Nepal: A nation in the making

Unleashing Nepal is a revealing narrative on a country that has rarely been seen beyond a tourism destination by most middle-class Indians. That it is land-locked country strategically located between two traditional enemies - India and China - is beyond the imagination of those for whom the images of the ubiquitous chowkidar and the glamorous Manisha Koirala complete the Nepalese picture. Neither was any conscious effort made to alter that picture.

Sujeev Sakhya, a business executive with societal conscience, attempts to re-write the past by tracing nearly 300-year old history of the country which, many believe, is still in the making. Successive rulers focused on 'Kathmandu centricism' as a deliberate attempt to keep the masses impoverished. It made the then mountain kingdom a development aid destination. Nepal's economy remains precariously dependant on remittance and aid....more

One last chance.....

Now in his 90th year, James Lovelock stays refreshingly readable and exceptionally young. Readable, because he presents a scary subject of mankind’s survival with fluent prose in The Vanishing Face of Gaia and young, because the expensive thallium-201 heart test has found him so, prior to undertaking travel to space later this year as Richard Branson’s guest abroad Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShip Two. From 60 miles above, Lovelock will get to view the planet as it is; and not Gaia, a self-regulating system about which he propounded a theory in the late 60’s.

Lovelock’s much acclaimed Gaia Theory, that took three decades before the world accepted it, propounds that the earth regulates its climate and chemistry so as to sustain habitability. Akin to Vedic thought, the idea of earth as a living being challenges the conventional climate models. Simply put, it means that the earth will take care of itself but not mankind. Lovelock says in public what climatologists are saying to each other in private – that climate change is too far along for reversal, at least with any of the solutions currently taken seriously.

Though not a contrarian, Lovelock wonders how the IPCC could reach a consensus on a matter of science: ‘I know that such a word has no place in the lexicon of science; it is a good and useful word, but it belongs to the world of politics and the courtroom, where reaching a consensus is a way of solving human differences’. No wonder, the IPCC failed to correctly forecast the course of climate change up to 2007 thereby casting serious doubt that its predictions for the future may be drastic understatement of the coming changes to our planet....more (the link will appear soon)

Making a case for socialism

At this time when life is overwhelmed with capitalism in all hues, the mention of socialism can at best be considered rhetoric. But not for political philosopher Prof. G A Cohen who thinks there are times in our lives when we all behave like socialists. Socialism is indeed desirable, else why on a camping trip the spirit of understanding ensures that there are no inequalities to which anyone could mount a principled objection? Someone plays, someone cooks and others do washing up - each in the spirit of equality and reciprocity.

Amazingly, it works as equality of opportunity removes obstacles to opportunity on a camping trip. Cohen, emeritus fellow at All Souls College at the University of Oxford, brilliantly captures the essence of communal reciprocity in a market-dominated society. Communal reciprocity is when I serve you not because of what I can get in return by doing so but because you need or want my service, and you, for the same reason, serve me....more