The amazing world of pseudoscience …

Throughout recorded history, humans have widened their choices by focusing on things that either don’t exist or exist only in imagination. Isn't the opposite of everything more interesting? No wonder, paranormal persists, myths fascinate and pseudoscience captivates. Even if none of these were proven to be scientifically true, there are people who reserve the right to believe in them. For them, tales of mythical beasts like the Yeti, the Bigfoot and the Sea Serpent are part of their collective experience. Called cryptids, the pseudoscience of cryptozoology has been put through rigorous scientific inquiry by Daniel Loxton and Donald Prethero in their defining work on the subject: Abominable Science.     

Despite being proven false, many people continue to get attracted to the idea of imaginary creatures. And, the cryptological impulse is not new either. However, the question that begs attention is: Why do people believe in monsters and why should it matter if they do? It has been argued that such beliefs can serve a function in the human psyche, allowing people a sense of the mysterious and the magical and an escape from mundane reality. Will it not be terrible for a child, and even for an adult, to discover that Santa Claus does not exist?

No wonder, dilution of myths from collective conscience has often been resented. Not without reason because myths are at the core of most cultures, which widen instead of restricting human choice. If nothing, the mystical creatures can help search new meanings and fresh perspectives on concurrent developments. That is what producer Ben Holden intends to explore in the remake of 1957 cult classic The Abominable Snowman. In the remake, the Yeti will turn out to be an intelligent being lying low until it reclaims its habitat (mountains) from invading humankind. On the other extreme, electronic media is hungry to fill airtime with pseudo scientific stories!

This and more, Abominable Science has something for every reader. Not only is it well argued and suitably referenced, the book is informative, educational as well as entertaining. Perhaps, it is the first comprehensive study that views cryptids from diverse perspectives....Link

Abominable Science 
by Daniel Loxton and Donald R. Prothero 
Columbia University Press, USA 
Extent: 411, Price: $29.95

The inconvenient fact of drug resistance

In 2011, a fifth of the global human population perished on account of infectious diseases. With the power of anti-microbial and anti-bacterial drugs literally coming to an end, some 9.5 million people in developing countries paid the price for the growing resistance of bugs. Given the fact that no new class of antibacterial drugs has been discovered since 1987, humanity runs the risk of death from most common infections like never before.

Dame Sally C Davies, the first woman chief medical officer for England in over 150 years, made this revelation in 'The Drugs Don't Work'."While new drugs have not been discovered, the existing formulations have been misused through overuse and false prescriptions," says Davies, "resulting in the bugs growing in resistance and fighting back with vengeance".

Already resistant bugs are killing 25,000 people a year across Europe. The same number die in road accidents. In the US, some 23,000 people die fighting infections each year, whereas in southeast Asia one child dies every five minutes.

As India is home to some deadly infections like diarrhea, pneumonia, typhoid, encephalitis and dengue, cumulative human casualty across different age groups is reportedly in excess of five million each year.
On an average, antibiotics add 20 years to our lives provided new formulations are developed before bugs become immune to existing drugs.

Shockingly, it has been more than 20 years since a new drug has been developed, trapping developing countries like India in the double whammy of unnecessary death from infections and growing antimicrobial resistance. No wonder, the country has been witness to eight new infections in recent times.Reports indicate that 30 new infections have been detected worldwide in the last three decades, accounting for 26% of annual deaths worldwide. If such is the pace with which infections are growing, why is drug development lagging behind?

Davies offers a shocking answer: "because companies can no longer make enough money out of antimicrobial drugs to justify investing in research needed". It can cost over $1 billion to develop a new medicine, meaning that drug companies are very careful about what areas to research. Currently, the return on investment is likely to be much higher for other therapeutic areas, such as cancer, arthritis, diabetes and other chronic diseases.

This is because the treatment for chronic diseases can last for months or years as opposed to relatively short courses for antimicrobial. New drugs are likely to have a shortened shelf-life, failing to recover the huge investment made in researching the new drug. The World Health Organisation has also warned that an infectious disease crisis of global proportions is threatening hard-won gains in health and life expectancy. Infectious diseases are now the world's biggest killer of children and young adults. They account for more than 13 million deaths a year - one in two deaths in developing countries.

The only way to pull out of the crises, according to Davies, is to make drug innovation financially attractive. If a $10 million Ansari X Prize can be created to stimulate research on new generation of space launch vehicle, setting up a $50 million prize for anyone discovering a new class of antimicrobial drugs can surely go a long way towards saving millions of people from the danger of emerging infections.

As Davies warns, 'if we fail to develop new drugs fast enough, people will start dying from the most commonplace of infections in the years ahead.'....Link

The Drugs Don't Work: A Global Threat
by Dame Sally C. Davies
Penguin, UK
Extent: 112. Price: £3.39

Information replaces atom as the basis of life!

In his first book Delete - The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age, Victor Mayer-Schonberger had shocked readers with the immortal power of the internet. 'Nothing ever gets deleted', he had rightfully argued. Taking the argument further he now elaborates the revolutionary power of 'big data', making information digitization the new basis of life. Since people willingly share information online, the likes of Google, Facebook and Twitter are inundated with enormous data to extract new insights or create new forms of value. 

Citing numerous instances where trends and predictions out of big data analysis has been put to economic use, datafication has helped in interpreting attitudes, sentiments and even human behavior like never before. Some 400 million tweets a day certainly help usher new insights on peoples’ moods, interests and preferences.

Processed data has started to look like a new resource and it can be processed again and again to meet diverse needs. It is said that every Facebook user is worth around $100, since users are the source of information in the first place. Only if the users realize the value of their 'likes' can they collectively bargain to get paid for their voluntary contribution? Not in too distant a future, such a scenario will emerge when big data will create an 'information economy' on its own. It even exists today, but has been capitalized by those who not only posses fastest computers but have servers with incredible storage capacity as well.

Like his previous book, Victor Mayer-Schonberger has come out with yet another ground-breaking book which portrays all aspects of what the emerging big data revolution may be all about. While seizing rewards of this incredible evolution, the potential risks associated with misappropriation of data must also be appreciated. For big data to ensure privacy, need for prior consent, opting out and anonymization have to be taken as policy prescription against its misuse.

