Wednesday, January 30, 2008

हमारी अग्यानता की जड़ें गहरी व मज़बूत हैं ?

- अगर हमारी अग्यानता की जड़ें गहरी व मज़बूत हैं ? -
- तो क्या आगे का पथ सरल व आसान हो सकता है ?
- शुरुआत कहाँ से की जाय ?

-------
१ - किसके लिए ? -
२ - मसीहा या पथ ? -
३ - लक्षण क्या अौर कैसे ? -
४ - आधुनिक, सरल व साधनों के अनुरूप ? -
५ - ग्यान की कमी, साधनों की कमी, या विश्वास की कमी ? -

Monday, January 28, 2008

Learn One Teach One - Hindi MoinMoin Python Wiki

मोइन मोइन हिन्दी विकी - पाइथन साफ्टवेयर में हिन्दी भाषी तबके के लिए एक आधुनिक सरल व मुफ्त सेवा -

मोइन मोइन हिन्दी विकी - पाइथन साफ्टवेयर में हिन्दी भाषी तबके के लिए एक आधुनिक सरल व मुफ्त सेवा - क्या आप ग्रामीण तबके के हिन्दी भाषी हैं ?

क्या यही एक कारण है जिसकी वजह से पतलून पहनने वाले, व फर्राटे की अँग्रेज़ी बोलने वाले, आपको पछाड़ रहे हैं, अथवा आपको अपने हक से वंचित रखे हैं ?

- यह न समझें कि हिन्दी भाषी होने का अर्थ पिछडे होना है

- हिन्दी पाइथन सीखें व सिखाएँ -

- अौर अपने कार्य पर तत्परता से लग जाएँ

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Who will benefit from FDI in Indian Food Retail ?

The India FDI Watch Campaign seeks to prevent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the retail sector in India. India FDI Watch is a national coalition of labour unions, trade associations, environmentalists, NGOs and academics that have formed to block attempts to allow foreign direct investment in India’s retail markets. FDI in retail will amount to job losses in the thousands as well as thousands more small businesses and kiranas being forced to close. It will continue the race to the bottom in wages and working conditions that Wal-Mart and other multinational mega-retailers have spread across the globe. Multinationals look at India, with its 1.2 billion people, as a vast, untapped market, but we do not want to become the next country to have our cultural traditions, worker's rights, environment, and independence destroyed by Wal-Mart. Contact us for more information.

IndiaFDI Watch - http://indiafdiwatch.org/index.php?id=47

For more information: download the India FDI Watch Brochure.

For more information, download the India FDI Watch Brochure (in Hindi).

Thousands protested to oppose the Bharti-Walmart Joint Venture

On the heels of the announcement of the Bharti-Walmart joint venture, thousands of traders, hawkers, farmers and workers protested across India. Protesters also included a group of American students who demanded that Wal-Mart not be allowed into India. Mass-based organizations called on the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi to immediately stop the Bharti-Walmart Joint Venture and not allow Wal-Mart’s backdoor entry into India. There was also a strong united call on all corporations—both foreign and domestic—to "Quit Retail". The protests were timed to commemorate the start of the "Quit India" movement, which started on August 9, 1942, with mass-based sections of society drawing parallels to the East India Company and companies like Wal-Mart, Bharti and Reliance.

Agitations took place in the metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata along with other major cities including, Kalicut, Bhopal, Jaipur, Ranchi, Balia, Meerath, Sonipat, Nagpur, Nasik, Pune and Indore.

In Delhi, thousands of traders, hawkers, farmers and workers protested in Chandni Chowk, a historical market, and burned effigies of Wal-Mart, Bharti and Reliance. Dharmendra Kumar, Director of India FDI Watch and national coordinator of the Vyapaar Aur Rozgaar Bachao Andolan conducted the proceedings and told the agitators, "Both Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh have acknowledged the dangers of corporations entering into the retail sector. The Govt. has commissioned a report looking at the impact of the entire supply chain on livelihoods after Sonia Gandhi had written a letter of caution. Sonia Gandhi had also publicly refused to meet with Michael Duke, Wal-Mart Vice-Chairman during his visit in February after public demonstrations were held due to his arrival. However, both Sonia Gandhi and the PMO have remained silent on the Bharti-Wal-Mart deal and though they have publicly cautioned against corporations and commissioned a study, they have taken no subsequent actions. He demanded that the Wal-Mart Bharti joint venture should be immediately revoked and all corporations should be stopped until thorough study has been conducted by an independent special task force comprising of stakeholders."

