The Political Economy of Droughts

The main issue here is that leadership (in any country) without substance focusses on rabble rousing issues and loses track of the important things.

As long as we keep on electing weak and incompetent leaders, the nation will never be able to focus on important things.

cpothik..

I apologize for having turned your name into `pothead`...it was totally unnecessary for me to do so..your feelings towards Pakistanis, and Pakistan aside. If I was frustrated about what appeared to be your venom, I could have handled it in a better way. Once again, I apologize, and if you choose not to accept my apology, I`ll understand... :)

cpothik,

I didn`t think you were abusing ME about my taste in Hindi films..and I don`t particularly care if you were or you weren`t...your posts have shown that you are quite adept at mudslinging Pakistanis as I have seen evident in your posts. As for my pathetic attitude...hmmmm. At least I smashed my own glass house a long time ago. Are you still living in yours?

I second cpothik. These are woefully few interactions on such an important issue. It really shows where the interests of the elite lie - in mudslinging on indo-pak tiffs. This is what ultimately causes revolutions - uncaring establishment, indifferent elite and suffering masses.

Ana #6

Oh, so I was being abusive when I asked you whether you have really seen any Indian films other than Bollywood stuff? Well, you didn`t give any direct answer to that and anyway, I`m not terribly bothered about it.

But at least I didn`t deliberately twist your name or call you nasty names, which you are doing now. Perhaps you are going to redefine the term ``abuse``. Good luck with your pathetic attitude!

actually my response that i wrote almost a week ago never did get posted..not that that matters to cpothead, because he`s bent on being abusive as he`s proven in his previous posts.

oh did i say cpothead? i did mean pothik of course..my apologies.

Isn`t it funny that an article which deals with a REAL disaster affecting the lives of millions of poor people in India and Pakistan receives only a handful of feedbacks, while those dealing with Indo-Pak shadow-boxing, nuclear war and that Mother-of-all-S. Asian-headaches: KASHMIR, receive nothing less than 3 figure feedbacks?!

I think the Chowk-members should pause to ponder over this. This is exactly what is happening in the Subcontinent today. We are on a mass wild goose chase characterised by false machismo and oneupmanship, while our REAl problems are being conveniently side-tracked and ignored. How long are we going to fool ourselves like this? How long before the entire world goes ahead from us by at least a millenium?

I must say that from these figures, it`s pretty clear that to be a best-seller, all you need is to trigger off an Indo-Pak war of words. People will just lap it up.

There is a great book by P. Sainath (VV Giri`s grandson) called ``Everybody loves a great drought``. Essential reading . . . .

hmmmm let`s see...what`s more important, a drought or devdas?

(sigh)

thank you for writing this informative article.

There is also a continuing drought in the sanity
department in India-Pakistan relations.
But in the mean time this drought has to be faced.

Ras

Drought or no drought, monsoon rains have arrived late this year in India and Pakistan and the effects will be real.

The sad part, as usual in Pakistan, is that it hardly made news. The Kashmir and Musharraf dominated the front pages of all newspapers.