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
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
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