Shyam Bihari Mishra, President, Bhartiya Udyog Vyapar Mandal refered back to the British Raj, stating, "The East India Company, the most powerful company at the time, came to colonize India’s people and domestic and international trade and now Wal-Mart, the world’s largest company is trying to enter India to do the same. Mr. Mishra said India has a history of resistance, our people threw out the British and sixty years later if millions have their businesses and livelihoods threatened we will do the same now. He announced that family members of traders would boycott corporate stores." Praveen Khandelwal, General Secretary, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said "The livelihoods of retail traders are at stake. If big retail giants like Wal-Mart and Reliance come into the country, small traders would be finished." A mass campaign would be launched to strike back and make corporations realise that we will not let them ruin our livelihoods, he said.

Vandana Shiva, Director, Navdanya said "India is a land of retail democracy- hundreds of thousands of weekly haats and bazaars are located across the length and breadth of our country by people’s own self-organizational capacities. In a country with large numbers of people, and high levels of poverty, the existing model of retail democracy is the most appropriate in terms of economic viability and ecological sustainability.".

Shaktiman Ghosh, General Secretary, National Hawkers Federation warned the government "about taking such strong stances against India’s millions of hawkers and small shopkeepers in favor of only a few huge corporations who seek to dominate the Indian retail market."

Mr. Indu Prakash of Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reform revealed the nexus between judiciary and corporate retail which led to the ceiling of shops of more than one hundred thousands of traders of Delhi and still goes on.

Mr. Bhati of Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh, Delhi, Harbhajan Singh Siddhu, National Secretary, Hind Mazdoor Sabha, Sunil Kansal, Secretary, Rashtriya Vyapar Mandal, Hakim Singh Rawat, General Secretary, Delhi Hawkers Welfare Association, Banwari Lal Sharma, President, Aazadi Bachaon Aandolan, R K Sharma, Secreatry, UTUC-Lenin Sarani and Venkatesh of Lok Raj Sangathan also addressed the protesters in Delhi.

In Mumbai, thousands of retailers, hawkers, workers and cooperatives participated in a one day trade bandh and a mass public event organized by the Vyapaar Rozgaar Suraksha Kriti Samiti, a joint action committee of trade associations, hawkers groups, trade unions and others. Leaders of Federation of Associations of Maharastra (FAM), Retail and Dispensing Chemists Association (RDCA), India FDI Watch, Mumbai Mahanagar Vyapari Seva Parishad (MMVSP), Mumbai Vyapar Mahasang (MVM), Apna Bazaar, National Hawkers Federation, Center of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and Hind Mazdoor Kisan Panchayat (HMKP) addressed the protesters. Mohan Gurnani, Convener of the Mumbai based Vyapaar Rozgaar Suraksha Kriti Samiti and President of the Federation of Associations of Maharastra (FAM) said "organised retaling would leave 20 crore people without jobs. Let the government first come out with a rehabilitation for these people and then it can open up FDI in retail". Kishore Shah, President of the Mobile & Telecom Retailers and Distributors Association (MTRDA), stated that around 12,000 retail shop-keepers deal in SIM cards and recharge vouchers of Air-Tel in Mumbai, generating business worth crores of rupees every day. Mr. Shah said "We have already informed all our members, distributors and wholesalers against selling any Airtel products". The Mumbai APMC—wholesale— market remained closed, along with thousands of retail shops across the city, including all chemists and druggists shops. Apna Bazaar, Maharastra’s largest cooperative store also downed its shutters and wholesale markets remained closed in Nasik and Pune.
At an evening event at Shanmukananda Hall in Mumbai mass-based groups laid out a future course of action and adopted a charter of demands. They called on the Center to immediately repeal the Wholesale Cash-n-Carry Permission, and all licenses granted under the permission; repeal the APMC Model Act, implement the National Policy on Street Vendors, take measures against predatory pricing and formulate a national policy on retail trade and small scale industries.

