[Branded Indian] Film on India Farmers suicide: largest recorded epidemic of mass suicide in the history of humanity - rjagathe@gmail.com - Gmail

The Imperialist Suicide Epidemic in India

by Larry Everest

"The children were inconsolable. Mute with shock and fighting back tears, they huddled beside their mother as friends and neighbors prepared their father's body for cremation on a blazing bonfire built on the cracked, barren fields near their home. As flames consumed the corpse, Ganjanan, 12, and Kalpana, 14, faced a grim future. While Shankara Mandaukar had hoped his son and daughter would have a better life under India's economic boom, they now face working as slave labor for a few pence a day. Landless and homeless, they will be the lowest of the low.

"Shankara, respected farmer, loving husband and father, had taken his own life. Less than 24 hours earlier, facing the loss of his land due to debt, he drank a cupful of chemical insecticide. Unable to pay back the equivalent of two years' earnings, he was in despair. He could see no way out."¹

Shankara's story is not unique—or even unusual. Between 1995 and 2009, 241,679 farmers in India committed suicide, and by the end of 2010 the number had probably risen to 250,000—a quarter of a million people. In 2009 alone, 17,638 farmers committed suicide—an average of one every 30 minutes.

And it's even worse. These shocking figures "considerably underestimate the actual number of farmer suicides taking place," according to a new study by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University Law School, "Every Thirty Minutes: Farmer Suicides, Human Rights and the Agrarian Crisis in India."² For instance, women are often excluded from suicide statistics because they don't have title to their land and therefore are not counted as "farmers."

The Roots of India's Farmer Suicide Epidemic

This suicide epidemic is not a product of "human nature," or India's culture. Mass farmer suicides were unknown in India before the 1990s. Nor are they random and unexplainable: they follow a pattern. 86.5 percent of the farmers who commit suicide are in debt. Like Shankara, 40 percent had suffered a crop failure, the majority are small farmers (with less than five acres of land), and are growing cash crops for export. Cotton is one of India's main cash crops, and one of the highest concentrations of suicides is among cotton farmers like Shankara. Roughly half of all farmer suicides occur in the Vidarbha region of central India, where there are 3.2 million cotton farmers.³

What is the connection between crushing debt, failed harvests, small plots, and cash crops? Why have hundreds of thousands felt they had no way out but to take their own lives? What does this epidemic show about India, a country the U.S. lauds as "the world's largest democracy" and celebrates as a model for economic development? And what does it show about U.S. capitalism-imperialism and how it impacts millions upon millions around the world?

Step Back... and Survey the Globe

To answer these questions, we can't just look at India's cotton industry, or Indian agriculture overall, or even just India. You have to step back and look at what kind of system we live in, how it dominates and shapes the whole globe—especially oppressed countries like India.

We live in a capitalist system. That means that all production, including of basic necessities, is driven and shaped by the maximizing of profit. Today the tentacles of that capitalist system envelop the whole world—capitalism has become imperialism. A small handful of rich, capitalist-imperialist countries dominate the rest of the planet, with the United States at the top of this global system. These imperialist powers dominate the oppressed nations—where over 80 percent of the world's people live—economically, politically, and militarily. The imperialists set the terms for what will be produced in these countries—not to meet the needs of their peoples, but to further the interests of the imperialists, in particular their profitable accumulation of capital.

Imperialist investment is not—as we're told by the capitalist media—a "boon" or a "handout" for people in oppressed countries. As Raymond Lotta has written, "the economic structure of the oppressed nations (like India) is shaped mainly by forces external to them: what is produced, exported and imported, financed, etc., reflects first and foremost their subordination, and not principally the internal requirements and interrelations of different sectors. They answer to another's 'heartbeat.'"⁴

Globalization, including Third World countries becoming further integrated into and subordinated to imperialism, has intensified since the end of World War 2. Imperialism's need to further integrate and subordinate Third World countries like India took a leap following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union—which by the mid-1950s was an imperialist, not a socialist, country. Suddenly, the global political, economic, and military landscape was radically changed. The U.S. and Western imperialist powers had triumphed in the Cold War. The U.S. saw the need and the opportunity to accelerate capitalist "globalization": to break down barriers to global investment, exploitation, and trade, including opening up countries formerly allied with the Soviet Union or formerly closed to the West.

Poor countries around the world, in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, have been subjected to Structural Adjustment Programs imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. These programs require that Third World governments meet strict conditions to get new loans or to obtain lower interest rates on existing loans. Both the IMF and World Bank are controlled by the imperialist powers, especially the United States. And this restructuring creates more favorable conditions for imperialist trade and investment.⁵

Imperialist restructuring has led to enormous changes in agricultural production in the oppressed countries. They have been more deeply integrated into the workings of an imperialist‑dominated global food system. Agriculture has been further "industrialized" and reshaped to better serve the imperialists. Traditional subsistence farming (based on producing staples like corn, beans, etc.) has more and more been overrun and swallowed up by imperialist‑controlled agribusiness.

India, the world's second most populous country, was one of the U.S.'s prime targets and has been ground zero for this agricultural restructuring. India was a longtime ally of the Soviet Union, and most of its economy was controlled and directed by the Indian state, which represented the interests of Indian capitalism and landed property, including semi-feudal landlordism.

