Madhav Desai

Value of Pakistan to the World

Madhav Desai — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 03:20:25 +0000

Ever since its birth, Pakistan as a country have been favourite of the West and also of China tocertain extent. Since the time of Liaquat Ali Khan till the time of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and then from there till today America has treated Pakistan as its Blue-eyed boy.

But at the peak of crisis Pakistan has been left alone with no real friend. Even China who has recently been supporting Pakistan with Nuke Technology has not gone deep to help the poor flood victims of Pakistan.

People of Pakistan in its very recent history has been loving China, and think China is its best friend, but the fact is that China has not given an aid of of anything more than £6.5 million. While Japan who enjoys close ties with India has donated £9.3 million (exclusing loan of 300 trooops and 8 and the US who spends billions of US Dollars in weapons and equipments on Pakistan has been the highest donor with £96 million. It should be noted that about 54% of people of Pakistan thinks USA as its worst enemy and again it goes without saying they think China is their best friend.

Going back to history after helping USA win the cold war in Afghanistan against the Soviets, Pakistan became the Most Sanctioned country in the world – thanks to USA.

Often it is seen that countries like USA and China have exploited Pakistan to push its own agenda, and the leadership of Pakistan has followed them blindly. None of these countries have ever thought of helping the poor and hungry of Pakistan.

In wake of all this, Britain who Pakistanis feel is their enemy – has donated £60 million and British People have personally donated / pledged over £29 million.

Does this mean that to International Community of Politicians, Pakistan is a country worth nothing more than a feeble, its more like a Use-and-Throw paper cup.

People of Pakistan have always been hostile towards India, but I believe no man should face this kind of disaster alone, so I have donated to UNICEF who provides food and shelter to children in affected region. Here’s the link – please donate as in 21st century no one should die of hunger.

http://www.supportunicef.org/site/pp.asp?c=9fLEJSOALpE&b=6161181

Story building……

Rajeshwari Shukla — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 21:03:14 +0000

A very effective indoor game for children and adulta too Just to have fun and time pass in very very creative way is building story….

In this game we have to take a blnk paper and one person(A) writes one sentance and gives it to another person (B) now this (B)person reads this sentance and adds one sentance to it. He folds the paper in such a way that (C)person can read only one sentance written by (B) person. He adds one sentance to it , flods the paper and gives it to (D) person. Now (D) person can read only one sentance written by (C) person. so adds one sentance to it and folds the paper. …..like wise……when this paper passes to many persons and comes to original (A) persson , he reads all the sentances and that is the newly built story…..

It is a fun and creativity….

Let us see one example

Person(A)- There was a dark and deep forest

Person(B)-There were many big trees and wild animals too…(Folding of paper)

Perosn(C) He can read only one sentance written by (B)person

There were many big trees and wild animals too

Person(C) One Gorilla was living on a big tree..(Folding of paper)

Person(D)can see only one sentance written by(C)person

One Gorilla was living on a big tree

Person(D)-He was fond of eating Bananas…..(Folding of paper)

Person(E) can read only one sentance written by (D)

He was fond of eating Bananas

Person-(E)-He went to market and purchased many Bananas….(Folding of paper)

Person-(F) He can read only one sentance written by (E)

He went to market and purchased many Bananas

Person(F)- He also purchased nice dresses and books….(Folding of paper) Person (G) can read only one sentance written by (F)

He also purchased nice dresses and books

Person-(G)-He put all luggage in his car and drove to his home……(Folding of paper)

Person(H) can read only one sentance written by (G) person

He put all luggage in his car and drove to his home

Person(H)-His wife fired him for wasting too much money for such things…..(Folding of paper)

Person(I) can read only one sentance written by (H)

His wife fired him for wasting too much money for such things.

Person-(I)- She had a big fight of words with her husband…..(Folding of paper)

Person(J) can read only one sentance written by (I)person

She had a big fight of words with her husband

Person-(J)-She was a hopeless lady….(Folding of paper )

Person-(K)can read only one sentance written by (J)

She was a hopeless lady

Person-(K)But she was very beautiful….(Folding)

Person-(L) So one king proposed her and married her.

Person-(M) They went to Singapur for honeymoon.

Person(N)-Singapur is a nice country

Person-(P)-Have you visited Singapur????

Person(Q)-No, but who r you to ask me???

