The Global Fund- Charity, Foreign-Aid & Corruption.

CHARITY, FOREIGN-AID & CORRUPTION – Public should try to get complete grasp of the processes that lead to corruption !!!

The following excerpt is from a blog-page of David McCoy, (Linkhttp://www.medact.org/blog/bbc-panorama-global-fund-corruption/) who had been interviewed by a BBC Panorama team, about the corruption in the handling and distribution of “The Global Fund” . BBC World had telecasted this programme last weekend. However it is available on U-tube. Bill Gates,Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Bono had appeared on the promotion video for raising the fund.

The aim of the Global fund is preventing deadly diseases like malaria and TB. In the case of the fight against malaria, it is not any medicine or ‘high-tech’ solution, that is used to deal with the problem. Malaria is prevented through the supply and use of mosquito- nets, and $20million had been ‘spent’ on this alone !!!!

In my child-hood I had witnessed men with huge sacks combing our paddy fields in the night aided by a petro-max in search of edible frogs. These frogs were for export and the frogs became almost extinct that govt. imposed a ban on this activity. This is one major reason for the increase in the mosquito population, leading to the spread of many mosquito-borne diseases. And now the 'foreign-aid' (approx $20million) is directed towards buying mosquito nets !!!! What a funny scenario!? The population must to taught to look at nature in its divine aspect, different from the view of "subjugation, domination and exploitation" prevailing now.

And now the excerpt “The first is that corruption and the mis-use of public or charitable finance is not solely a developing country phenomenon. Embezzlement, scams and fraud exist in the UK, the United States and elsewhere. The second is that corruption in any country is a systemic issue and shaped by, among other things, social and cultural attitudes; the existence of financial management capacity and infrastructure; and the quality of local judicial systems. It is rarely isolated to a single actor or transaction. The third is that the biggest form of corruption affecting developing countries is not the embezzlement of aid, but the avoidance and evasion of tax by multinational corporations and the illicit outflows of private finance enabled by tax havens and banks. For every dollar of aid that goes into poor countries, approximately $10 flows out in the form of illicit financial flows. This is followed by large-scale corruption associated with arms deals and foreign direct investment agreements – involving both local and global actors” .

There are preposterous claims in the video, of white men/women saving lives in the third-world. We are part of the White-man’s Burden !!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eXYndcSqP0

ORGAN DONATION - IS IT A VIRTUOUS ACT, to be promoted as a social value !!!????

Ultimately, organ donations are not beneficial to society. People will abandon restrainful lives. They well-to-do will indulge themselves more in pleasures and vices. They feel any mis-hap to any of their body parts could be overcome either through treatment or as a last resort , by organ transplants.

People in general will not be motivated to insist on chemical/pesticide free food-products, for their consumption. Polluted air, water and food is one of the major reasons for organ failure, and if it affects a pregnant mother, it may affect the child in the womb too in many unforseen ways. That is, the harmful effects of pollutants will be carried forward to successive generations. eg. Bhopal, Chernobyl and Kasargod (Endosulphan) .Further people will become careless about their life style and consumption patterns, which is sure to intrude into other peoples's lives. eg. Chembanmudy quarries in Kerala. The people around is reported to have contracted respiratory diseases, due to quarry dust.

Post operative care is very expensive and ordinary citizens will find themselves between the devil and deep sea. Situations may arise in the family, where organ donation for/to a family member may lead to contentious issues. Medical industry which is the ultimate beneficiary is sure to exploit the situation. An MBBS seat now costs up-ward of fifty lakhs.The ordinary citizen is scared and uncertain about two expenses. Medical & Educational.The option to go in for organ transplant, due to societial and peer pressure, are sure to strain family resources further. Instead of the public promoting organ donation & transplants, they should seek ways and means to arrest and wipe out completely, organ failures among its members. Prevention is sure to be better than cure. - Finally in the larger context, organ donation is NOT A VIRTUOUS ACT.

WISHFUL THINKING OF A MISSIONARY - THE FAMOUS WILLIAM CAREY

The wicked, disrespectful  and intolerant mind of a Missionary is reflected in this poem. Most Hindus , especially those belonging to priestly vocation, will never compose such a poem, condemning the dieties/prophets of another religion.