Capitalist Globalization's Devastating Impact on India's Agriculture

India remains a predominantly agrarian society, with over 800 million people (of the 1.2 billion total population)—nearly 70 percent of the population—living in rural areas. Over half of India's workforce of nearly 500 million works in agriculture.⁶

The world's capitalist powers say that poor countries being integrated into the world imperialist system will lead to rapid economic growth and development and rising standards of living for all. When President Obama addressed India's Parliament in November 2010, he praised India for not "resisting the global economy," instead becoming "one of its engines." He claimed this had unleashed "an economic marvel that has lifted tens of millions from poverty and created one of the world's largest middle classes," and that advanced technology was now "empowering farmers and women" in India.⁷

But what globalization has actually meant for the masses of people in India is intensified exploitation, sweatshops, and growing disparity between the rich and poor. After 25 years of market reform, the average calorie intake in India has declined! And globalization has meant the ruin of many farmers, driving them into desperation. Let's look, for example, at how imperialist globalization has affected cotton farmers in India, who are a lot of the farmers committing suicide.

Compete on the Global Market... Or Go Under

Beginning in the 1990s, the U.S., the World Bank, and the IMF pressured India to privatize many of its state-owned enterprises, slash regulations on business, cut spending on social services and subsidies to small farmers, tear down barriers to foreign investment and trade, and integrate its economy, including agriculture, more closely into the imperialist-dominated global capitalist order.

Under this "neo-liberal" program, the Indian government reduced subsidies and access to credit for farmers, who had mainly been raising food crops for domestic consumption. It pushed farmers to switch from foodstuffs to cash crops for sale on the global market. And as part of this, the Indian state has promoted the expansion of cotton growing. Today there are 4 million cotton farmers in India, which is now the world's second largest cotton producer.⁸

However, to sell their cotton, Indian farmers now faced the volatile ups and downs of the global market, and competition with giant multi-national corporations based in the imperialist countries, which had enormous advantages in technology, marketing, and financial resources.

The report, "Every 30 Minutes" says, "In order to compete on the global market, then, Indian cotton farmers desperately turned to using new, higher-priced inputs," and "the cotton market has become increasingly commercialized, and is dominated by a small group of multinational corporations that exert increasing control over the cost, quality, and availability of agricultural inputs."

In India, giant imperialist monopolies exerted this control and extracted huge profits through the sale of genetically modified cottonseed, especially Bollgard Bt cottonseed, made by the U.S. chemical giant Monsanto, the world's largest seed producer.

When Bt cottonseed was approved by the Indian state in 2002, Monsanto launched an aggressive sales program in India with salesmen going from village to village promising these seeds would yield higher outputs—and income—including because they're resistant to some pests, so less can be spent on pesticides. By 2009, a majority of India's cotton farmers invested in the seed, and 85 percent of cotton produced in India was Bt cotton.⁹

"They Consume the Very Pesticide That They Purchased, in Order to Kill Themselves"

Farmer Shende shouldered at least four debts at the time of his death: one from a bank, two procured on his behalf by his sisters and one from a local moneylender. The night before his suicide, he borrowed one last time. From a fellow villager, he took the equivalent of $9, roughly the cost of a one-liter bottle of pesticide, which he used to take his life.¹⁰

Bt cottonseeds cost from two to 10 times as much as regular cottonseed, and can end up accounting for 50 percent of farming costs. Making matters worse, farmers are often prevented from reusing these genetically modified Bt seeds without paying a fee each year to Monsanto—which owns the "intellectual property rights" to the seed.¹¹

Of the 89.35 million farmer households in India, small and marginal farmers make up 84 percent of all agricultural land holdings. These small farmers on average earn less than $2 per day, according to a 2003 study.¹²

And the workings of imperialism have increasingly forced these kinds of farmers into debt, squeezing them from two sides. On the one hand, these farmers have to pay more for seed, fertilizers, etc., so their costs have gone up. On the other hand, in the name of neo-liberal reform, the government has cut back in providing low-cost credit to small farmers while credit is channeled towards the largest, most profitable agricultural enterprises. This has meant that farmers have had to seek out sources of credit from local, predatory money lenders. And they end up going ever deeper into debt and desperation.

While growing Bt cotton for the global capitalist market can produce high returns, it is also highly precarious and unpredictable. Prices can swing sharply on the world market. Today the price of cotton in real terms is one-twelfth what it was 30 years ago. Also, Bt cotton requires a larger and steadier flow of water than traditional seed, yet 65 percent of cotton farmers have no access to irrigation and depend on monsoon rains. (Only 37 percent of rural households in India have electricity, and 80,000 villages are not even connected to the grid.¹³) Less than an average rainfall can wipe out their crop, and India's rainfall and weather patterns have become increasingly irregular, with annual monsoons failing three times in the last 10 years and drought impacting some provinces. These changes may be connected to global warming.¹⁴

Meanwhile, competition from cotton imported from the U.S. and other major capitalist countries—where farmers and agricultural corporations have much greater access to capital and advanced technology—is driving down cotton prices and ruining tens of thousands of Indian farmers.

Between 1997 and 2004, India imported some eight million bales of American cotton. This cotton was being sold at a price 50 to 65 percent lower than the cost of production because it was being subsidized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which spent $245.2 billion to subsidize U.S. cotton farmers from 1995 to 2009, as part of promoting the interests of U.S. capital around the world.¹⁵

Smita Narula, co-author of "Every Thirty Minutes," sums up the impact of all this on tens of thousands of India's farmers: "So they've gone into insurmountable debt to purchase the inputs. They don't have the yields. They repeat this cycle for a couple of seasons. And by the end of it, they're simply trapped in a cycle that they can't get out of, and they consume the very pesticide that they purchased, in order to kill themselves."¹⁶

India's Agrarian Crisis

The plight of Indian cotton farmers is part of a broader crisis in Indian agriculture, and most farmers facing ruin have no place to turn. India's much-talked about information technology and business processing industries—the so‑called new economy—employ only 1.3 million out of India's working population of nearly 500 million.¹⁷