Big Data is an exhaustive narrative on the virtues and risks associated with the emerging world of datafication. Full of anecdotal stories on latest developments, Big Data is a must read book....Link

Big Data
by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier 
Hachette India, Delhi
Extent; 242, Price: Rs 499

Unquiet flows the Nile

Herodotus’ prophetic words will soon be proven wrong! The Greek philosopher had long described Egypt as the ‘gift of the Nile’. But with the course of the river being diverted to fill the 145 meter tall Renaissance dam being built in upstream Ethiopia, the gift will soon be snatched from a country that has yet to emerge from its unresolved uprising three years ago. Egypt for once will be losing what it has always dreamed of having control over – the Nile. 

Relations between the two countries have grown tense over the inevitable diversion of the river. While the Egyptian politicians have suggested sabotaging the dam, the Ethiopian government has vowed that nothing can stop the dam’s construction. The growing tensions are cause for global concern, beyond the six other riparian countries. Can the region which is simmering with political discontent afford a cross-border confrontation of unimaginable proportions? 

While some commentators express doubt if the region could afford a war, there are others who consider that the brewing distrust may trigger confrontation of some kind. For Egypt, allowing Ethiopia to construct this dam is somewhat like Israel allowing Iran to build a nuclear weapon. Egypt had sown the seeds decades ago, the bitter fruits of which it has been forced to harvest now!

It is a known fact that Egypt played a major role during 1960s in helping Eriteria break away from Ethiopia  Cairo was then the ground zero for the formation of the Eriterean Liberation Movement, the primary forces behind Eriteria’s long war of independence. During the 70s and the 80s, Egypt had actively supported several groups that worked to overthrow the government in Ethiopia. When Eriteria finally gained independence in 1993, it had Egypt to thank. This is one of the roots of contention between Egypt and Ethiopia.

Setting aside such troubled history and brushing past the current crises, Seifulaziz Milas argues that armed conflict over the Nile waters has always been extremely limited. Having worked with the African Union, Milas has examined the historical, political and economic aspects related to sharing of the Nile waters in the region in his recently published book ‘Sharing the Nile’ (Pluto).  Says he: ‘as in many marriages, the participants may no longer love each other, but have little choice to live together and keep the marriage working.’ 

Over the years, nations such as Kenya, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia have held the proverbial marriage together by abiding to pre-independence treaty – often to the detriment of their own people. Signed in 1929, the treaty between the UK and Egypt had prohibited riparian countries from building water infrastructure without Egypt’s consent. Since the upstream countries were never consulted, they were the first to reject the treaty upon gaining independence. 

After nearly a decade of fruitless attempts to negotiate with Egypt on equitable sharing of the Nile waters, the basin countries launched the Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) in 2010 which makes it clear that no state will exercise hegemony over the Nile waters. 'Of all the riparian states’, argues Milas, ‘Egypt stands to gain most from the establishment of a basin-wide framework for water resources development’.    

An estimated 74 billion cubic meters of water stored in the cooler climate of the Blue Nile gorge, in the Renaissance Dam, will save a huge volume of evaporation loss from Lake Nasser in southern Egypt, located in one of the hottest and driest deserts of the world. Since the Aswan Dam is increasingly incapable of meeting Egypt’s power needs, partly due to reduced storage on account of evaporation  Ethiopia can fill the growing demand for hydropower in the region.

For the region in general, cooperative harnessing of the Nile waters is crucial for meeting the energy and livelihoods needs of a growing basin population - estimated to exceed 500 million by 2025, some 50 per cent higher than at present. But Egypt has thus far tried to scuttle new projects. It had successfully blocked an expected loan from the African Development Bank to Ethiopia for the Tana-Beles Project on the Beles River, a tributary of the Blue Nile, in 1988. 

Of the two channels that form the river, the Blue Nile is significant as it carries 86 per cent of the Nile’s eventual flow with the White Nile contributing the remainder. The Blue Nile, on which the 6,000 megawatt Renaissance Dam is being built, escapes Lake Tana in the Ethiopian highlands before joining the White Nile at Khartoum, in Sudan. The river nourishes 60 per cent of Egypt’s estimated 85 million people before draining into the Mediterranean Sea.

For Egypt, control over the Nile continues to be an emotive issue. ‘Who controls the Nile, controls Egypt’, so goes the old saying. Egypt is carefully weighing all options to avoid losing its control over the Nile. While it has discouraged global investors from financing the $5 billion project thus far, it holds the option of using its allies for bringing about instability in Ethiopia. Whether it triggers political reorientation in Ethiopia remains a billion dollar question?...Link 

Sharing the Nile
by Seifulaziz Milas
Pluto Press, London
Extent: 216 pages, Price $99

Where happiness is a national currency!

Land-locked mountain kingdom conjures up an irresistible image of a Shangri-la, with happiness being its gross domestic product. In every direction around the kingdom, unhappy situations prevail in its diverse manifestations - be it India or Nepal or Bangladesh or even Myanmar – and yet it has stood firm on its idea of Gross National Happiness. None of its neighbors, however, have made any effort to guarantee happiness for its people.

Buffeted between two economic giants, Bhutan has continued to measure the development of the country by how happy its people have been. Happiness clearly gives the kingdom its distinct identity. Also, it is the only country in the world where its King, Jigme Singye Wangchuk, during his thirty-four years of rule (1972-2006) made it a point to visit every single household in the country. Few modern rulers have had the pleasure of seeing the improvement in the lives of their people from such close quarters. No wonder, the monarchy is so loved by the common people in Bhutan.

Not much is known about Bhutan, though. Omair Ahmad helps draw an intimate portrait of the kingdom as it has shaped itself out from some of the most transformative events in the world history. Every bit of what he writes is readable, as much to a student of history as to an avid traveler. One learns that saints alone shaped Bhutan, its society, song and culture. And the country did not even have its own currency until 1974; taxes were collected in kind – either in goods or in labour. Much to anybody’s surprise, dried meat and ara, Bhutan’s traditional drink, were stored in the treasury. To avoid the tax thus collected from pilferage, ara was stored in the room just past the King’s chamber.

