmiris, raping their women and burning their babbies alive.

Godspeed with your best of intentions. Plz keep talking sense into your people.

Re: R. Gopal

F. E. Manning once said that a man might rave against war, but war, amongst its myriad faces, could always turn to him one which was his own. Maybe, the reason that we, as a culture, worship so devoutly at the altar of death is, because wars are a reflection of our own sense of narcissism.

The accountancy of war is simple and it is measured in lost lives, in ruined hopes and in unfulfilled dreams. It has no columns of credit to offset the rows of losses, which itemize its debits. Those losses are not only the lives forever silenced on the battlefield, but includes the sorrowful pain of a widow and the lonely heartache of an orphan.

It is a landscape in Dante’s Inferno rained upon by burning steel and watered by blood. War is not a game to be played, by some ardent children desperate, for glory.

War is a disease that kills and we should inoculate our children and our future generations against the evil of war, before it kills us all.

We cannot escape the logic of war unless we change ourselves first. Morbid as it may sound, my favorite hobby is the study of war and I have been studying war, as a human phenomena, since 1974. After nearly 30 years of reading about the subject of war, I am convinced that wars originate in the tangled web of human minds and what ever umbrellas we may use to justify it; religious, political or economic or what ever, war is a human creation.

Unless we change our way of thinking, I am afraid that as F. E. Manning said, we will fight wars and that is the challenge.

Re: Chowkwallahs

I was taking a one month leave from chowk and am presently debating whether to extend my leave by another month or not...

Ciao

Ms Gopal,
Interesting writeup. Hope you plan to interact, too. You start to lay the groundwork for your points well then take a leap towards a conclusion which is hard to undertand:

For eg:
``When it has been uncovered just how closely linked humans and primates are genetically, is not civilisation itself just an illusion?``

Implying what exactly?

The same thing with a desire for peace and young men choosing to be executives instead. One can relate to everything until
`` I believe that it would require someone very stupid, indeed to submit to the hierarchical discipline, arbitrary, crude, even brutal, imposed by the armed forces…``.

Armies cannot be run without heirachical discipline(nor can companies with executives), and on what basis do you say its arbitrary/crude/brutal and those who choose to be captains in the army are stupid? And what does it have to do with your previous point of a general desire for peace and no more war?

Re Ashoka, his concept was indeed noble, and an ideal we have to strive for as you rightly say. But pl. notice almost as a incidental fact, that Ashoka gave up on war AFTER he had won it. The consequences of his decision may have been different for himself and his subjects, if he had laid down arms in the heat of battle, in fact we may never have heard of his decision then.

My point is war and peace BOTH have to be engineered, they donot happen by themselves. The same with offering young people better life choices than joining up to fight either the army or jihad.

Undoubedly, though, its a challenge not to lose sight of the ideal as a society. So your article is heartening in this respect.

Very interesting piece Ms. Gopal.

Welcome to CHOWK.

Things are not heading towards peace in South
Asia. From the New York Times today. No LAGAAN type movies here...
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/27/international/asia/27BOMB.html?searchpv=nytToday


Ras

The author writes [The WTO cannot raise its trade tariffs to iniquitous extents and then expect developing countries to manage their economies equitably.]

Excuuuuuse me. WTO demands LOWER trade tariffs, not higher ones. In fact, the premise is that efficient producers will then be able to sell their products against inefficient producers who are currently protected by tariff barriers. If that means that your average Japanese farmer goes out of business because he cannot sell his rice competitively against rice imported from the US or Vietnam, that is the way the rules are written. They are not written specifically to discriminate against the Japanese rice grower. Similarly, if India then has to allow import of, let us say, cars, then Hindustan Motors, the ugly Ambassador, and all your rationalization about how that is the best car suited for Indian roads, etc., go out the window.