Composed in Bengalee by Mr. Carey and translated  into English by J.Fountain.

The Indian  renouncing Heathenism, and embracing Christianity.  (p.309) www.wmcarey.edu/carey/staughton/308-309 .jpg

11.     In serving vain idols, why thus spend my days,

Since  nought but destruction attends all my ways?

The Lord of the world did descend from on high,

And was born in our nature all sin to destroy.

22.     Hitherto my whole soul, full of darkness has been,

And like other people I’ve gone on in sin,

With them I was drowning in misery’s deep,

And on earth I discovered no way of escape

33.     Seeb, Doorga, and Kallee, could  give me no aid,

No Debta nor Debbee, no offerings were made,

No Brammhan, no Yogee, no deed done by me,

No, not all these united can set my soul free.

44.     These all are quite useless, I’ve found them all vain,

From the power of JESUS some hope I obtain:

These heavens and this earth are the work of his hands;

He animates all things; all superintends.

55.     My sin,  and my holiness, now are my shame!

My passions, my wishes, my honour, my name;

I now lay all down at CHRIST JESUS’ feet,

And trust, though a sinner, I mercy shall get.

66.     Ho! All sinful people, this good news attend,

Salvation and Righteousness, now apprehend;

This, this is the order he gives unto you,

And then after death you to glory shall go.

Inhuman & dysfunctional political/economic system of the West.

This book review is captioned “Working to re-humanize work” by the reviewer. 

The political and economic system takes the blame for the de-humanization of work. Unless the system is changed, humanizing work/management will be elusive.

For Indians, the existing political & economic  systems they find themselves in, are of foreign origin.

Why must  we Indians carry ‘their’ cross?

It is also to be noted that the company Mondragón Corporation, belonging to the co-operative sector and mentioned in this review  is of Spanish origin. Sometime back I had  in my blog-page highlighted “Rethinking Our Concept of WORK” written by a Spanish Professor Shri Argandonna, from the University of  Navarra in Spain.http://msradha.blogspot.in/2013/11/rethinking-our-concept-of-work-about.html  Looks like the Spanish may steal the show from Indians, with respect to organizing life and work on a sane foundation.

I think the Village economic system that had prevailed here (India), was more refined that the co-operative system. The key-stone of the Indian material life was dependent on Karma-Yoga. In the name of ‘false/pseudo  secularistic  behavior’ especially in public, we are keeping away this valuable science from our younger generation. Unless it is given importance in the educational institutions, or in public discourse, whatever cajoling we do at home fails to impress the youngsters. But then there is the danger due to overexposure, because the subject-matter may become profane. Krishna/Vyasa was very specific that unless an individual shows respectful interest, the subject/knowledge should not be revealed to him. Gita 18:67

Now the book review :-

TODAY'S PAPER » FEATURES » BOOK REVIEW

December 10, 2013

Working to rehumanise work   Book review by ARVIND SIVARAMAKRISHNAN

(Words in Brackets and in  italics are comments made by me)

A study that has the courage to say ordinary people must be trusted to organise their own work

DEMOCRACY AT WORK — A Cure for Capitalism: Richard Wolff; Haymarket Books, P.O. Box 180165, Chicago IL 60618. $ 15.

We have been here before, most notably during the Great Depression, and for similar reasons, with an unregulated financial sector inflating itself to near-insane levels before the bubble burst. Helpless politicians, apparently unable to comprehend the nature or scale of this global stupidity, are no better at conceiving a political response now than they were then, and political dysfunction exacerbates economic dysfunction. Richard Wolff brilliantly identifies the reasons for our paralysis, and in an age permeated by a fear of decisive proposals he has the courage to say that ordinary people must be trusted to organise their own work. (That is the direction towards the  good old village industries that existed/exists in India )

Wolff starts with the fact that the state is in the corporate grip. In 2007-08, banks which owed hundreds of billions as a result of their own frenzied borrowing from other banks which had themselves borrowed colossally were fed trillions in taxpayers’ money; they were neither allowed to collapse, nor nationalized wholesale, nor prosecuted for almost certain criminality. They are confident that new regulations will not be introduced and that old ones will not be revived, and they remain the biggest welfare scroungers in history. The CEOs who have long supplanted even the tiny cabals of institutional shareholders nominally in charge led the post-crash rush for Washington handouts, and the neoliberal politicians whose campaigns they funded were furious that President Barack Obama’s stimulus package was too small. If the corporate banksnow lend at all, they lend to bodies like the United States and German governments, not to the small and medium-sized businesses which account for the great bulk of economic activity; their alleged ideological hatred of all things public conveniently vanishes, as it does in India, where gigantic and multiple corporate failures are concealed by endless refinancing at public expense.