Person(S)- I am a Doctor-Neurosurgeon

Person-(T)-My brain is fine and healthy

Person-(U)-It nice to know that you have brain atleast!!!!!!

Person(V) Some people like Sardarjis don’t have brains…..people say like that..

Person-(W)-Iam Sardarji….I am executive officer.

Person-(X) You may be exception!!!!!!!Fault of God’s creation!!!!!!!

Person-(Y) are you neutral?????

Person(Z)-I am normal but what about you?????Are you?????

Now let us read the entire story..

There was a dark and deep forest.There were many big trees and wild animals too.One Gorilla was living on a big tree.He was fond of eating Bananas.He went to market and purchased many Bananas.He also purchased nice dresses and books.He put all luggage in his car and drove to his home.His wife fired him for wasting too much money for such things.She had a big fight of words with her husband.She was a hopeless lady.But she was very beautiful.So one king proposed her and married her.They went to Singapur for honeymoon.Singapur is a nice country.Have you visited Singapur???? No, but who r you to ask me??? I am a Doctor-Neurosurgeon. My brain is fine and healthy.It nice to know that you have brain atleast!!!!!!.Some people like Sardarjis don’t have brains…..people say like that..Iam Sardarji….I am executive officer. You may be exception!!!!!!!Fault of God’s creation!!!!!!! are you neutral?????I am normal but what about you?????Are you????? So in this way you can build new story…..

Stories Building

Britain must join EURO

Madhav Desai — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 20:15:32 +0000

Map of Europe

Today David Cameron the British Prime Minster went on TV and stated that while he is Prime Minister he wont give £ away for Euro and that he doesn’t believe in a single currency. 90% of Britain it seems supports him.

Currently, UK has the least unemployment rate within Europe, and the fiscal deficit is not as big as most EURO countries.

Britain again has to save its pride and honour which has lead it to become one of the world’s greatest superpower (of past…).

But while thinking about it I feel Britain will be better off by being part of EURO and not just that it should push to make United States of Europe – a Federal Union of all EURO countries. Gone are the days (I believe) when each European economy was as big as Whole of Asian Economy (excluding Japan).

Today most the paradigm has changed, most countries that command the World Order are large countries like USA, Russia, China and India – smaller countries like Britain and France are loosing their place and slowly loosing their say in World Affairs.

Taking example of India where each of its 28 states speak different languages and have different culture – most of the Indian population can understand a common language “Hindi”. But when it comes to Security, Energy, Political and Economical interest the Central (Federal) Government of India is the one that has the say. This has given a great advantage of India in terms of Stability, Security, Polity and Economic factors.

Same China – it has become an Economic and Political superpower with a magnanimous size and population the Government has taken decisions that resulted in betterment of their people.

Today people in European Countries are hard hit by recession, and Western Europe (which once ruled pretty much whole World) is facing never before debt crisis. And just for Pseudo Pride, Britain does not want to join EU.

By early 2013 when the economy starts coming back up, UK will find itself alone. After all a Friend in Need is Friend indeed. All EURO countries know that Britain didn’t want to help at time of their problems – and God Forbid if Britain is in Problem it will have nowhere to look to except of USA or India – as it will not be enjoying good relations with any other countries in the World.

What USA, India, China and Russia does not have is what EUROPE (including Britain) has. Fabulous Humanity, Culture, Universal Health Care System, Best Education System, Top Technology – but what it does not have is UNITY.

If Euro was accepted by Britain and if in next 50 years United States of Europe could happen then it will be the biggest Super Power on Earth – and not just that it will be loved by the whole world compared to USA. Europe wont just be the greatest Economy twice the size of USA, it will be a military super power, a beacon of hope and pioneer of REAL Democracy. Countries like Pakistan will take its examples of Unity in Diversity, Secularism and Human Rights.

So if there is a referendum tomorrow, I will vote in favour of EURO and not just that I will also hope that Euro countries become one Country.

What do you think?

Your Rights in Union of India + Euthanasia

Madhav Desai — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 00:57:20 +0000

Just saw the film Guzarish – the movie and let me tell you I liked it. Euthanasia is not a new topic, and it has been going on for ages. It is a time when a person feels that he is better off dying then actually living.

Buggers and “Thinkers” of different countries have provided their view on it, and mostly everyone feels that no one should be allowed to die at their will.

I am also against Euthanasia as it can be abused but I am not against the right of any person to choose not to live – after all it is their life. Did I just write an Oxymoron?