Written in non-fiction storytelling style, the narrative is not only interesting but informative too. Though the writer has strong empathy for the country yet he captures a bit of everything about the country, its history, its politics, its landscape, its people and its culture. Now that the kingdom has started taking rapid strides to move on the world stage, one wonders how its youth will negotiate the traditions with the modern....Link

The Kingdom at the Centre of the World

by Omair Ahmad                          

Aleph Books, New Delhi

Extent: 231, Price: Rs. 495

Capabilitiy should be central to growth

Our world needs more critical thinking and more robust arguments because economic growth has not only been enhancing income inequality but is keeping a large segment of the population deprived of basic education, health care and livelihood opportunities. Conventional economists have been of the view that either growth will percolate to pull poor out of poverty or redistribution of wealth will extend much-needed basic education and health care to the deprived.

Despite a growing consensus that neither of the two options has favored the poor thus far, the widespread use of economic achievements as a measure of country's progress continues to persist. How have the world’s poor been surviving on a daily basis is least of its concerns! In recent memory, the Sarkozy Commission has attempted to question the economic growth paradigm. It found that the benefits of increased wealth do not reach the poor because these are first usurped by the elites. Redistribution at best remains a good intent!

Citing the case of Vasanti, who was physically and economically abused by her alcoholic husband, Martha Nussbaum argues that only by creating and strengthening the capabilities of the poor can their dignity and self-respect be restored. With support from the Self-Employed Women's Organisation (SEWA) in Ahmedabad, Vasanti not only realized her potential but could put the same to effective use in discovering a dignified existence. Ascertaining what is a person ‘able to do and to be’ holds the key to understanding the Capability Approach, the alternate model to assess human development that Nussbaum has been working for over two decades.

Capability as a means of progress has been central to all cultures. Development (growth) as a normative concept, on the other hand, undermines capabilities and hence human dignity. For Nussbaum, it is people who matter ultimately; profits are only instrumental means to human lives. Human development must do justice for both humans and non-humans, enabling people to live full and creative lives. In an era of perpetual inequity, Nussbaum demonstrates, through narratives of individuals, that our idea of development ought to focus on the lives of the individuals and the way they actually live....Link

Creating Capabilities
by Martha C. Nussbaum
Harvard University Press, USA
Extent: 237, $22.95

Two hydrogen and one oxygen don’t make water!

True to its name, New Society Publishers are surely into the business of spreading 'good'. Else, it won’t have been as eager in getting ‘Small Stories, Big Changes' across to this reviewer. Fourteen ordinary folks narrate their unique 'inner' journeys that inspired and empowered them to pioneer extraordinary ideas of change towards creation of a better world. Lyle Estill's conviction that 'evolution has its own logic that favors the agile, the adaptable, and smart over the complacent, powerful and stupid' has guided him to pick ordinary folks of extraordinary imagination, whose stories of small possibilities are big on hope.

The stories clearly demonstrate that 'it is possible to do well while doing good'. One only needs a liberal dose of inspiration and a sense of clear direction. Award winning author Nicola Ross opines: inspiration comes through challenge. A big proponent of sabbaticals, Ross argues that 'inspiration only happens when you get out of your comfort zone and plunk yourself down into unknown territory'. Green developer Tim Tobe, organic innovator Eric Henry and watershed warrior Elaine Chiosso have had their share of challenges before coming out good with their innovations. Each of the stories of grass-root change propounds that while we may not control the forces changing our lives, we can indeed influence those forces.

The message that comes clearly from these heart-warming stories is that if you are in the field of sustainability, you ought to have patience. Else, mixing two parts of hydrogen with one part of oxygen could have created water on demand, anytime anywhere. But 'there is a third thing that makes it water', said imaginative novelist D H Lawrence, 'and no one knows what it is.' In each of the stories there is that 'third thing' that has been left to the readers' imagination.

Each story has an interesting, somewhat anecdotal, introduction followed by the story in the words of its author. More than creating smart influences, the stories packed in the volume offer an exercise in defining the problems in the first place. It goes to the credit of Lyle Estill in letting the reader know that the cause of all problems is solutions and yet we need solutions!....Link 

Small Stories, Big Changes
by Lyle Estill 
New Society Publishers, Canada
Extent: 200, Price: $17.95

It is time to move over!

Some 40 per cent of the world's population survives on less than $2 a day and yet mankind's ecological footprint is 50 per cent larger than global ecosystems can accommodate. Clearly, few have 'more' whereas a sizable number continues to scrape just 'enough' for survival. 

The focus of Enough is Enough is not as much on iniquitous progress as on the idea of steady-state economy for ensuring that everyone has 'enough'. While defining 'enough' could be context specific, authors Rob Dietz and Dan O'Neill instead detail out where all we have had 'enough' - from population expansion to waste production; from growing inequity to mounting debt; and from expanding unemployment to collapsing economies. Far from being pessimists, the authors find it hard to avoid feeling worried about the future we face.

Enough is Enough is a book of hope! It diagnoses facets of 'enough' in its varied manifestations before issuing 'prescriptions'. Unless indicators such as the ecological footprints, income inequality and happy life years do not replace 'gross domestic product' as a measure of progress, the world will eventually become an ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail. The illusion of economic growth, measured as GDP, can never pull the poor out of poverty because it takes a minimum of $166 increase in global production & consumption for raising an extra $1 for the poor. At such a rate, there can never be 'enough' for everyone!

Instead, the world needs a shift from its current obsession 'make consumption our way of life', and replace 'disposable' with 'durable'. Only then a shared prosperity could be achieved. The book explores specific strategies for each of the challenges the consumptive society faces. After laying down near-perfect diagnosis of the problem, the authors specifically examine 'what could we do instead' followed by 'where do we go from here'. Each of its prescriptions is evidence-based and pragmatic. These are as real as actionable!