In Bangalore thousands protested at the town hall and burned effigies of corporate retailers like Wal-Mart and Reliance. The protest culminated in leaders presenting the Governor with a memorandum calling on the state to repeal the recent passage of the APMC Model Act. A Charter of Demands, same as was passed in Mumbai, was also placed before the District Collector. Smaller protests were organized throughout the state in different districts including Kodagu, Bijapur, Gulbarga and Davangere districts.

In Jaipur fifty American students joined with hawkers demanding that Wal-Mart leave India and demanding implementation of the National Policy on Street Vendors. The American students and hawkers demonstrated in the old city and held signs saying "Americans Oppose Wal-Mart Everywhere". Ms. Cheryl, an American citizen, learning Hindi at Jaipur said that Wal-Mart has a disastrous impact on small shopkeepers and neighbourhood communities in America and called Indians to learn from their experience and not to allow Wal-Mart to operate in India. Ms. Cheryl said that the world is moving from ‘Corporate to Cooperative’ and Indians should not corporatize their cooperatives.

In Kerala the Kerala Vyapari Vyavasayi Egono Samiti organized protest marches in over 1000 places across the state. In Kalicut over 10,000 traders protested in front of the corporation’s office and submitted a memorandum demanding that corporations keep out of retail and the immediate halt to Wal-Mart’s backdoor entry and the repeal of the Wholesale Cash-N-Carry permission.

In Kolkata the Federation of Trade Organizations (FTO) of West Bengal organized protests in all the 12 districts of the city along with protests across West Bengal, including in front of malls. Tens of thousands traders participated in the protest. In the evening, thousands of hawkers took out a protest march from the city museum.

In Ranchi, Uday Shankar Ojha who led the vegetable vendors before Reliance Fresh in May and has only recently been released from Jail, led thousands of hawkers and vegetable vendors at Albert Ekka Chowk in Ranchi, demanding that Reliance Fresh and all other corporations leave the retail sector and "withdraw their sinister plans to displace millions of livelihoods".

In Bhopal there was a state-level protest meeting in the morning at Gandhi Bhavan and traders sat on a dharna at Roshanara Chowk in the afternoon and burn effigies of Wal-Mart, Bharti and Reliance. A call for Bhopal Bandh was given for 21 August to oust corporate from retail trade.

Similar protests were organized in other cities including Allahabad, Lucknow, Meerut, Bagpat and Sonipat.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Bengal Communists Try A Faceover in Singur

The Bengal Communists of India are busy completing their faceover in Bengal as the new face of the Communists in India.
In its attempt, to paint the picture of a new and post Marxian Bengal, a capitalist friendly Bengal, a pragmatic Bengal, the first guillitone will naturally fall on the small farmers of Bengal, in terms of inadequate compensation and forcible land acquisition on behalf of industrialists. Singur Krishijami Bachao Committee (Save Singur Farmland Committee) has been running an agitation against forcible land possession for the last eight months. Tillers and sharecroppers who till the land in Amar Sonar Bangla, are being forced to make way for a Tata Motors small car project.
How can one possibly expect, Indian Communists, to use their leverage over Indian Congress at the Centre. Afterall, neither the kulaks, nor the sharecroppers of Bengal, are friends of the revolutionary proletariat.
The bhadralok is surely emerging from the facade of years of sterile Marxist posturing, and confronting sharecroppers, women and children with the full might of the police force, in aid and support of, much needed capitalists who were disenchanted with Shri Jyoti Basu, for all these lost decades.
The Bengal Communists, are finally emerging from the shadows of sterile and outdated rhetoric. Pumping capital into Bengal, is the new mantra. And kulaks and sharecroppers will be the first casualty, surely. For afterall, that distinction was anyway never real. For the Indian communists, kulak or the sharecropper, is a farmer, and farming is no more than a means to an end - industrial subsidization and the emergence of the industrial proletariat, that will one day surely emerge, and display its revolutionary potential on the global stage, as we all watch in awe for that fabulous finale.
Bengal communists, are putting final touches to their makeover, as they handover the reigns of Bengal's capital driven industrialization, to non Marwari capitalists from progressive lands.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Sixth Pay Commission and Farmers