Meanwhile, the U.S. corporate sector contributes under a fifth of the country’s total tax revenues. Ordinary people pay the rest. They have increased their productivity sharply in the last three decades, but with real wages held flat the only way they can consume enough to keep the system from collapsing is to live on their credit cards, and to do this more and more, as the state directs its — their — resources increasingly towards the corporates and away from public services and public infrastructure.

Keynesian remedies

Our political bankruptcy is worsened by the apparent untenability of responses which have rescued us in previous crises. A predictable revival of Keynesian formulae, whereby states would disregard budget deficits and spend to keep money circulating by getting people back into work, seems to have lost its earlier appeal. According to Wolff, the public — who pay the price for decades of an economic crisis they did not cause — fear that the initially increased budget deficits would mean even worse austerity for them. Secondly, Keynesian dispensations are inherently unstable. They are systematically evaded and destroyed by private corporations, often with the aid of an increasingly conglomerate-owned press, and in any case Keynes himself saw his remedies as temporary, not as structural defences against the inherent self-destructiveness of capitalism.

There is also good evidence for the impact of the corporate press; between 1960 and 1967, three flourishing British social-democratic papers, the Daily Herald , the News Chronicle , and the Sunday Citizen , were all destroyed by advertiser boycotts; their readerships totalled 9.3 million out of a total population of about 55 million, and they were highly respected by their readers. The Herald , which was funded by trade unions, had a readership of 4.7 million in the last year of its existence — more than twice the combined readership of the broadsheets the Times , the Financial Times , and the Guardian , but its 8.1 per cent of national daily newspaper circulation got it only 3.5 per cent of net advertising revenue per thousand copies. In face of access to such a huge readership, the advertiser boycotts amounted to gross economic irrationality. They were nothing other than ideologically-driven class warfare; today, even public-service broadcasters increasingly resemble the corporate press in tone and content.

Highly significant truths are therefore obliterated from public discourse. The absence of systemic critique means that sticking-plaster measures are messianically proclaimed as promises of imminent deliverance, and the corporate-driven destruction of mass labour organisations has all but ended any serious political pressure to regulate corporations or to hold major industries and services in public hands. In addition, it is almost never said that the total losses caused by the crash and by what even Larry Summers calls permanent depression far exceed the sums that would have been needed to keep the system going. In the United States alone, 20 per cent of productive capacity has lain idle since 2007, while millions and perhaps tens of millions are out of work and dependent on state benefits.

On Soviet Union

As for other alternatives, one of Wolff’s strengths is his honesty about the Soviet Union. The condition of Russian society itself and international hostility effectively combined to reduce global conceptions of socialism to state socialism, which is just another way of subjugating hundreds of millions to state institutions and the few who control those, whether for the sake of power or profit. Wolff unhesitatingly calls this state capitalism, in which a remote and oppressive apparatus appropriates the surplus value the workers’ own labour power generates.

Throughout the argument, Wolff complements his command of political economy with sharp sociological insight, not least in respect of the ways women’s expanded participation in the formal workforce has exposed capitalism’s destructive effect on the family, and his sense of the value of everyday association informs his own radical proposals for workers’ self-directed enterprises. These would go far beyond worker-managed ones, because the workers would themselves be the owners, the directors, and the workers; nobody outside the organisation could be a director, and posts would be rotated so as to prevent the excessive division of labour and to limit gross inequalities of income. The workers themselves would decide what to produce and how to produce it, and would do so in consultation with local bodies and communities – which could at the very least control the obscenities currently dismissed as externalities whether inflicted by private or so-called public bodies. Wolff has no general problem with profits, but the surplus which workers generate would be used for innovation and development under the same rubrics of reasoning and consultation, not under the present system whereby innovation is accepted only if it enables corporations to sack staff and increase profits.