Rob Dietz and Dan O'Neill argue for a 'beyond growth' debate because we have waited enough for an economy whose goal has consistently been 'more'....Link

Enough is Enough 
by Rob Dietz and Dan O'Neill 
Routledge/ Earthscan, UK 
Extent: 240, Price: US$ 12.71

Death will not be our end…

Eve Ensler has been a phenomenon of our times. As an acclaimed author and a passionate activist, she has devoted her life to the female body – both as a source of human life and as an embodiment of human violence. Considered as one of Newsweek’s 150 Women Who Changed the World, Ensler initiated the world into multilogue on vagina –to talk about it, value it and protect it. She has been witness to the worst ever violence inflicted on women, her nerves saturated by the stories of destructed vagina and bleeding earth in the mineral-rich Congo.  

Finding the cancer in her body, Ensler realized that it was all pervasive – getting connected to the world through her body. “My body was no longer abstraction’, she felt, ‘as it connected me to the cancer of carelessness, the cancer of greed and the cancer of cruelty.’ Part reflective and part philosophical, Ensler transforms her pain into poetic prose of perseverance  Death will not be our end: indifference will be, dissociation will be and collateral damage will be our end. This book is like a CAT scan, a roving examination of moving images, experiences, ideas and memories. 

Ensler demonstrates that pain can indeed be transformative, provided we know which us wants to survive the pain to live and thrive in a new world. Perhaps, we all need chemotherapy to purge the badness that has been projected onto us but is never ours! This book is about reclaiming our bodies, after killing off the perpetrator who got inside us. Written with unflinching honesty, Ensler relives every moment of her past – her troubled family life, her flamboyant lifestyle and her commitment to female body – to reconnect herself to the world. 

In the Body of the World is a masterpiece.Immensely readable; it is a work of art that shows us a powerful new way of interpreting illness.  Wouldn't it be incredible if everyone could find the joy that comes with committing to our own goodness? That perhaps it is only way we could stop dividing ourselves into malignancies of various forms. Through her writing, Eve Ensler comes out as an embodiment of courage, conviction and commitment to take on the world yet again....Link 

In the Body of the World 
by Eve Ensler 
Random House India, New Delhi 
Extent: 220, Price: Rs 199

MPs, a pampered lot

Ever since the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) was launched in 1993, the exclusive privilege to the members for using an annual discretionary allocation to spend for public utility works in their respective constituencies has rarely been without its share of controversies. However, there has been no let up in members’ privilege as the annual allocation per member has been enhanced from the initial Rs 1 crore to Rs 5 crore now. 

This has been so despite three reviews by the Comptroller and Auditor General which found consistent violation of guidelines in executing the scheme. Independent surveys, on the other hand, found gross misuse of funds and siphoning off public money by organisations with dubious credentials entrusted with the task of implementing the works. If that wasn't enough, four MPs were suspended in 2005 for seeking commission to award works under the scheme. 

Despite a poor track record and a growing opposition to the scheme, the Supreme Court had pronounced a unanimous judgment in May 2010 whereby it had held the scheme valid within the framework of the Constitution. But it didn’t stop the recently published first-ever comprehensive book on the scheme titled ‘Public Money, Private Agenda’ by A Surya Prakash to conclude that ‘if MPs lack the discipline to conform to the guidelines, the MPLADS must be scrapped’.

As Members of Parliament in other democracies do not have funds at their disposal to spend on local area development and please their constituents, it is often questioned if such a scheme isn’t antithetical to the principle of separation of powers? Instead, Indian MPs continue to remain a pampered lot. The need for an enforceable code of conduct for MPs was felt decades ago but Parliament never got down to laying an ethical framework for the conduct of our Parliamentarians.

In the absence of a code of conduct, lawmakers have indulged in flaunting rules governing the scheme. Sample this: In Sikkim, funds from this scheme were used to construct anti-erosion bunds to protect the private property of the MP. In Bihar, funds from the scheme were used to build roads which were already constructed. In Himachal Pradesh, a multipurpose complex was constructed under the scheme but was handed over to private business. The list goes on!

Far from taking cognisance of such irregularities, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has recently suggested that MPLADS’ funds can henceforth be used for works on 'private lands'. Furthermore, the privileged members can now assign works without calling tenders and are at liberty to engage any agency, only clause being that the assigned party should fit into the subjective interpretation of having  'national reputation' . With an estimated Rs 21,300 crore riding on members for each five-year tenure of Parliament under the scheme, the chance that public money will be squandered for private purposes is tough to dispute!

A Surya Prakash, leading commentator on public issues, has painstakingly gone through voluminous annual reports of Lok Sabha Committee on MPLADS before concluding: ‘the chairman and members of the committee seem to get all worked up about what they perceive to be a downgrading of their role by the government. However, they bec­­ome tongue-tied when presented with data which shows their colleagues in poor light.’ 

No wonder, MPLADS continues to be popular with MPs  but it also can be misused as there is scope for corruption. While a majority of MPs utilise the scheme to choose projects that would help their constituents, there are many who see MPLADS as a milch cow. What is more worrisome is the absence of an administrative infrastructure at the district level to keep a watchful eye on the scheme, which can result in the misuse of funds under the scheme. And, it already has!

While transparency in awarding contracts and accountability of works in public interest is one part of the story, the other part relates to whether lawmakers with a national responsibility  get bogged down in village-level development in their constituencies. But if the trend of increase in MPLADS’ corpus is any indication, a further hike in allocation will force MPs to spend more time in their constituencies at the cost of their primary Parliamentary duties. Already, quality of debates in Parliament has suffered on account of a large number of members being absent from the sessions. But if the trend is allowed to persist, with MPLADS making a significant contribution, it will have negative impact on the quality of debates, the quality of questions to be raised during the ‘question hour’, and the contribution of members to various Parliamentary committees. There is more at stake than MPLADS.

Since the Supreme Court has declared the scheme to be constitutionally valid, it is now for the members and Parliament to examine the implications of the scheme in the light of the democratic practices. Parliamentarians need to realise that the credibility of citadel of democracy remains intact only when privileges and ethics are seen as two sides of the same coin. While they clamor for more privileges, they cannot escape being held accountable vis-à-vis their primary obligation to Parliament and the functioning of an effective democracy....Link

Public Money, Private Agenda
by A Surya Prakash
Rupa, New Delhi
Pages: 296, Price: Rs 395

Who pays when everything is for free!

