Thursday, December 24, 2009

Good Samaritan - a politician

In these times to notice our politicians only in inaction or nasty action, this is one incidence which stands out very positively, irrespective of whether I agree or disagree with the cause. This is a story of a member of parliament (MP) from southern part of Maharashtra state. I dont know details but recently indian government was planning to reduce prices of sugarcane. This was particulalry going affect the sugarcane farmers in northern states. SO this MP, Mr, Raju Shetty, toured extensively into sugarcane farming areas of western Uttar Pradesh etc, interacted with sugarcane farmers and their organisations, formulated his own modified law. Gave it to parliament. Discussed it with other members cutting accross party lines. He got support from all opposition parties and he also got support from the ruling party. He followed it all the way till his proposal was accepted by the government and modified the price provisions accordingly.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Where's the Shared Sacrifice of War : from CNN, USA

Be it India or US, one always enticed to wonder, whose war is it anyways ! ?

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/12/20/greene.wartime.christmas.sacrifice/index.html

Consequently, it makes me wonder, "Should anybody be fighting these nobody's wars ?!"

Monday, December 14, 2009

Green GDP in India

Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh recently announced that the government plans to release the first round of “green” gross domestic product (GDP) data for India by around 2015. While details on the methodology and data sources to be used in the proposed metric remain relatively sparse, the Central Statistical Organisation is reported to have started preparation of a national database to estimate the costs of environmental degradation associated with GDP growth.

Complete article in this can be found at http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/14201.pdf

(I only pray that announcements are strongly supported by actual actions. Recently India has announced emission reduction targets, but I dont see initiation for initiating actions! I strongly believe that mere technology is inadequate to effect any substantial reduction in emission. It needs fundamental changes in our lifestyles and how we look at 'economy'- - - Amen!)