Oppressive traditional feudal and patriarchal relations also weigh heavily on Indian farmers. Those with daughters have to pay dowries to a prospective husband's family in order for them to be married:

"Farmers who pay these dowries fall further into debt—or face the social stigma of being unable to pay—and may commit suicide as a result. Even more startlingly, in Andhra Pradesh, unmarried daughters, wracked with guilt over their fathers' deaths, have committed suicide themselves. Finally, when husbands commit suicide, they not only leave their wives with their debt but also with the responsibility to marry off their daughters. As farmer-activist Sunanda Jayaram has noted, ‘There are debts hanging on [women's] heads which they did not incur. There are daughters whose marriages are pending. The pressure is unending.'"¹⁸

Indian farmers can no longer count on their own food production to stave off hunger and are increasingly subject to the global food crisis created by imperialism. The Revolution article, "The Global Food Crisis...and the Ravenous System of Capitalism" points out:

"Third World countries have been forced to shift much of their food production away from subsistence crops to high value exports. They have been pressured to open up their markets to cheap food imports. As a result, local food production for domestic consumption has been undercut. Now these countries are caught in a vise: The price of imported food has gone way up at the same time that the ability to produce food for local consumption has been eroded."¹⁹

In an article about the food crisis in India, Utsa Patnaik wrote, "The colonized Indian peasant starved while exporting wheat to England, and the modern Indian peasant is eating less while growing gherkins and roses for rich consumers abroad." Today, one quarter of India's population—some 300 million people—does not have enough money to eat adequately.²⁰

"The Largest Wave of Recorded Suicides in Human History"

Imperialism has everything to do with the epidemic of farmer suicides in India. And the United States, in particular, plays a major role in shaping India's murderous agricultural system. During her visit to the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in July 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that agriculture would be the "strongest and most important pillar" of the strategic partnership between the U.S. and India.

What's taken place in India over the past 16 years represents, in the words of one Indian researcher, "the largest wave of recorded suicides in human history."²¹

What makes this such a towering crime is that it's totally unnecessary. There is no reason that agriculture and food and other needed goods can only be produced if a profit is turned and the interests of a handful of imperialist powers are served. The basis exists, in human knowledge, technology, and resources, to solve the needs—including for food and clothing—of humanity. But what stands in the way of this is a world economic system of capitalism driven by profit.

Unless and until this system is abolished through revolution, and is replaced by a new socialist system, there will continue to be massive hunger, starvation, dislocation—and yes, farmers will be driven to drink pesticide out of horrific desperation. Under socialism, making sure people have enough food will be the first priority in agricultural production and part of building a whole world of shared abundance for everybody.

India's epidemic of farmer suicides, and understanding that it has been spawned by the workings of the capitalist-imperialist system, speaks powerfully—and achingly—to the urgent need for the revolutions that can bring that better world into being.

The Bay Area Revolution Writers Group assisted with research for this article.

1. Andrew Malone, "The GM genocide: Thousands of Indian farmers are committing suicide after using genetically modified crops," Eurasia Critic, October 2008 (eurasiacritic.com/articles/gm-genocide-thousands-indian-farmers-are-committing-suicide-after-using-genetically). [back]

2. Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, "Every Thirty Minutes: Farmer Suicides, Human Rights, and the Agrarian Crisis in India," New York: NYU School of Law, 2011 (chrgj.org/publications/docs/every30min.pdf). [back]

3. Somini Sengupta, "On India's Farms, a Plague of Suicide," New York Times, September 19, 2006 (nytimes.com/2006/09/19/world/asia/19india.html); Alex Renton, "India's hidden climate change catastrophe,"The Independent, January 2, 2011 (independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/indias-hidden-climate-change-catastrophe- 2173995.html). [back]

4. Raymond Lotta, America in Decline, p. 107; cited in "The Collapse of Argentina's Economy: Free Market Madness," Revolutionary Worker #1152, May 26, 2002, revcom.us/a/v24/1151-1160/1152/argentina.htm) [back]

5. "The Global Food Crisis...and the Ravenous System of Capitalism," Revolution #128, May 1, 2008 (revcom.us/a/128/hunger-en.html). [back]

6. CIA, The World Factbook, 2011 (cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/in.html). [back]

7. "Remarks by the President to the Joint Session of the Indian Parliament in New Delhi, India Parliament House, New Delhi, India," White House, November 8, 2010 (whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/11/08/remarks-president-joint-session-indian-parliament-new-delhi-india). [back]

8. PBS, "The Dying Fields," August 28, 2007 (pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/the-dying-fields/introduction/967/); Emeka Osakwe, "Cotton Fact Sheet: India," International Cotton Advisory Committee, May 19, 2009 (icac.org/econ_stats/country_facts/e_india.pdf). [back]

9. "Every Thirty Minutes." [back]

10. Sengupta, September 19, 2006. [back]

11. "Every Thirty Minutes"; PBS, "The Dying Fields," August 28, 2007. [back]

12. "Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers (SAS)", conducted in India in the year 2003 by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), cited in Rajiv Mehta, "Situation Assessment Survey for Farm Sector Policy Formulation," September 2009 (fao.org/fileadmin/templates/ess/documents/meetings_and_workshops/RAP2009/STAT-EMPOWER-6.pdf). [back]

13. Renton, January 2, 2011; "Every Thirty Minutes"; "Briefing Book—India," Stanford University, Social Entrepreneurship Startup; Winter 2003 (cee45q.stanford.edu/2003/briefing_book/india.html#s3.1). [back]

14. Renton, January 2, 2011. [back]

15. Srijit Mishra, "Suicide of Farmers in Maharashtra," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, 26 January 2006 (www.igidr.ac.in/suicide/FinalReport_SFM_IGIDR_26Jan06.pdf); PBS, "The Dying Fields." [back]