The awe of network technology is overwhelming as it showers a variety of freebies, so much so that we wonder why stuff like music and movies were priced in the past. Such freebies come on account of us donating vital information and surrendering our privacy - like our interest, buying habits and cyber movements - that has created an economy in the hands of those who 'own the fastest computers with access to everyone's information'.

Little does anyone care because false hope is spread that the emerging information economy will benefit those who provide the information that drives it? If this were so, some 140,000 people employed with Kodak would not have lost their job when Instagram had acquired it; and Facebook would not have rested those 13 employees who made Instagram worth a billion dollars before buying it. Where did all those jobs disappear to and what happened to the middle-class wealth that was created? Haven’t we been witness to recession and unemployment instead!

Digital visionary and philosopher Jaron Lanier argues that we have been psychologically victimized by technologies that we 'have chosen to adopt'. But has there been much choice? Internet technologies promote the strength of democratized wisdom at the cost of killing individual voice and intellectualism. What you say on the internet is converted into dehumanized data, which makes the information aggregator rich and not the one who produces the information in the first place. This is exactly the wrong set of values that Lanier has been concerned about. Having invented the term virtual reality and having been part of the Silicon Valley, Lanier emphatically questions the self-destructive nature of the information economy.

Recognized as history's 300 greatest inventors, Lanier reasons the need for shaping technology to fit culture's needs and not vice versa. He suggests the following experiment: resign from all the free online services you use for six months to see what happens. You don’t need to denounce them forever, make value judgements, or be dramatic. Just be experimental. You will probably learn more about yourself, your friends, the world, and the Internet than you would have if you never performed the experiment.' Only by leading absorbing lives, as an individual and as a part of the society, can we outgrow our addiction to technology-driven consumerism!....Link

Who owns the future?
by Jaron Lanier 
AllenLane, UK
Extent: 360, Price: £ 20

The book of change

It is a story of those incredible nine years, between 1993 and 2012, that empowered 900 million people with wireless connectivity; it is a tale of technology transfer that generated a cascade of new occupations and jobs; and it is a saga of crony capitalism that subsumed five of the ten telecom ministers on charges of corruption. It is an unfinished but absorbing fairy tale of a country coming of age, from one telephone per 165 persons in 1991 to nearly two mobile connections per person in 2012. Cell Phone Nation offers an interdisciplinary analysis on how 'boundary between impossibility and possibility' got blurred and what helped people 'attain that was long denied' to them.

The mobile phone may have provided access to global flows of knowledge and mobilized social movements but it has altered local cultural practices and challenged gender relations in a country that is not only unjust and unequal but immensely complex too. Yet, for every increase of 10 per cent in mobile penetration the State Domestic Product reportedly grows by 1.2 per cent. Mobile phone has become an empowering tool in the hands of millions of Indians who otherwise may not have been part of an accelerating economy.

While providing a comprehensive account of how mobile phones have changed lives, authors Robin Jeffrey and Assa Doron do not lose sight of the likely health and ecological implications of radiation emitting mobile towers which have mushroomed across the country's vast landscape. Curiously, the impact of mobile towers on survival of house sparrows and honey bees is anything but shocking. Future generation may have to pay a price for the telecom revolution (and its leftover e-waste) currently underway in the country.

Despite its flip side, mobile phone has been a great equalizer in a country beset with caste and class disparities. But will it alter the well-entrenched hierarchy prevailing in the society or can it surmount physical barriers to transform the power structure? Or, will the power of cheaper mobiles only be used to make sexual harassment and economic crimes easier? The authors raise such compelling questions in a racey narrative that is lucid, edifying and engrossing....Link

Cell Phone Nation 
by Robin Jeffrey and Assa Doron 
Hachette India, New Delhi
293 pages, Rs. 499.

There can only be one winner!

Farmer suicides have become such commonplace in India that if Salim-Javed were to script the 1975 blockbuster Sholay today they could skip the explanatory dialogue on suicide 'angrej log jab marte hain, toh usse suicide kehte hain' (when foreigners die it is termed suicide). Successive crop failures and the burden of debt have forced thousands of farmers to consume their lives. Just change the name and the place, the script can hold on to its own.

Sudhakar Bhadra kills himself under similar circumstances. The powerful district committee of Mityala routinely dismisses the suicide and refuses compensation to his widow. Gangiri, his brother, makes it his life's mission to bring justice to the dead by influencing the committee to validate similar farmer suicides. Gangiri's struggle for justice treads through unequal turf. 'It is an unequal fight, but we have the dead on our side.'

Using a familiar plot, Kota Neelima scripts a gripping tale wherein political capital is made out of a social misery. For the political class, farmers are worth the electoral ritual wherein promises are made, but not to be kept. Even political attention following farmers' suicide doesn't last long. No surprise, battlelines get drawn as the protagonist battles for justice against the arrogant politician who fights to hold onto his seat of power, a family legacy. And as is in every battle, there can only be one winner! No rewards for guessing the loser.

While nature has its own way of taming great forces of change, by containing them in mundane characters, destiny waits to choose its villains and victims among the warriors. A victory at times may turn out to be facile for the winner but could easily help the loser climb a moral high ground from where it pricks conscience of the masses. 

Shoes of the Dead is an act of fiction, though not far from real life, which portrays the grim realities confronting the farming communities. It is a story that ought to be told every so often to stir the social and political conscience of people....Link

Shoes of the Dead
by Kota Neelima 
Genre: Fiction
Rainlight/Rupa, New Delhi
274 pages, Rs.495

The idea of self-limitation

Even if you haven't read E F Schumacher's seminal work Small is Beautiful, first published in 1973, you can still sense the influence those arguments have in the present. Joseph Pearce examines the multifarious implications of growing materialism in this consumer's paradise to conclude that small is still beautiful. Written with care, compassion and clarity, Pearce draws distinction between a 'citizen' and a 'consumer' - citizens are humans and have souls whereas consumers are economic functionaries linked to growth. Unless the ‘citizen’ is reclaimed out of the ‘consumer’ the world will slip into materialistic hedonism, proclaims Pearce.