Wolff, whose ideas are far less outlandish than they might seem to our deadened sensibilities, gives the example of the Mondragón Corporation; this federation of cooperatives based in Spain’s Basque region has been in existence for nearly 60 years and now has a staff of over 80,000. The organisation is explicitly committed to internal democracy, to creating jobs, and to the human and professional development of staff, as well as to the wider environment.

Wolff himself may or may not be something of an economic Aristotelian, but the idea that the informing principle of work must be reasoned, wide-ranging, and authoritative judgment in freedom from coercion and fear embodies a sense of what it is to be human which far transcends the imprisonment to which a collapsed capitalism and contemporary economic theory have consigned us.

Link http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-bookreview/working-to-rehumanise-work/article5442130.ece

Gandhian Economics - The only way forward.

The name of J.C.Kumarappa  and his take on the different kinds of economy, especially predatory economy figures in this recent op-ed article. Modern business practices (karma) are setting on boil, the entire world. It is reported that India has succumbed to US interests, in the WTO round at Bali. Very bad !!!!

Towards an economy of mutualism (Dec 04, 2013, The Hindu)

by MADHAV GADGIL

J.C. Kumarappa, the Gandhian economist who worked with the Planning Commission in the early years of Indian Independence, favoured industrialisation but insisted that its pursuit should not lead to the creation of an economy of violence. Recent disturbances linked to control over, and fate of, the rich water, mineral, forest and biodiversity resources of the Western Ghats of Kerala suggest that Kumarappa’s worst fears of a lopsided development have come true. As Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz emphasises in his recent book, The Price of Inequality , any nation must aim at a harmonious development of its four capital stocks: not just man-made capital that GDP highlights, but natural capital, human capital and social capital as well. A GDP-centric viewpoint focusses exclusively on economic activity in the organised industries-services sector.

Chembanmudy quarries

 Thus, in the case of the controversial Chembanmudy hill stone quarries of Pathanamthitta district in Kerala, what will count as positive development gains are not only quarrying, crushing and truck transport, but also the boosting of sales of anti-cancer and anti-asthmatic drugs as a result of the ill-health caused by quarrying activities. In the absence of proper records, other relevant elements of economic activities such as the decline in agricultural productivity and loss of employment for agricultural labour that ought to be counted on the debit side will be overlooked. In addition, the GDP-centric view totally ignores the ongoing grave depletion of natural capital, human capital and social capital. Thus, in the case of Chembanmudy, landslips and blockage of streams are adversely impacting land, water, forest and biodiversity resources. Health, education and employment are three important components of human capital. In the Chembanmudy case, health has suffered, with even young children developing lung cancer. Mothers have petitioned that the unceasing truck traffic does not permit their children to focus on studies.

As for employment, there is little for local community members. Most of the small number of labour employed is from tribal tracts of Orissa or Jharkhand, people whose livelihood has been destroyed by rampant mining in their own native districts. There are horror stories making rounds of how this disorganised labour force is ill-treated, with no compensation for accidental injuries or even death. Indeed, the claim that India’s rapid economic growth is helping create much-needed employment is dubious; the annual rate of growth in employment in the organised sector that was 2 per cent when the GDP was growing at 3 per cent, actually declined to one per cent as the GDP growth rate soared to 7 per cent. So what we are witnessing is jobless growth, with accompanying erosion of human and social capital.

Social capital resides in social harmony, cooperation and trust. These too are suffering under the prevalent economy of violence. This economy is promoting grabbing and spoiling of land, water, mineral and forest resources to benefit a few, at the cost of the larger society. This is being facilitated by lawlessness and social injustice: witness the very large number of illegal quarries currently operational in Kerala, estimated at 1,700 out of a total 2,700 functional quarries. The disinformation campaign focussing first on our Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) report, and now on the Kasturirangan report, and the violence that has been triggered suggest that social disharmony has become the order of the day.