WTO merely dismantles all trade barriers so that member countries can exchange goods and services without tariff barriers protecting inefficient local producers. If your average Indian industrialist is unable to produce a TV cost effectively, then India will be able to import TVs from China or Korea or Vietnam, whichever is the cheapest place to buy TVs from. Since this IS actually the case -- i.e., Indian industrialists are nothing but traders who bring in CKD kits and assemble the stuff in their factories and further are prevented by law from using the foreign manufacturer`s name so that the foreign company cannot enforce its quality standards -- you can expect to kiss your industries goodbye. If this bothers you, you can stay out of the WTO -- except that about 150 countries have already joined it -- and stay out of the world markets and continue to drive the Ambassador.

[Medical and environmental technology have to be shared. There can be no price laid on human knowledge. If the human genome project helps to find cures for Alzheimer’s or AIDS, or other intractable diseases, then the whole world should benefit. Just as the AIDS virus sneaked past borders into every country on earth through blood and saliva and semen, basically human contact, then, human contact has to be used to destroy it.]

There IS a price for human knowledge. It is called the cost of research and development. The patent system was put in place some 200 years back so that the inventor, who might have spent years of his life and his own money in developing his invention, gets a payback for his efforts. Granted the days of the individual inventor may be over in that no single individual can spend the billions of dollars spent decoding the human genome, the fact is that companies like Human Genome Sciences, Celera, Genentech, Amgen, etc., have spent their money in the billions of dollars to decode the human genome or to develop safe and efficacious medical products and they have a right to expect that they will be able to get their money back. You can`t demand that they should turn over their results for free to lazy dumbass Indians, Pakistanis, Nigerians, Filipinos, Egyptians, Sudanese, Italians, Albanians, Turks, Iranians or any number of nationalities/nation-states who have done diddly squat in terms of investing their money in the future. You can still reap the benefit of their R&D because you will be able to buy those medicines but expect to pay for it at the same rate Americans pay for those medicines.

Now, patent protection goes out after 17 years so if you all start running now, there is a possibility that you will only be 17 years behind the West at some time in the future even if you invest not much money in research. That is why today most of the store-brand aspirin and Tylenol sold in the US is actually made in India. That is why several older antibiotics sell for pennies in India than the dollars that they cost in the US.

But you cannot expect that you will remain a couple of hundred years behind in technology and expect the world to hand you over stuff. That is what the cargo cult believes, that the gods will come in huge metallic birds and give them all that they want. So move in with those folks, eat fish and copra while praying for those gods in metallic birds.

It is interesting that a member of a group that benefits from protection of inteelectual property rights should seek to deny those same IP rights to all other groups. I am referring to the fact authors, writers and artists enjoy copyright protection for their works, that too for 28 years, but would want no patents on medicines or technology such as VCRs for a shorter period of 17 years. How about it if we eliminate copyrights while we are at it? Vikram Seth and Rohintan Mistry and a whole bunch of Indian authors will have to forego their million-dollar advances and multi-million dollar royalties. Without copyright protection, no publisher will touch their books. The author says, ``Once, not long ago, poets were regarded as visionaries who could change the world``. Well, share those visions for free, then. With no money coming in, let us see whether these authors turn to honest toil in the fields. Faced with specious arguments like the author`s, one is tempted to say that Pol Pot got it right when he emptied the Cambodian cities to see whether these parasites on society can do anything useful.

The writer wants us all to hold hands and sing `Kumbaya` or some such idealistic crap. Well, idealistic crap won`t put food on the table or buy medical care for your loved ones. It won`t get you shiny new airplanes for you to fly from place to place to ddress crowds. Heck, it won`t even get you enough paper to print all your crap for distribution. All that requires hard work.

Is it Thomas Jefferson who said, ``I must practice war and diplomacy, so that my children can study science, and their children philosophy and arts``? You want to skip the first two and go directly to the third. Sure you can do that but you don`t get to go past GO or collect $200.

But all of this really boils down to one simple thing: envy. You are envious that somebody else has a good time and has a lot of toys and won`t share it with you. What you want to forget is that there has been a lot of hard work that went into the making of the toy and you don`t want to work hard.