Since families form the smallest and most beautiful part of any healthy society, Pearce examines modern economics from the perspective of 'families' - economics as if families mattered. While championing the idea of self-limitation, Schumacher knew that this necessary virtue is enshrined in the everyday realities of family life. It is, however, another matter that while families have shrunk in size their needs have become over-sized.

Examining all aspects of the economy as it impacts families, from free trade to biological warfare and from perverse subsidies to democratic dictatorship, the book peeps into those initiatives which have successfully shun away from fashionable hedonism and a development hangover. In a world where we are not expected to ask why, but merely to know how, Pearce helps the reader in asking compelling questions on the insufficiency of science.

Since 'good' as a term has been has been replaced with 'goods', we seem to know the price of goods but not the intrinsic value of 'good'. With lust, envy, avarice, gluttony and pride being the essential marketing tools, sole aim of technological innovations targets market-driven self-gratification. Four decades since the publication of the timeless classic Small is Beautiful, Pearce argues in favor of bringing teaching of traditional philosophy back on the national curriculum to challenge such growing trend. There could hardly be a timelier book than Small is still beautiful - it is pleasingly reflective and its literary style makes it a rewarding and gripping read....Link

Small is still beautiful
by Joseph Pearce
ISI Books, Washington
336 pages, US$ 8.68

Enigma of inclusive development!

Inclusive development has been differently understood, some consider it as a 'process' while for others it is a 'goal'. On both the accounts, it has remained a puzzle that policymakers and development professionals have been trying to unravel on the assumption that the quality of life in any country improves when, and only when, gross domestic product per capita increases. The monetary surplus thus generated can be capitalized to design social development programs for the poor. Backed by experience of being part of such development programs, Amarjeet Sinha asserts that public distribution system can be reinvented to deliver entitlements to social development for the poor, thus providing opportunities for the poor to develop their fullest human potential.

Enamored by limited success of some of the flagship social development programs, in the areas of nutrition, health care, education and livelihoods, the author pitches his hypothesis of paving a way for inclusive development on the strength of better 'service guarantee' for those who rely on it. Ironically, the strategy for reinventing the country assumes the conditions of the poor and the disadvantaged as 'given' and the onus of transforming their lives squarely resting on improving the performance of the 'system' only. Neither does it factor the legacy of failed institutions nor the unresolved challenges in scaling-up!

At this time when the idea of human development is shifting from the conventional 'social indicators' approach to the 'capability approach', An India For Everyone seems trapped in the hope of turning things around by fine-tuning the system that has thus far failed to deliver. The trouble with such an approach has been that it rarely captures the shape and texture of individual lives, what are people actually able to do and to be? Unless the complexities of human life and human striving are properly understood, social development programs may create an illusion of transformation without tweaking the lives of millions.

An India for Everyone seems first draft of a work-in-progress; its assumptions need to go through the rigour of analysis because development isn't about well-funded social programs - it is about whether people can live in a way 'worthy of human dignity'....Link

An India for Everyone
by Amarjeet Sinha 
Harper Collins, New Delhi
182 pages, Rs 299

The China syndrome

A global resource meltdown is indeed imminent. Never before have natural resources been scooped from across the world with such impunity. China's breathtaking commodity campaign, be it for fossil fuel, minerals, land or water, has ripped mines and mountains of its riches across the world.

At a hefty fee of US$3 billion, China's Chinalco is smothering fifteen thousand feet high Mount Toromocho in Peru for the last speck of copper; much to the shock of its lower riparian China is unilaterally diverting Brahmaputra and Mekong rivers to quench thirst of its rapidly urbanizing north; and China's growing stakes in leading petrochemical companies in oil-producing countries is akin to virtual takeover. The world is literally at China's feet!

China may have genuine reasons for its insatiable demand for resources, having lured resource-rich poor countries in its growth journey. Given the fact that China will add 400 million people to its urban population in the next decade, upward mobile Chinese will require a lot of arable land, a lot of usable water, a lot of energy, and a lot of minerals. What will happen when China ostensibly has access to all available resources and the rest of world doesn't? Dambisa Moyo wonders if China's stealth global incursions don't trigger global tensions!

Is the world prepared to face up to hard facts of a bleak commodity outlook? Chinese ascendancy may go beyond impacting the commodity prices; it is strategically positioned to not just alter the landscape of how business is done but also how countries themselves are run. Moyo's thesis doesn't seem far-fetched; seeds of such discontent have started surfacing in countries where China has gone full throttle with its extractive businesses. Winner Take All is a fact-filled penetrating inquiry on the emerging reality the world should be ready to face up to.

Lamenting the international community's patchy record of working together on issue of global relevance, Moyo only hopes that a 'slowing down of Chinese economy' may dampen its irresistible demand on world resources. Amongst recent books on China’s expansion beyond the Great Wall that I have read, Winner Take All makes a significant contribution but not without taking a toll on the reader with its mass of statistics....Link

Winner Take All
by Dambisa Moyo 
Penguin, UK
257 pages, $26

All may not have been lost…

It is an exceptional narrative on grief, woven around a stirring tale of personal loss and a moving account of incremental recovery. In few minutes on the early hours of December 26, 2004, Sonali Deraniyagala had lost her proud possessions - her two young sons, her husband and her parents - to the furious wave caused by the devastating tsunami.

It has been on ordeal for the daughter, the wife and the mother in her to survive the bizarre but brutal truth. Had an army of family and relatives not foiled her attempts to kill herself, the world would have been bereft of a stunning memoir that expands the notion of 'what love really means.' When life seems predictable, continuity is assumed.

With continuity of life broken, Sonali wonders if 'she could make murky the life she had with her family'. She crawls back into reality in bits and pieces, reliving each moment of togetherness. The red pen marks rising up the wall in their living room reminds her of the periodic exercise in measuring the boys' heights. She kisses those red marks as if kissing the tops of their heads! This can only make a tearful reading.