Mention the Sixth Pay Commission, and farmers of India, in the same breath, and even the Communists, who consider it their divine right, to extract the the maximum possible from the Indian Government, for the salaried government employees, raise their eyebrows.
But what exactly, is the issue that is behind the presumption, that somehow farmers and farm labour, have nothing at all to do with Sixth Pay Commission. What really are the root assumptions that are behind this raising of eyebrows ?
The Communists have no doubt contributed, to this assumption that Sixth Pay Commission is somehow only meant for government and state employees.
They of course, have theories about agricultural surplus, industrial subsidization, working class as the vangaurd of the proletariat, farmers as the remnants of backward modes of production, farmers as representative of feudalistic Indian society, etc.
But it is surprising, that the Communists have fooled, even the centrist and rightist parties, the Congress and the BJP, political parties, whose thought processes, are derived from more local inspiration, into thinking that Sixth Pay Commission, is inconceivable for farmers of India.
It would be an interesting excercise, to engage the Congress and BJP think tanks, into considering the demand for inclusion of farmers, in Sixth Pay Commission recommendations, as a directly affected party, without whose interests being considered, the entire foundation of Sixth Pay Commission, is a complete fraud being enacted.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Comintern and Kulak Indian Farmer

The Communists of India have always been deeply suspicious of Indians and anything that reeks of traditional modes of production. And they have never ever really believed in the potential of the farmers of India to ever be the vanguard of the Communist revolution.
In my opinion, when each worker on the farm is assured a minimum wage by the CPI and CPI(M) supported Central government, the Comintern dream will come the closest to being achieved. For then, there will be no self employed and thus non - revolutionary, farmers in India, by definition. They will all have happily joined the salaried class, of the revolutionary Indian proletariat like their brethren, in Bengal and Kerala.
Farmers too, shall be happy to join the ranks of industrial labour, given a salary by contract farming managers, who themselves will be under the thumb, of Indian communists supported, Central government. The day will come when contract farms shall be an integral part of the efficient modes of production and not just part of the feudal Indian rural countryside. The real revolutionary potential, of the Indian farmer, will then be achievable, as contract workers on large farms, and no farmer shall be forced to live with the derogatory label of kulak.
The problem is how do we convince Shri Prakash Karat and CPI(M) to back the demand of including farm workers in the Sixth Pay Commission, even if at some points lower than government and public sector employees.

Farmer Demands or Rights ?

In the days I used to comb the Indian countryside, one Jat farmer whom I absolutely loved talking to, in his really serious moments, used to say - farmers of India have no demands, they can take what they want. I am talking of the luminary Mahendra Singh Tikait of Bhartiya Kisan Union. The sad story is that immediately in half an hour, this man would change and discard his wisdom and get yet another Jat of his Balian biradari to start penning down on a torn piece of Amar Ujala Hindi newspaper - a list of farmer demands from all the surrounding villages. Lo behold, the list of demands, would actually begin to reach four figures, sometimes when the fancy would take him he would scold the chaps who were compiling the list of farmer demands to not exceed 999 in any case. And then somebody would come up with the 1000th demand of a young buffalo calf to be distributed to each farmer by the government. Tikait would then suddenly get bored and then say - "Achha chalo, Joshi ji ko Maharashtra se bula lo. Wo padha likha manas hai. " But then how Mahendra Tikait behaved with Sharad Joshi is another long story.
Joshi even in those days, used to say, farmers of India can fight only, and only if they can be crystallized around one single demand - remunerative prices for farm produce. The sheer complexity of regional differences amongst Indian farmers, prevented him for seeing the benefits of any other approach.
Even today I find, whenever ten farmers sit down together and become extremely pleased when the local constable of the local thana salutes them, they ask somebody to bring out a piece of paper and pen, and start compiling that next authoritative list of " farmer demands " to put before the government.
And of course we all know that Chidambaram, Pawar, Ajit Singh, Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Indian bureaucrats know very well, to suppress their yawns and get away from the audience with the venerable Chaudhary sahib.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Exit Policy for Indian Farmers