Well then lets take legal view, Union Of India by law does not allow anyone to die at their will and it is illegal to commit suicide in India (and many countries in Europe, Asia and America). But then the when I see why someone would want to go for Euthanasia, I see a reflection of reality -

There are six fundamental rights provided by the Union of India to all Indians:

The right to equality
The right to freedom
The right to freedom from exploitation
The right to freedom of religion
Cultural and educational rights
The right to constitutional remedies

The sixth one is pretty interesting. The right to constitutional remedies – which in laymen term means that you have right to seek and obtain justice under various laws of India.

What a joke? Out of 1.2 billion people maybe only 200 million people can say that they enjoy these rights provided by the constitution. From where I am seeing the Government of India and the Union of India is itself in breach of the constitution and has never been able to provide our basic fundamental rights.

Right of Equality is a joke, we have been unable to Abolish approachability or provide Equality in matter of public Employment (Well we have Reservations even today).

Right of Freedom, of Speech and Expression is a joke as well. But under these same right an Indian has all Freedom to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India – we have all seen how North Indians are treated in Mumbai / Maharashtra. This right also grants from Protection of Life and Personal Liberty – a woman was stripped in Orissa in front of Police and Crowd of several men – just to be punished by some Vigilantes for a petty theft. This is one is a real joke isn’t it?

Right against Exploitation. We have all seen Slumdog Millionaire, it even won an Oscar. Child Labour is prominent in India. Also India is in top ten countries when it comes to slave trade or prostitution. We also rank pretty well bad when it come to Human Trafficking - here goes this Right as well.

Right to Freedom of Religion. This is well enacted.

Cultural and Educational Rights. This bring me to a memory. I was walking out of my tuition classes some years back, when a guy got off his bicycle and asked me how to go to the offices. So I showed him the way. But he was not moving, so I asked him why. The guy was not confident as he had very little money. His daughter was really very smart, and he wanted her to study but he returned just from the steps- didnt even try to go up. This should never have happened to anyone. Education should be compulsory and free in India. This right also goes in gutter as I see it.

Right to constitutional remedies. Come on – we all know Jessica Lal case and many others. Justice delayed is same as justice denied. This one is a biggest joke.

Now all in all, a person who has access to media, can blog, has enough to provide to his / her family – can never think of Euthanasia – but when any of the above rights are not provided – people feel like dying. It does not justify the reason, but people feel opressed and hopeless.

In these situation, imagine a boy 19, who cannot walk talk or eat, can only move his eyes and his fingers, needs dialysis every week, parents have no money and are burdened in debt – what do you expect from this kid? A will to live or a will to die?

Again, I will commend Western Europe in this – Free Medical + Free Carer + Monies to Parents who take care of their child.

My message to Whole world, India and Powerful Indians: fuck all other rights – give Right to Live with decency (including required food, healthcare and education) – rest is all fucking bullocks. If you just do this – Euthanasia will never be an issue.

Taken from: http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr219/chewonitcomics/euthanasia2.jpg

Nehru & Liaquat: Indian Freedom Movement

Madhav Desai — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 02:57:06 +0000

As India and Pakistan got independence, two leaders emerged as leaders and

Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan Singing Agreement

Prime Ministers of their respective states. Both these men had were in realm to change the future of their countries.

The policies of India and Pakistan for atleast 60 years after their Independence were dependent on views and vision of these two men.

Jawaharlal Nehru

A Kashmiri Pandit, Nehru was born in an very well-to-do family. He was educated in the Independent Boy’s School, Harrow (One of the Top 5 Schools in the World) and then Trinity College Cambridge (One of the Top 5 College in the World).

As Congress was well established and had variety of leadership, Gandhi selected Nehru to become the First Prime Minister of India.

Even though part of Congress and being rich by descent, Nehru’s heart went towards socialist idealism and was pioneer of Non-Aligned movement.

He was a neither a good negotiator nor a good politician, as he took many decisions in flare of ideologies rather than policies. He was rather a good statesman.

His popularity and his re-election to the office with credible majority everytime, ensured that Indian army never interfered with Indian politics.

Nehru unlike Liaquat Ali Khan can be credited in helping India strengthen its roots before it flared on looking at external factors and global challenges.

As far as religion is concerned he was Agnostic Atheist, which again helped India to become more secular.