Out of unimaginable loss comes a haunting story, a moving account of piecing together a fractured life. 'Maybe yearning for them more freely gives me some relief,' Sonali reflects, 'I see my children's friends often now. They are bubbling over when we meet, I enjoy their sparkle. And they make my boys real, so they are not beyond my field of vision, as they were in those first years'. The strength of her prose lies in her taking the reader along in her journey, of converting streaks of emotions into bundles of courage.

Sonali Deraniyagala grew up in Colombo before she left to pursue a career in economics at the Cambridge, where she met her husband Steve. She teaches at the University of London but is currently visiting research scholar at Columbia University, working on issues of economic development, including post-disaster recovery. Contrary to her training as an economist, Wave holds promise as a work of literature. Sonali is a writer of extraordinary talent, the prose is simple, subtle and yet powerful.

Wave makes compelling reading; the author has narrated her inner turbulations with sincerity and honesty. One begins to feel connected with the author, sharing the depths of her grief as much as her efforts in pulling out of it. Within the pain and anguish are nuggets of deep reflections on the gift called life. She wants to be alone on birthdays and the anniversary of the fateful day. 'Alone, I am close to them, I slip back into life or they slip into mine, undisturbed'.

Written almost a decade after the tragic tsunami, Wave recaptures those dreadful moments frame by frame. Without doubt, it is an unforgettable book which tells us how to gather the threads of life when everything is seemingly lost!....Link

Wave
by Sonali Deraniyagala
Alfred A. Knoff, New York
230 pages, US$24

Water, water everywhere….not sure!

Popular perception on water doesn't hold much water, as it hinges around the technology of overcoming current scarcity for sustaining future supplies. With traditional wisdom around water on the verge of extinction, the discourse around water is somewhat of an aberration from its science. No wonder, questions from the audience that pop up during live television programs not only reflect gross ignorance but portray a skewed understanding on water as well. Like 'water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink', information on water is plenty but clear understanding is broadly missing. Is increasing water scarcity cause for growing water ignorance?

Water Drops is a compilation of some 160 radio broadcasts of 90 seconds each on all aspects of water, from its history to its hydrology and from its science to its politics. The weekly broadcast on a New York FM channel had commenced in early 2006 and lasted till 2008. Since then these essays have repeatedly been broadcast from an unknown number of radio stations and are available online too. Now in print, Water Drops has everything you ever wanted to know about water and water issues. It is Peter Black’s four decades of professional research and teaching experience captured in 90-seconds capsules, each offering cure for water ignorance.

You may like 'hot shower' but speaking on it meaningfully and that too for little over a minute can make you feel hot. One can perhaps write a volume on 'water balance' but making a diverse audience get a balanced sense of it could be daunting. And, think of 'black ice' to let your listeners get a sense of something we rarely encounter. This and much more, each of these radio broadcasts celebrates water and its wonder. Informative and even entertaining, Water Drops is an encyclopedic look at water in its various manifestations. As an activist, as a teacher and as an administrator, there come moments when one struggles to make a coherent sense of the issue for an audience. It is for such crucial moments that one may need Water Drops. It is a celebration of water, the elixir of all life.

Water Drops: Celebrating the Wonder of Water
by Peter E. Black
State University of New York Press, Albany
187 pages, $19.95

By dog, what about the river?

Nothing in this part of the world could be as magical as the mighty Brahmaputra, the father of all rivers in the sub-continent, an amazing labyrinth of treacherous cross-currents, whirlpools and ever shifting sandbanks. Flowing along it are lives, lifestyles and livelihoods of myriad cultures belonging to diverse religions and tribes entrenched within the ever-changing meanders of the river. The river not only gives life but it takes it away too. But no one blames the river. It is their destiny!

Tipped as the ‘last great Asian adventure', Mark Shand's journey on boat sweeping eighteen hundred miles through three countries could only act as a frontrunner to those (like this reviewer) planning to undertake a portion of the journey in the floodplains, from Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh to Guwahati in Assam. But it belies promise as the author invests better part of the otherwise interesting narrative in search of a 'river dog', and less about the river he had set out to explore.

Since the Chinese didn’t permit him to travel through the Tsangpo in Tibet, what would have been an exhilarating travel through the international border could not be accomplished. Nonetheless, the author provides edge-of-the-seat excitement in his search for one of those five hundred specially tagged logs that were thrown upstream of the river in Tibet during late nineteenth century to establish once and for all whether the Tsangpo flowed into the Brahmaputra after it disappears into the mountain gorges.

Though informative and entertaining, Shand's travel through the mighty river in India doesn't offer adequate tips to those who may wish to traverse this enormous water course on boat. Yet, it is perceptive travel writing that is loaded with eccentric excitement. Without doubt, the river is unique as it embraces the religions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam and nurtures hundreds of tribal beliefs along its treacherous course. At another level, it offers an amazing treatise on local, sub-regional, regional and global implications of the somewhat contentious flow of the river on communities, institutions, states and beyond. Having been on the footsteps of Mark Shand, though partially, one can safely suggest that if current trans-boundary imbroglio on harnessing its waters is any indication, there is nothing less than a status of ‘global heritage’ that can sustain its flow for future boat journeys of this kind....Link

River Dog: A Journey Down The Brahmaputra
by Mark Shand 
Abacus, UK
338 pages, $16.95

The approaching moment is about to pass...

For him the concept of time has not been the tick-tick of a wrist watch but the approaching moment that is about to pass. And he seemingly hasn’t allowed any moment to ‘pass’ without living a lifetime in ‘it’. No wonder, the poet in him stays relevant and contemporary even after five decades of penning down his first song – the unforgettable ‘mera gora ang lai le’.

Gulzar alias Sampooran Singh Kalra is a poet or shair first and lyricist later. He entered the world of cinema reluctantly and walked away by choice. As much a part of it as he is not, his poetry resonates beyond the fleeting moments on the celluloid because he writes to release his inner energy and to share his experience of life. Much of what he writes, therefore, has earthy smell that one can easily relate to.   