The time has come to initiate a debate on a framework which lays out the contours of a possible "exit policy" for small Indian farmers. Indian farmers would like to stop lifting the burden of being subsidy receivers and would like to gift their entire lands and thereby no more enjoy any subsidies, if only the Indian government will guarantee them a viable exit policy and compensation on the lines of European and American farmers.
What better way can there be to conclusively prove the truth of the promises of ushering in a Second Green Revolution, than by vacating all farm lands, reorganizing them into large modern corporate viable holdings, and allowing a new breed of B-schools trained management cadre of farm managers to till the land, manage land, water and seed resources.
This will show and demonstrate to the sceptics, the benefits of large land holdings, modern agricultural technology, GM seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, export oriented contract farming, crop and horticultural diversification, liberal farm credit and futures commodities trading, will it not ? Surely this is a great and worthy national project of epic proportions that will win the approval of McKinsey consultants, IMF and World Bank.
Why should uneducated farmers live on small unviable farm lands, why should they not migrate en masse to cities and live their lives under the comforting shade of the Sixth Pay Commission and the risk free bounties it can offer them. Is not everybody of sensible mind leaving farming to start life as an urban dweller ?
Surely farmers are desperate to gift their lands and agree to be re classified as government servants, even at a fraction of other government servant salaries. Will the government show this generosity ?
Parliamentarians have intricate formulae for raising their own fixed salary and benefits. Farmers of India would also like to partake of a similar farm payments / wages formula that concerned parliamentarians can surely evolve for them, if they are willing, and put their minds and considerable expertise to the task.
After all India is now Shining India, a super power, an Asian Tiger pushing for a role on the world stage and a seat in United Nations Security Council. If this seat in the Security Council is not going to benefit the farmers, who is it meant to benefit ?

Cotton Farmers - Tolstoy and Indian government

Tolstoy writings on civil disobedience and non violence carry an unforgettable comment - "I sit on a man's back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back." This is now the relationship between the Indian government and Indian farmers as the ministers make flying visits to cotton farming areas of Vidarbha and flood hit areas of India, professing great concern for cotton farmers and their problems and releasing press notes on farmer suicides.

Contract Farming

A simple survey of farmers of India would easily show that they will unanimously accept contract corporate farming and commodities futures trading, if only they are treated on par with industrial labour, and given the same guarantees of assured income, offset against inflation, in the Sixth Pay Commission. Why must farmers be excluded from Pay Commission diktats ? Which farmer in India wants to be the lord of agricultural land in this country ? Let Tatas, Ambanis, Vedanta, Walmart and Tesco take over all agricultural land in India and just settle a minimum monthly salary for Indian farmers. In fact, farmers will be happy to even gift their lands to multinationals, corporates, central and state governments, if only, a guaranteed minimum wage is declared for farmers.

Indian Farmer and Emperor's New Clothes

Many years ago, there lived an emperor, who loved beautiful new clothes so much that, he spent all his money, on being finely dressed. His only interest, was in going to the theater or in riding about in his carriage, where he could show off his new clothes. He had a different costume, for every hour of the day. Indeed, where it was said of other kings that they were at court, it could only be said of him that he was in his dressing room!One day, two swindlers came to the emperor's city. They said that they were weavers, claiming, that they knew, how to make the finest cloth imaginable. Not only were the colors and the patterns extraordinarily beautiful, but in addition, this material had the amazing property, that it was to be invisible, to anyone who was incompetent or stupid ." It would be wonderful, to have clothes made from that cloth," thought the emperor. "Then I would know, which of my men, are unfit for their positions, and I'd also be able to tell clever people from stupid ones." So he immediately gave the two swindlers a great sum of money to weave their cloth for him.They set up their looms, and pretended to go to work, although there was nothing at all, on the looms. They asked for the finest silk and the purest gold, all of which they hid away, continuing to work on the empty looms, often late into the night....The Indian farmer is also having his wonderful clothes, stitched by master weavers. Read more ....