WGEEP points out that we are currently practising “Development by Exclusion, accompanied by Conservation by Exclusion.” This is because the many powerful interests that control decision-making today are not motivated to pursue development that would create mutually beneficial relationships among the beneficiaries of the organised industries-services sector and the bulk of our people dependent for their livelihoods and well-being on a healthy base of the natural resources. Nor are the powers-that-be properly informed of the realities at the ground level. This prevails all over the country, despite our well-entrenched democracy and the many constitutional and legal provisions to protect the environment and engage people in decision-making processes that are a result of a sensitivity towards what the people want.

Of all the States, it is Kerala that has led the country in democratic devolution and has made considerable progress in ensuring that people can influence the course of development and protect their environment and livelihoods. A notable example of this is the Plachimada panchayat in Palakkad district, where a Coca Cola plant had polluted as well as depleted groundwater, with consequent drying up of wells, loss of agricultural productivity and concomitant negative impacts on livelihoods. The people of Plachimada ensured that there was a proper scientific inquiry into the losses suffered by them. This provided sound scientific evidence that these losses amount to a whopping Rs. 260 crore. On the basis of this evidence, the panchayat rescinded the company’s licence. Notably enough, initially none of the political parties backed the people’s demands, but came round when confronted with a groundswell of sentiment. While cancelling the licence, the panchayat evoked its constitutional rights, arguing that as a local elected government it had the duty to protect the well-being of its subjects. So it had the right to cancel — or refuse permission to — anything that affected its subjects adversely. The company’s counter-argument was that the panchayat was a subordinate of the State government and thus could not operate out of its domain, since the State government had granted the licence for Coca Cola to operate. The High Court rejected this argument, affirming that people at the grassroots indeed have the authority to decide on the course of development in their localities.

The powers-that-be today would like to set aside these significant constitutional provisions empowering the people and helping them protect their environment. Instead, they are promoting a GDP-centric approach with little concern for natural, human, social capital. This is reflected in the rhetorical — and unconstitutional — question posed by the Kasturirangan panel: “How can local communities have any role in economic decision-making?” Evidently, the Kasturirangan panel wishes to facilitate the continuance of the present system of a predatory economy, but was obliged to prescribe some minimal level of protection for natural resources. Quite typically, this protection is proposed to be imposed from above and is not decided upon through a democratic process. But even this minimal protection is unacceptable to the beneficiaries of the current system who triggered the recent violence.

Duty to inform

Such lopsided development is clearly against broader national interests and since it is people at the grassroots that are best aware of what is happening to the natural, human and social capital, their inputs are critical to arriving at a development strategy that will promote a harmonious, balanced development. The sole duty of those wielding power should, therefore, be to inform the populace of all relevant facts and of the various development-conservation alternatives. Hence, WGEEP has explicitly stated that “we should attempt to develop a model of conservation and development compatible with each other … to replace the prevailing ‘Develop recklessly – conserve thoughtlessly’ pattern with one of ‘Develop sustainably – conserve thoughtfully’. The fine-tuning of development-conservation practices to [the] local context that this calls for would require the full involvement of local communities. It is therefore quite inappropriate to depend exclusively on government agencies for the constitution and management of Ecologically Sensitive Zones. Instead the final demarcation of the Zones and fine tuning of the regulatory as well as promotional regimes must be based on extensive inputs from local communities and local bodies.”

An important focus of the development of the Western Ghats tracts of Kerala should therefore be on properly informing and organising people down to the grassroots level to exercise their democratic rights. A well-informed and empowered citizenry will ensure that the environment is properly cared for even as we continue to industrialise, as has happened in Germany and the Scandinavian countries. What we need to concentrate on is implementing that which by all rights must be implemented, namely, the constitutional provisions for protecting the environment and empowering the people.

Of course, India must continue to develop a vibrant technology-based economy as well. Inevitably, this will end up employing only a small proportion of our people. But this modern economy must come to assume a mutualistic, and not predatory, role towards the natural resource-based, labour intensive sector of the economy. That is the only route to balanced and harmonious economic and social development.

(Madhav Gadgil is Chairman of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel. madhav.gadgil@gmail.com)

Modern economy must come to assume

a mutualistic, and not a predatory, role toward the natural resource-based,

labour-intensive sector of the economy

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/towards-an-economy-of-mutualism/article5419751.ece