Conducted over twenty five skype sessions lasting for almost an hour each, Nasreen Munni Kabir has pioneered a rather successful concept in book writing that is not only convenient but cost-effective too. But credit must go to Gulzar for being clear, concise and reflective in his response. There is never a dull moment, the conversation is as much engaging as revealing. His poetry may have an element of mystery but not when it comes to opening his mind.

Had his life not turned to be what it is, Gulzar may have been sitting in some small shop in a small town selling fabrics - ‘I get a sort of sinking feeling in my heart’. But he chose not to tread on his parental business and followed his destiny instead. Yet, fabric remains an integral part of his life. He calls his daughter ‘Bosky’ – one of the finest fabrics that is both sober and elegant. And if this wasn’t enough, his home in Mumbai is named ‘Boskyana’. 

The conversation is an interesting mixture of poetry and prose. Gulzar is elegant with both, the writer and editor in him work in unison to produce amazing nuggets of wisdom. ‘I strongly believe writers must be aware of what is happening in the world and have a strong sense of values, believing in some kind of ideology is essential’. For Gulzar ‘writing’ has been no less than a euphemism for ‘being’, something which he has pursued with unfailing commitment and unfading passion.    

Kabir brings out the best in Gulzar by asking simple but well-researched questions. The narrative is racy but enriching, as the conversation traverses through his early childhood and a rather long journey as an accomplished poet. The conversation is free-flowing with loads of interesting anecdotes about Gulzar’s interaction with some of the finest exponents of poetry and music. The nature and quality of conversation makes it an absorbing reading.

One gets a glimpse into the poet’s mind but there is lot more that one would like to know. As for me, I would have liked to ask Gulzar the reason for him having given one-word title to most of the films he made, be it Parichay, Mausam, Kitaab or Angoor....Link

In the company of a poet: Gulzar
by Nasreen Munni Kabir
Rainlight/Rupa, New Delhi
206 pages, Rs 380

Sunshine, freedom and a little flower

Even if as a toddler you haven’t chased butterflies; even if as a student you haven’t studied Lepidoptera; and even if as a ‘sari’ connoisseur you haven’t fancied nature’s veritable hot couture, Butterflies can still enrich you with what may have missed you in life.

Inducted to family obsession at an early age, a toddler’s instinct was to become a profession for Peter Smetacek. And he crafts his lifetime passion and commitment into prose that is as much enriching as entertaining. Without doubt, it evokes empathy for butterflies and moths.

One of the finest read on Butterflies, the book sends me down memory lane when, as students of entomology, we would emulate eternal romantic Dev Anand in unsuccessfully chasing elusive butterflies. Quite often, it would be the common ‘cabbage white’ falling into our net.

The author tells us that most adult butterflies do not last beyond a fortnight, but not before sending out a message that ‘just living is not enough; one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.’ A toddler’s instinct in matter of chasing butterflies is perhaps borne out of such realization. No surprise, the toddler and the butterfly complement each other as symbols of ‘freedom’, neither of them enslaved to anyone.

As adults, however, butterflies evoke mischievous connotation to which Smetacek had once been an unintended victim. On the trail of Black Prince in western Nepal, his driving license was confiscated on grounds of him being a possible human trafficker. This and much more, Butterflies takes us into the world of these winged insects without any idea why they are colored, patterned and shaped they way they are.

Holding the largest private collection of butterflies and moths in India, the author infuses authenticity and authority in his writing. Even if one cannot make any sense of the myriad genera of butterflies, the narrative espouses belongingness to nature’s exclusive creation. Such is the magic of Smetacek’s writing that midway through the book one involuntarily starts looking beyond the window to catch a glimpse of a fluttering butterfly.

‘The fluttering of butterfly wings can affect climate changes on the other side of the planet,’ noted population biologist Paul Ehrlich had once remarked. Taking the argument further, Peter Smetacek convincingly proves that butterflies are indeed the indicator species that can help monitor slightest of change in the forest micro-climate, only if one could gauge the health of different types of forests using insect population.

Informative and engrossing, Butterflies is a real page turner. Without doubt, it is one of finest non-fiction writings I have read in recent times....Link

Butterflies on the Roof of the World
by Peter Smetacek
Aleph, New Delhi
224 pages, Rs 495

Questioning the tyranny of development!

Need it be said that the term 'development' has lived up to what President Harry Truman had presumed it to mean in his address to the US Senate in 1945 - to denote that a large part of the world was 'underdeveloped'. Within its broader framework a vast pool of professionals worked overtime to create an attractive vocabulary that includes terms like 'participation', 'empowerment', 'accountability' to keep the underprivileged mesmerized into believing that their concerns were being looked into. That we have more poor people than ever before exposes the hypocrisy of development which ensures that poverty persists.

Without doubt, development has remained a mischievous tool in the hands of development donors who have broadly been guided by what is known as the Bretton Woods system of economic governance. Over the years, however, the idea of development has got buried under the weight of its lofty ideology. Donors are getting increasingly concerned about the effectiveness of their taxpayers’ money. At this time when development itself has come under scrutiny, Robert Chambers' unsettling provocations should help locate a substitute for the term 'development'.

Though insightful and reflective, the short provocative essays remain confined within the framework of aid, participation and poverty. Without doubt, this framework has created development fatigue not only for those who preach it but for those on whom it is practiced. Global power dynamics and economic realities have gone through unimaginable transformation, and with it has changed the notion of poverty. That poverty is relative is a glaring reality of our times, when even the most impoverished is seeking 'freedom' and 'dignity' at the cost of 'aid'. More than 'provocations' the world needs 'transformation' in the manner in which 'development' has been perceived and delivered. 

Nothing short of substituting 'development' can undo what has thus far been unleashed in the name of development. Provocations for Development opens a Pandora's Box of development myths and fallacies that development thinkers and practitioners must engage with. The author doesn't insist that the book be read cover to cover. However, there is enough for the reader to feel provoked, at least five days a week for next fifty-two weeks....Link

Provocations for Development
by Robert Chambers
Practical Action Publishing, UK
224 pages, £8.96
(available online at www.developmentbookshop.com)