16. "‘Every 30 Minutes': Crushed by Debt and Neoliberal Reforms, Indian Farmers Commit Suicide at Staggering Rate," Democracy Now!, May 11, 2011 (democracynow.org/2011/5/11/every_30_minutes_crushed_by_debt). [back]

17. Sengupta, September. 19, 2006. [back]

18. "Every Thirty Minutes," p. 9. [back]

19. "The Global Food Crisis...and the Ravenous System of Capitalism," Revolution #128, May 1, 2008. [back]

20. Utsa Patnaik, "Origins of the Food Crisis in India and Developing Countries," Monthly Review, July-August (monthlyreview.org/2009/07/01/origins-of-the-food-crisis-in-india-and-developing-countries). [back]

21. P. Sainath, "Neo-Liberal Terrorism in India: The Largest Wave of Suicides in History," Counterpunch, February 12, 2009, (www.counterpunch.org/sainath02122009.html), cited in "Every Thirty Minutes." [back]

Send us your comments.

A cure for diabetes

A cure for diabetes that transplants cells from a damaged pancreas into the
liver is successful, producing insulin for diabetic patient in U.S., claim
Doctors.

December 15, 2009, Washington, D.C. - A revolutionary new
surgery has been performed for the first time in the United States to replace a
destroyed pancreas and successfully save a patient from a life of diabetes.

A 21 year old service member that was severely injured by gunfire in
Afghanistan was the first person in the world to receive the radical new
transplant developed at the University of Miami.

Airman Tre F. Porfirio, 21, of St. Marys, Georgia suffered from numerous
injures, including a pancreas that was damaged beyond repair. Without a
functioning pancreas, the soldier would have faced a lifetime of diabetes
treatment, due to the inability to produce insulin naturally. Surgeons at Walter
Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C. worked with the University of Miami
Medical Schools Diabetes Research Institute to extract healthy cells from what
was left of his pancreas and transplant them directly into the liver. After
three weeks, Doctors report that the Airmans liver is successfully producing
insulin on its own and that he has an excellent chance for a complete
recovery.

The new procedure was originally developed in 1990 at the University of Miami
by Dr. Camillo Ricordi, who developed the method for isolating cells from the
pancreas as a last-resort for Type 1 diabetes patients who have no natural
insulin production. This is the first time that the procedure has been used on
the victim of a pancreas injury though.

This could become an unlimited cure available for everyone, Ricordi
said.

This could become an unlimited cure available for everyone, Ricordi said.
The cells are lodged in his liver now, and they will develop their own new
blood vessels there within weeks. He also noted that the procedure could lead
to more cases of transplanting cells from even a segment of a damaged pancreas.
The procedure should allow those currently without the ability to produce
insulin to live a life free of diabetes.

Dr. Ricordi performed the first clinical trials of islet-donor bone marrow
cell infusions and more recently islet-donor CD34+ cell infusions with the
objective to treat patients with Type 1 diabetes without the continuous
requirement for anti-rejection drugs. His research objective is to develop a
cure for Type 1 Diabetes.

Airman Tre F. Porfirio, first to receive surgery to
cure diabetes

Dr. Camillo Ricordi of University of Miami who
perfected procedure to cure diabetes

JAN LOK PAL vs JOKE PAL

Govt’s Lokpal Bill Vs Jan Lokpal Bill: Comparative Chart

Rather than gunning for the corrupt and corruption, government’s Lokpal seems to be gunning for those who complain against corruption.

How will Government’s Lokpal work?

Suppose some citizen files a complaint to Lokpal against some corrupt government servant.

Before the investigations actually start, the government servant can file a cross complaint against the citizen straight to the special court, without any preliminary enquiry by any agency, that the complaint is false or frivolous. The government will provide free advocate to the government servant to file this case. The citizen will have to defend himself on his own!

Then there is stiffer punishment for the complainant than the corrupt government servant. If the Special Court concludes that the complaint is frivolous or false, the citizen faces a minimum of two years of punishment. But if the corruption charges against government servant are proved, there is a minimum of six months of punishment for the corrupt government servant!

Government’s Lokpal will have jurisdiction over all NGOs in the country but it will have jurisdiction over less then o.5% of all government employees.

Government argued that the Lokpal would get overwhelmed with too many cases if all public servants were brought under its ambit. So, government has restricted its jurisdiction only to 65,000 Group A officers. Also, state employees will not be covered by Lokpal. There are 4 million central government employees and 8 million state government employees.

In sharp contrast, all NGOs are covered under government’s Lokpal, small or big, whether in state or centre. Even unregistered groups of people in remote villages are covered under the ambit of Lokpal. So, in a remote village, if a group of youngsters detect corruption in panchayat works using RTI, the youngsters can be hauled up by Lokpal but Lokpal would not have jurisdiction over Sarpanch, BDO or their corruption.

Whereas Lokpal would not have jurisdiction over Delhi government officials, it would have jurisdiction over all RWAs in Delhi. All small neighborhood groups who raise donations to do Ramlila or Durga Puja would be under Lokpal’s scanner.

Lokpal could haul up activists from any of the farmers, labour, anti-corruption, land, tribal or any other movements. All the movements – whether registered or not, are under the jurisdiction of Lokpal.

There are 4.3 lakh registered NGOs. But there would be several million unregistered groups across the country. Lokpal would have jurisdiction over all of them.

No one can dispute the fact that corruption in NGOs needs to be addressed. But how can you leave most public servants out of Lokpal’s purview but bring NGOs upto village level within its purview?