Envy breeds grievance and grievance breeds a sense of entitlement. Thus the Third World is ``entitled`` to the advanced medicines that the First World develops without having to pay for it. You see this crap in the entitlement that the minorities in the US demand or the affirmative action quotas in the US and India. Once you tell these folks that, yes, they deserve to be helped, the sense of dependency sets in and nobody can shake these people loose. After that, you will never get these slackers to do any work, let alone hard work.

I for one am glad that there are still places where there is some reward for hard work and industriousness.

Mullah bad bad---Kanjar good good.

Now that the Kanjars speak english,of the socio-political kind of gobbledygook,it is glamorous and modern to justify `my body is my business`.

Oh Yeah!it is business alright for the ``Caninus sapien femalus``.

You`ve come by a long way puppy.

__________________________________________________

WENDY MCELROY: IS THE UN RUNNING BROTHELS IN BOSNIA?

Is the United Nation`s police force in Bosnia turning a blind eye or, even worse, participating in sex trafficking? It certainly seems that, as this new scandal emerges, the corruption reaches upward into the UN hierarchy.

If prostitution is illegal in Bosnia, then why — in the presence of some 20,000 NATO peacekeepers and thousands of other U.N. officials, policemen and aid workers — has sexual trafficking in the region become an international scandal?

One answer may be that the United Nation`s police force may be turning a blind eye or, even worse, participating in the sex trafficking itself. It certainly seems that, as the scandal emerges, the corruption reaches upward into the United Nations.

Last summer, American Kathryn Bolkovac, a former Nebraska police woman, was fired from the U.N.`s International Police Task Force. Bolkovac claims it was because she spoke out against the United Nation`s involvement in sex trafficking. Through interviews with 85 women coerced into sex, Bolkovac learned that U.N. officers were not only using the women for sex but also seemed to be active in the business end — for example, the forging of documents to transport young girls across national borders.

The young girls are from desperately poor nations like Romania. Many reportedly answer ads for ``legitimate`` work only to be kidnapped, taken across borders and enslaved in brothels that operate with the full knowledge of the local authorities.

After Bolkovac advised various U.N. officials about the sex ring, IPTF Deputy Commissioner Mike Stiers decided that Bolkovac was psychologically worn out. Although an extension of her contract had been recommended prior to the e-mail, she was transferred to a suburb of Sarajevo, then fired. Bolkovac stated, ``Those responsible ... did not want to hear about this.``

Douglas Coffman, a spokesman for the United Nations in Sarajevo, denied the accusation, but Bolkovac is the not the first to hurl it. Stories of U.N. corruption were already appearing in the European press. David Lamb, a former Philadelphia policeman working as a U.N. human rights investigator in central Bosnia, leveled even more serious charges. He provided evidence that IPTF members were directly linked to forcing girls into prostitution. Most prominently, he named two Romanian officers who sold women directly to brothels. Lamb filed his findings. He found that ``the opposition of the central [U.N.] Mission Headquarters was unbelievable.``

The Washington Post reported on what happened next. ``The United Nations quashed an investigation ... into whether U.N. police were directly involved in the enslavement of Eastern European women in Bosnian brothels, according to U.N. officials and internal documents.``

Another difficulty in assessing the situation is that U.N. officials do not admit that anything is amiss. When asked about Lamb`s allegations against the Romanian officers, Jacques Klein — the U.N. secretary general`s special representative to Bosnia — declared, ``I have absolutely no evidence, no record, and I`m unaware of any internal investigation into any alleged misconduct involving a Romanian police monitor.``

A few weeks later, confidential U.N. documents revealed that Lamb had notified several U.N. officials about the two Romanians. Moreover, after Lamb departed, a Canadian officer, the Romanian government and an anti-corruption unit of the United Nations investigated the case in turn. Rosario Ioanna, the Canadian, issued a report similar to Lamb`s, complaining that local U.N. authorities tried to close down the investigation. Yet the United Nations refuses to allow the Romanian policemen to be interviewed.

Subsequent U.N. investigations appear to be cosmetic. For example, an inquiry was instigated but, according to the Post, investigators didn`t bother to contact Lamb or other whistleblowers. Not surprisingly, the inquiry found insufficient grounds to probe further.

The character revealed by the United Nations in Bosnia is particularly significant today. The agency is pushing hard to become a global government. In March, the U.N.`s High Level Panel of Financing Development will meet in Mexico and endorse recommendations that are expected to include: a World Taxing Authority, global taxes on fossil fuel and/or on all currency exchange and U.N. supervision of all international finance.

As the United Nations pushes for jurisdiction over the globe, it is important to remember how it has acted in Bosnia. The character of an institution, no less than of an individual, is revealed through actions, not words. It is revealed in the small behaviors. Such as the willingness to watch or participate in the selling of young girls into the living hell of Bosnian brothels.

The U.S. is the most powerful force opposing the United Nations. If America refuses to meet U.N. demands — and, as yet, the U.S. has not even paid its U.N. fees — then worldwide government will fail. If U.N. policy in Bosnia is a microcosm of what globalization would look like, then an autonomous and dissenting U.S. becomes the hope of the world.

__________________________________________________

urstruly

from today`s ny times

``For his part, Mr. Verma explained his reasons for making ``Maa Tujhhe Salaam,`` his first picture, this way: ``Because I hate Pakistan.``

....i have to agree with your assessment of the pathological hatred of pakistan that drives the rabid indians to foam at the mouth .....however, this primal feeling is mutual, and we all suffer from this innane dislike and suspicion for the other .....and whether we like it or not, it is being passed on to future generations ..... when pinches, hair-pulling and vociferous name-calling fails, my precocious little girl will use the ultimate insult:`` and you look like a skinny indian``........ where did i go wrong?

This should have been either three articles, or one article with the different ideas somehow tied together. And one of these ideas, the last one as listed below, is perhaps the single most important idea to emerge from India, or indeed from anywhere in the third world, in the last few centures.

The three ideas in the article are (a) an existentialist cry about the futility of the human condition: reflected in the poem at the beginning; (b) a blow for individualism: reflected in the quotes from a Nobel Prize winner concerning how the bed, bread and mistresses may be shared, whereas literature is not; and (c) an impassioned call for a more peaceful India.

All three are good ideas, and the last one will no doubt be condemned by the chowk hindutvas since it nowhere points the finger to Pakistan: however, this is the mature, self-introspection that distinguishes the insecure and superficial individual from the secure and thinking individual which the author obviously is and the hindutvas (or islamic chauvinists in our case) are not.

Good job, Ms. Gopal - you have put together some good ideas. What makes your article an important one is the idea of peace and non-violence: it is this idea that is potentially a revolutionary contribution of India to the world. Not the copying of nuclear technology or missile technology decades after it was developed in the west. Nor the building of armies in the mold of a 19th century nationalistic state in continental Europe.

Needed a ``New Generation`` of Peace-Makers

Revathy,

Loved your past paragraph. It captured my emotions perfectly.

In that spirit of comaraderie, here`s a little constructive criticism -

IMO, the ``peacemakers`` of our time have to move far far beyond Arundhati Roys and Amitav Ghoshs, if they are to make ANY difference in this world at all.

They have to realize that ``orienting words`` - words that point in a direction and nothing more - have proven to be empty and impotent. Like the fine chirping of little birds that fills autumn dawns momentarily, and then vanishes leaving little more than soothing memories in isolated minds.

The impulse for peace that you see rising, rises...and then dies. In the face of ``hard reality`` - reality which is entirely constructed by us - we withdraw. We become afraid of the ghosts we ourselves create.

So the NEW peacemakers (among whom I dare count myself), have a far harder task to accomplish.

They have to start making LOGICAL and FACTUAL analyses of the world around them, and start proposing, even better, implementing PRACTICAL solutions to real issues of conflict.