Issue	Our view	Government’s view	Comments
Prime Minister	Lokpal should have power to investigate allegations of corruption against PM. Special safeguards provided against frivolous and mischievous complaints	PM kept out of Lokpal’s purview.	As of today, corruption by PM can be investigated under Prevention of Corruption Act. Government wants investigations to be done by CBI, which comes directly under him, rather than independent Lokpal
Judiciary	Lokpal should have powers to investigate allegation of corruption against judiciary. Special safeguards provided against frivolous and mischievous complaints	Judiciary kept out of Lokpal purview.	Government wants this to be included in Judicial Accountability Bill (JAB). Under JAB, permission to enquire against a judge will be given by a three member committee (two judges from the same court and retd Chief justice of the same court). There are many such flaws in JAB. We have no objections to judiciary being included in JAB if a strong and effective JAB were considered and it were enacted simultaneously.
MPs	Lokpal should be able to investigate allegations that any MP had taken bribe to vote or speak in Parliament.	Government has excluded this from Lokpal’s purview.	Taking bribe to vote or speak in Parliament strikes at the foundations of our democracy. Government’s refusal to bring it under Lokpal scrutiny virtually gives a license to MPs to take bribes with impunity.
Grievance redressal	Violation of citizen’s charter (if an officer does not do a citizen’s work in prescribed time) by an officer should be penalized and should be deemed to be corruption.	No penalties proposed. So, this will remain only on paper.	Government had agreed to our demand in the Joint committee meeting on 23rd May. It is unfortunate they have gone back on this decision.
CBI	Anti-corruption branch of CBI should be merged into Lokpal.	Government wants to retain its hold over CBI.	CBI is misused by governments. Recently, govt has taken CBI out of RTI, thus further increasing the scope for corruption in CBI. CBI will remain corrupt till it remains under government’s control
Selection of Lokpal members	1. Broad based selection committee with 2 politicians, four judges and two independent constitutional authorities. 2. An independent search committee consisting of retd constitutional authorities to prepare first list. 3. A detailed transparent and participatory selection process.	1. With five out of ten members from ruling establishment and six politicians in selection committee, government has ensured that only weak, dishonest and pliable people would be selected. 2. Search committee to be selected by selection committee, thus making them a pawn of selection committee 3. No selection process provided. It will completely depend on selection committee	Government’s proposal ensures that the government will be able to appoint its own people as Lokpal members and Chairperson. Interestingly, they had agreed to the selection committee proposed by us in the meeting held on 7th May. There was also a broad consensus on selection process. However, there was a disagreement on composition of search committee. We are surprised that they have gone back on the decision.
Who will Lokpal be accountable to?	To the people. A citizen can make a complaint to Supreme Court and seek removal.	To the Government. Only government can seek removal of Lokpal	With selection and removal of Lokpal in government’s control, it would virtually be a puppet in government’s hands, against whose seniormost functionaries it is supposed to investigate, thus causing serious conflict of interest.
Integrity of Lokpal staff	Complaint against Lokpal staff will be heard by an independent authority	Lokpal itself will investigate complaints against its own staff, thus creating serious conflicts of interest	Government’s proposal creates a Lokpal, which is accountable either to itself or to the government. We have suggested giving these controls in the hands of the citizens.
Method of enquiry	Method would be the same as provided in CrPC like in any other criminal case. After preliminary enquiry, an FIR will be registered. After investigations, case will be presented before a court, where the trial will take place	CrPC being amended. Special protection being provided to the accused. After preliminary enquiry, all evidence will be provided to the accused and he shall be heard as to why an FIR should not be regd against him. After completion of investigations, again all evidence will be provided to him and he will be given a hearing to explain why a case should not be filed against him in the court. During investigations, if investigations are to be started against any new persons, they would also be presented with all evidence against them and heard.	Investigation process provided by the government would severely compromise all investigations. If evidence were made available to the accused at various stages of investigations, in addition to compromising the investigations, it would also reveal the identity of whistleblowers thus compromising their security. Such a process is unheard of in criminal jurisprudence anywhere in the world. Such process would kill almost every case.
Lower bureaucracy	All those defined as public servants in Prevention of Corruption Act would be covered. This includes lower bureaucracy.	Only Group A officers will be covered.	One fails to understand government’s stiff resistance against bringing lower bureaucracy under Lokpal’s ambit. This appears to be an excuse to retain control over CBI because if all public servants are brought under Lokpal’s jurisdiction, government would have no excuse to keep CBI.
Lokayukta	The same bill should provide for Lokpal at centre and Lokayuktas in states	Only Lokpal at the centre would be created through this Bill.	According to Mr Pranab Mukherjee, some of the CMs have objected to providing Lokayuktas through the same Bill. He was reminded that state Information Commissions were also set up under RTI Act through one Act only.
Whistleblower protection	Lokpal will be required to provide protection to whistleblowers, witnesses and victims of corruption	No mention in this law.	According to govt, protection for whistleblowers is being provided through a separate law. But that law is so bad that it has been badly trashed by standing committee of Parliament last month. The committee was headed by Ms Jayanthi Natrajan. In the Jt committee meeting held on 23rd May, it was agreed that Lokpal would be given the duty of providing protection to whistleblowers under the other law and that law would also be discussed and improved in joint committee only. However, it did not happen.
Special benches in HC	High Courts will set up special benches to hear appeals in corruption cases to fast track them	No such provision.	One study shows that it takes 25 years at appellate stage in corruption cases. This ought to be addressed.
CrPC	On the basis of past experience on why anti-corruption cases take a long time in courts and why do our agencies lose them, some amendments to CrPC have been suggested to prevent frequent stay orders.	Not included
Dismissal of corrupt government servant	After completion of investigations, in addition to filing a case in a court for prosecution, a bench of Lokpal will hold open hearings and decide whether to remove the government servant from job.	The minister will decide whether to remove a corrupt officer or not. Often, they are beneficiaries of corruption, especially when senior officer are involved. Experience shows that rather than removing corrupt people, ministers have rewarded them.	Power of removing corrupt people from jobs should be given to independent Lokpal rather than this being decided by the minister in the same department.
Punishment for corruption	1. Maximum punishment is ten years 2. Higher punishment if rank of accused is higher 3. Higher fines if accused are business entities 4. If successfully convicted, a business entity should be blacklisted from future contracts.	None of these accepted. Only maximum punishment raised to 10 years.
Financial independence	Lokpal 11 members collectively will decide how much budget do they need	Finance ministry will decide the quantum of budget	This seriously compromises with the financial independence of Lokpal
Prevent further loss	Lokpal will have a duty to take steps to prevent corruption in any ongoing activity, if brought to his notice. If need be, Lokpal will obtain orders from High Court.	No such duties and powers of Lokpal	2G is believed to have come to knowledge while the process was going on. Shouldn’t some agency have a duty to take steps to stop further corruption rather than just punish people later?
Tap phones	Lokpal bench will grant permission to do so	Home Secretary would grant permission.	Home Secretary is under the control of precisely those who would be under scanner. It would kill investigations.
Delegation of powers	Lokpal members will only hear cases against senior officers and politicians or cases involving huge amounts. Rest of the work will be done by officers working under Lokpal	All work will be done by 11 members of Lokpal. Practically no delegation.	This is a sure way to kill Lokpal. The members will not be able to handle all cases. Within no time, they would be overwhelmed.
NGOs	Only government funded NGOs covered	All NGOs, big or small, are covered.	A method to arm twist NGOs
False, Frivolous and vexatious complaints	No imprisonment. Only fines on complainants. Lokpal would decide whether a complaint is frivolous or vexatious or false.	Two to five years of imprisonment and fine. The accused can file complaint against complainant in a court. Interestingly, prosecutor and all expenses of this case will be provided by the government to the accused. The complainant will also have to pay a compensation to the accused.	This will give a handle to every accused to browbeat complainants. Often corrupt people are rich. They will file cases against complainants and no one will dare file any complaint. Interestingly, minimum punishment for corruption is six months but for filing false complaint is two years.