Decrying the current state of affairs is important, but not enough. Castigating ``evil people`` we must, but by itself that won`t do. Invoking hallowed names of Gandhi or Jinnah helps, but if that is all we do, we would be very foolish.

As urstruly said (God forbid, but even he sometimes lets out a sensible, if unintentional, word or two), harangues by Presidents, Generals, and Prime Ministers are, and have been, full of Arundhati and Amtitav talk.

Hamain dekhanaa hai...recall the sonorous tones of another young idealist?

The need of the times is not hamain dekhna hai...but hamain karnaa hai. So, please use your formidable talents to analyze the world which binds us to our positions, tell us what we need to do to break out of our ancient, rusted chains, how can we do that, and why we are likely to succeed.

That will be a real contribution.

Welcome and Regards. Good to see people actually thinking of peace.

hamidm

Now, that, I thought was the joke of the day.

``my precocious little girl will use the ultimate insult:`` and you look like a skinny indian``........ where did i go wrong?``

But anyway you have the benefit of being resident satirist, and a good one, I might add. But whom am I to blame anyone, despite the fact that it is a season of blame game; When even the things like flatulence of Vajpayee is blamed on ISI and flaring up of Advanis hameroids are blamed on you-know-what of Kashmiri freedom fighters, articles like this one is not only brave but it is close to a miracle, especially coming from one of the lotus eaters. Therefore, it should be met with not only awe but full contempt as well, (like any other miracle). And why should we blame the lotus eaters and their king, Sultan Vajpayee, when it is a favorite pass time of our beloved emperor bush and zil-e-subhani Sultan parvez Musharaf as well.

Dost-Mitter

Mehrbani sayee`n

Urstruly #14
I suspect the great unkept secret of chowk and other English speaking Pakistanis is that you and ali1 represent the average Pakistani and his sentiments. For dealing with you, Kali is indeed the right paradigm for a Hindu like myself. Thackeray and Advani are worthless old fogeys who only talk and do nothing. Hope its clear that when/if I talk of making peace with Pakistan, I donot mean making peace with people like Urstruly and his friends and I will gladly pay mercenaries to do the needful like Pakistanis do, what to speak of a cinema ticket.

A lot of good sentiments woven together in a mish-mash fashion. Unfortunately, this is done rather easily. There`s no coherence whole to the essay, no specific identification of cause and effect.

Let me take an example:

``..But for this to happen India will have to transcend its meaningless cycle of

revenge and retribution, and extend a generous hand of friendship not just

towards its neighbours but towards its own minorities. Can it rise to its real

potential, eschewing violence, and allow the past to be reconciled with the

future?``

India is not apart from its own minorities for it to extend a hand of friendship. What is this india that would be extending and what would be accepting this hand? You could have said that the majorities should extend a hand of friendship to the minorities but of course this would be challenged more quickly. I`m not assigning motives to you, it`s just that generalities dished out as you have done serve no useful purpose. The whole essay could have been we all should get along, help each other. The big question is how and the even bigger question is why.

How grotesque watching Pakistanis trip over an Indian saying he hates Pakistan.

Indians, listen to Masood Azhar speeches.

http://members.tripod.com/knm7/masoodazhar.htm

Download them to hear the poison that ISI`s blue-eyed boy has been spreading for years. Hear Pakistanis volunteer for Jehad. See how Pakistanis are taught to hate India.

Can some Urdu or Hindi speaking Indian translate a few of these speeches for everyone?

http://members.tripod.com/knm7/masoodazhar.htm

re: dost-mittar

{{If I would like any Indian economist of world fame to be India`s Finance Minister, it would be Prof. Jagdish Bhagwati, who has been pointing out to the shortcomings of India`s economic policies for three decades.}}

no, he`s good, but not that good...a bit of an attention seeker with a penchant for saying the obvious...

....how about Rajat Gupta, CEO of McKinsey & Co., which is probably the best collection of brilliant minds brought together to solve the strategic problems of the world`s largest companies?....