இந்திய மனித வள கூட்டமைப்பு – செய்திகள் | வல்லமை

இந்திய மனித வள கூட்டமைப்பு – செய்திகள் | வல்லமை

குருத்து: கேஸ், டீசல் விலை அதிகரிப்பு: ‍ இந்திய கோயபல்சுகள்!

குருத்து: கேஸ், டீசல் விலை அதிகரிப்பு: ‍ இந்திய கோயபல்சுகள்!

Immerse yourself in culture to be a better businessman, says NVIDIA’s Trivedi | Firstpost

Immerse yourself in culture to be a better businessman, says NVIDIA’s Trivedi

Bernice Yeung Jun 24, 2011

This is the fifth interview in an ongoing series on innovative thinkers and business leaders.Firstpost will explore technical expertise to a lesser degree and focus instead on what makes them outstanding leaders.

Listen carefully and there’s a lilt in Shanker Trivedi’s accent that betrays his multinational background and his ability to easily navigate multicultural business environments. Growing up in the “hills of India,” Trivedi attended a high school run by a group of Irish-Catholic brothers before heading off to earn a mathematics degree from IIT Delhi and an MBA from IIM Calcutta.

Shanker Trivedi believes studying the history of a place is important for doing business. Ferran Paredes/Reuters

After moving to London where he worked for companies such as Sun Microsystems and IBM, he landed in Silicon Valley, where he is currently the vice president of worldwide sales at NVIDIA. The former entrepreneur and first-ever intern at Hindustani Computers talks about how to manage a global team, why studying history is important for business, and how to avoid being “dead boring.”

You’ve lived and worked in three countries: India, England, and the US. What have been the biggest transitions, culture shocks, or growth moments?

India to England was not that hard because my parents are both doctors and they were trained in Britain. And because of [my schooling] with Irish-Catholic brothers, I was actually quite okay.

The big learning point was moving from Britain to the US. We jokingly say it’s two different nations divided by a common language. But the language issues are real. The way you speak English and communicate is a little bit different in the US. Unless you’re conscious about it, you can make accidental errors and you can mis-communicate.

And my job at NVIDIA is to develop deep strategic relationships with the customers, so you have to understand where they’re coming from. And it takes a long time to understand [American sports]. Every sport I’d been doing was cricket and football. So I spent 20 years understanding Manchester United and cricket, and it was all useless. You’ve got to start again. And you have to know the universities where people are from here, and which network they could be part of. That is the big cultural thing to overcome.

What are your tips for making that cultural transition?

If you were moving from India to Germany, what would you do? You’d study German language and you’d study everything. When you move from an English-speaking country to another English-speaking country, you need to do the same.

Today, my biggest interest is American history. Every weekend I’m studying American history. Why? I want to get more money from the US government into technical computing, so I want to understand how that government works. Why is the political system the way it is? How does budgeting work in the US? You have to understand history to understand the process.

How has globalisation changed the way you do business?

The obvious thing is meetings and travel. There’s more use of Skype and video conferencing, and the hours are 7-by-24. But you have to do some things face to face.

The second thing is the role of the BRIC countries. If you’re doing a global job, whatever business you’re in, the BRIC countries are really important; there’s an India play, a China play. And it’s different to North America and Western Europe.

What are some of the differences you’ve noticed across countries?

Because I worked at IBM, International Computers Limited (ICL), and at Sun when I was in the UK, I learned a lot being an Indian doing business with European people. I became culturally sensitive. You need to be more formal in Germany. In Italy, everything gets decided after the meeting is over as you’re talking to each other quietly. In China, you’re all going to sit in a restaurant and it’s going to be countless courses. In India, the scheduling is a little bit flexible. When you call up someone and say, “Should we have a meeting?” They say, “What time?” And you say, “About 9 or 9:30.” I don’t know anybody who’s ever showed up on time. Everyone’s in a massive hurry and everybody’s late.

I’m emphasising the differences, but I also want to emphasise the similarities. In many industries, they are genuinely global. Take for example the financial services industry. You can walk into someone’s office in London and they’re American, or they just got transferred from Hong Kong. It’s normal. The language is the same, there’s a similar culture. It’s similar with pharmaceuticals and the oil industry. A lot of industries are actually getting homogenous, and that’s another part of globalisation, too. You have to treat these organisations like one customer, or organise by industry. You have to think about companies globally and engage, cover, and contract them globally.

What should global-minded executives be doing more of and why?

I have a small team but they are in so many different countries so what do you do? You have to have ongoing, frequent communication.

You have one guy in Atlanta and they have to feel part of the company. They have to wake up and go to their home office, and they have to now imagine they have walked into the door of NVIDIA. How does that happen? Through frequent, ongoing, two-way communication. Otherwise, they don’t feel like they’re part of a fabric and then they’ll leave or they’ll get misaligned or something will happen.

Then there’s managing your boss. For CEOs, it’s the board, or it’s your major stakeholder if you’re a startup. Again, it’s all about that frequent, ongoing communication but the style of communication is a little different. You have to be very precise with the upward communication. There’s no point sending an essay when a line will do.

What advice do you have for Indian companies that have their eye on the US market?

If you’re a company in India and for whatever reason, you decide you need to be in the US, I can say there are three really important things. One is that there is no point in saying, “I need to be in the US.” That is such a generic statement; it’s like saying, “I need to be in Russia” where there are 11 time zones. It’s like the American saying, “I need to be in India.” Where in India? Bangalore is totally different than Delhi, let alone all the places in between. So focus: Which industry segments or which set of custom or suppliers are you trying to reach?

I’ve seen so many young companies hire one biz-guy dev in the US. And this one bloke is now trying to cover the whole US, and it’s going to fail. In the case of a bigger company, they work with some sort of advisor or Indian investment banker who says, “You should buy this and that,” and then you inherit 20 employees, and it’s just a mess. There have been many such disasters with small, unfocused acquisitions or with the solitary biz-dev bloke. It doesn’t work. Focus is really important.

From an Indian perspective, they have to understand that this is a big commitment. Big in terms of money and in terms of time. You’re trying to enter the most competitive and biggest market in the world. It’s not like going to Dubai or Singapore, a classic Indian expansion strategy. They’ve got to have at least a two-year time horizon, and they have to think seven digits as a starting point. Nothing comes on the cheap.

And then the third thing is one person doesn’t do it. Two is the minimum and probably three because two people can have an argument and then the rule of three applies. So you’re hiring a team, and if you’re making an acquisition, it’s the same thing. Whether you’re growing the organisation or doing it through an acquisition, at the end of the day, it’s about hiring a team and getting the right people.

Given current state of the Indian market and the talk of the “reverse brain drain,” do businesses in India need to even consider coming to the US?

There’s fantastic opportunities in India and China. The size and scale of it is just incredible. I started a computer company in Hyderabad in 1982. There were no computer companies in Hyderabad then; there was no HITEC City. There was nothing. But we wanted to do it. It was a really hard slog. If you ask any of the Indian entrepreneurs from the ‘80s, the Infosys guys, they’ll tell you it was really hard in the ‘80s.

If you have a great idea like I had when I was in my 20s, well, now there’s a source of capital, there’s markets, there’s everything. If you have a great idea, go ahead and do it in your home country. Why do you want to take the additional risk?

But as an entrepreneur, if you have something that you think will change the world, then you should relocate and bring your idea here. But remember that the chances of failing are very, very high.

How did you end up in Silicon Valley?

Sun asked me to come over here to take up a senior executive role at corporate headquarters. I got approval from my family—my wife, who was a tenured professor in Britain and the kids.

What I didn’t know was that I had to start all the way at the bottom again. You come to the Valley, everyone’s a genius, and you have to start again. Was it a good thing? I don’t know. Time will tell, but it was exciting; it was challenging.

In hindsight the easiest route into the US is by coming to university here. The big benefit, and it has nothing to do with your education, is the network. It’s about that cultural immersion. You go to a university and you drink beer with the gang, you cheer your local basketball team. But if you don’t have that opportunity, you have to study it. There’s no alternative; you have to immerse yourself. Because you can’t go and talk about web 2.0 all the time, or “Hey, let me tell you about GPUs [graphic processing units]!” [Laughs.] Cool, that’s great. But you can’t do that 24 hours a day. You’d be dead boring!

Bollywood branding: Arindam Chaudhuri’s strategy for success | Firstpost

Bollywood branding: Arindam Chaudhuri’s strategy for success

Jun 24, 2011

By Lakshmi Chaudhry and Sandip Roy

Arindam Chaudhuri is a man of many talents and interests. His corporate empire includes four media publications, a software company, consulting firm, outsourcing division, and a movie production company. The last earning him almost as much publicity as his management institutes, and he has often used one to enhance the image and reputation of the other.

The connection between the super-entrepreneur’s two worlds – Bollywood and IIPM – resurfaced again on Wednesday, though in less pleasant circumstances. Chaudhuri is being sued by MBA students in Bangalore who are accusing IIPM of fraud: “When the classes commenced in a godown in Electronics City, the devastated students questioned the staff about the genuineness of the course. To this the staff members revealed that IIPM was neither registered nor affiliated by any statutory authorities as required under law.”

Hearing a fraud petition in the Karnataka High Court, Justice S Abdul Nazir questioned the use of Shah Rukh Khan’s photos in the IIPM prospectus: “What has Shah Rukh Khan got to do with your institution? Does he have any contract as your brand ambassador? Or he is an old student? What is the connection? Can celebrities like him promote an educational institution as they promote a product?”

To be fair, while the quality of an IIPM degree may be questionable, there is no doubting the pedigree of Arindam Chaudhuri's films.

All excellent questions that we hope IIPM will answer – or not, since the judge has also threatened to summon SRK to the courtroom if Chaudhuri fails to comply, raising the prospect for an entertaining media spectacle.

While we await such delights, the case offers an excellent excuse to revisit Chaudhuri’s Bollywood credentials and the ways in which big-ticket stars like Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan have helped promote the Arindam cause.

One, the Bong connection. Before there was Bollywood, there was Tollywood. The first film Chaudhuri produced was Saanjhbatir Roopkathara in 2002, starring Bengal’s most celebrated actor, Satyajit Ray favourite, Soumitra Chatterjee. Reeling from the disastrous fate of his first Bollywood venture (see below), he retreated to his Bengali roots with the Rituparno Ghosh-directed Dosar and Faltu, which won a National Award in 2006. Critical acclaim that he leveraged to collaborate once again with Ghosh, this time to produce Last Lear, starring Amitabh Bachchan and Preity Zinta.

Coming next from the Rituparno-Arindam combo – Sunglass starring Konkona Sen Sharma, R. Madhavan and Jaya Bachchan, tagged as Ghosh’s first attempt at mainstream comedy.

Two, Bollywood producer extraordinaire. Chaudhuri entered Bollywood with the resounding flop Rok Sake To Rok Lo which starred Sunny Deol and was directed by Chaudhuri himself. His later films , including Mithya, Last Lear and Do Dooni Chaar, were not huge hits either, but cemented his reputation for making small, critically acclaimed movies for niche audiences.

His leading stars – such Bachchan and Zinta in Last Lear – and choice of directors like Rituparno Ghosh tend to be carefully selected for prestige value. And they’ve certainly helped him enter the top echelons of Bollywood society. Apart from the countless Page 3 photos of him posing with the movie glitterati, there are various magazine descriptions of his jet-setting lifestyle which include hanging out in various international destinations with the stars of his movies.

To be fair, while the quality of an IIPM degree may be questionable, there is no doubting the pedigree of Arindam Chaudhuri’s films, which have won him a flurry of awards, most recently for Do Dooni Chaar. More dubious, however, is the way he’s leveraged his Bollywood ties to promote his management institutes.

Watch Shah Rukh Khan at the IIPM quiz.

Three, my best friend Khan. In 2009, Shah Rukh Khan signed a three-year deal to host IIPM’s annual business and marketing quiz. Announcing the deal at the time, Chaudhuri said, “Everything we do at IIPM is grand, distinct, pioneering and above all else global. Who else in India can make an event big just by his global popularity than SRK?” There is no information as to how much SRK was paid for his services, but the agreement is clearly part of IIPM’s strategy to position itself as a high-end brand.

At the most recent DARE event in 2011, Chauduri waxed eloquent about “Shah Rukh’s presence” adding “the kind of glamour and brand value that such a world-class event so dearly deserves, as no brand in this country is as big as him.” SRK, who sang, danced and even did a handstand for the audience, returned the compliment, telling students, “You all are fortunate to have been given the opportunity and the environment that is provided to you at IIPM and must make the most of this quality education.” The stirring speech also included many references to the importance of honesty and hard work.

Four, diamonds are a guru’s best friend. “Yes! You are a diamond. Just the way diamonds are rare, so are humans,” claims the stirring opening line of Chaudhuri’s 2010 book, Discover the Diamond in You. Released in 14 languages, it explains the 9 Ps of success in what it promises is a 59-minute speedy read. What it doesn’t mention is Chaudhuri’s well-honed strategy for his book’s success, which starts with a big B, as in Bollywood.

In 2009, Shah Rukh Khan signed a three-year deal to host IIPM's annual business and marketing quiz.

“No quick fixes,” the Big B waxes eloquent in an endorsing blurb. “It reveals and guides one with clarity and in-depth searching, making one conscious of one’s own potential, thereby empowering and motivating each individual to experience true fulfillment.”

Writing the foreword, Shah Rukh Khan assures the reader, “The 9P’s of success that Arindam so swiftly and lucidly narrates will help you overcome failures and achieve success.”

That the luscious Priyanka Chopra was also at hand to help launch the book likely didn’t hurt either.

Five, and the show goes on. Planman Motion Pictures promises much much more for the viewer out there in coming years. There is Rituparno Ghosh’s Sunglass, Sourav Shukla’s Aye Dil and IM24 which promises to be a “rib tickling experience” with Neha Dhupia and Ranvir Shorey.

Also in the works is Chaudhuri’s plan to take his bestselling books to the big screen. “Writing is my passion,” he told The Times of India. “If someday I write a script, it will be about a realistic subject. I will make a movie on my book The Great Indian Dream and capture its basic philosophy to make people understand the very necessity to accept changes and be the change themselves.”

Planman says it has 30 movies planned over the next 5 years, making it “one of the most upcoming and diversified production houses in India.”

Watch Priyanka Chopra at the launch of Chaudhuri’s book, Discover the Diamond in You.