Ofcourse, his decision on having a UN Plebiscite to resolve Kashmir issue has backfired largely and India is still suffering for that mistake. His approach towards socialist society ensured India with stability but also resulted in to very slow growth of economy.

On 27 May 1964 Nehru died due to a stroke and heart attack and was cremated at Shantivana on the banks of yamuna River.

Liaquat Ali Khan

Liaquat became the first Prime Minister of Pakistan after the Partition, and can be blamed for Pakistani alignment to the USA.

To his credit, Liaquat was the prime negotiator and beneficiary as a statesmen of Liaquat – Nehru pact taht was signed in 1950, avoiding a second war with India within 3 years of independence.

He believed in Islam but enjoyed fine wine and other luxuries that are not seen holy under Shariyat.

In 1951 Liaquat Ali Khan appointed Ayub Khan as commander in cheif of the army, who then toppled government of Pakistan in a coup.

He was assassinated by a Pashtun man, as he was refused to let the Pashtun areas join Afghanistan.

His critics blame him of opportunism, and also pro-West foreign policy – which made Russia help India in 1971 war that resulted in creation of Bangladesh.

But I see him as a failure because he was not able to strengthen the Pakistani state and Muslim League – he spent most his time in defining foreign policies and other external factors. This made Pakistani political system very weak and was not able to come up with a mass-leader after his death.

He was a good politician but not a good statesman is what I see him as.

Hunger Sucks!

Madhav Desai — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 17:10:52 +0000

In his new book, Three Famines, Tom Keneally investigates mass starvations in Ireland in the mid-19th century and in Bengal and Ethiopia in the mid and late 20th century. Here he considers just how far hungry people will go to stay alive.

BEYOND penance and prayer, starving people have always adopted other and more palpable strategies, and these recourses are similar, famine to famine. Among the images of women that appeared during the Irish famine in the Illustrated London News is the memorable Woman Begging at Clonakilty. Clonakilty is a town in West Cork, a region where the famine was at its most intense. In this renowned engraving, the woman has in her right arm a skeletal baby corpse. In her left hand she holds a begging bowl. The woman in the illustration, with her dead baby in her arms, is described as begging for money to buy a coffin for her dead daughter.

Her utter helplessness, however, her torpid look, hides the truth that, like other women in all famines, she has been an actor in her own tragedy, fighting it by every stratagem she can think of. She has pursued all her options with all her energy on her way to this fatal state. Looking at her and her modern sisters, we feel a primal desire to believe that we could never let ourselves arrive at such a pass as this, that we would never become as passive as she seems to be.

But there is another issue to raise. Even at these final stages of her hunger, is there any possibility that she is still actively pursuing her duty to survive? Apart from her obvious grief, is she using the small corpse as a begging aid? And should these two possibilities — loss and stratagem — be mutually exclusive? In the extreme mental derangement that characterises famine victims, in the shrinkage of family feeling, which is one of the marks of starvation, both possibilities can operate together. And if she is begging for money for food as well as a child’s coffin, then that is exactly what famine experts call a “coping mechanism”.

The Red Cross and World Food Program estimate that the average healthy person needs 2010 calories of energy daily to do their normal tasks and resist disease. Yet one of the first coping mechanisms, from the cabins of Ireland to the huts of Bengal and the farmhouses and tuqals of Ethiopia, is to economise on the amount of food eaten, thus reducing the intake necessary for good health.

In East Africa, men and boys are fed first and the mother eats after them, having cut down on the food placed before the family. This is a form of customary practice, profoundly embedded though frowned on in the West, and sometimes condemned in tones that almost question the entitlement to relief of people who practise such cultural faux pas. But it is impossible to alter cultural habits in the span of a famine or even of a century. Besides, it is likely that in the early stages of all famines — historic, recent and present — women in families have tended to take the greater portion of hunger on themselves.

The result of cutting down on food is, within a few days, a weakening of the immune system. As the family rations itself, keeping next year’s seed crop sacredly reserved in a container safe from hungry gaze, it also finds its members have less strength to work. Shortage begets shortage.

Another coping strategy in famines is the sale of family assets. In Ireland, it was a matter of selling clothes or fishing nets.

Sadly, people bringing their goods to town to sell them on market day found prices much lower than they had hoped: many other people were doing the same in a glutted market. People in Bengal exchanged their pots and pans, furniture and trinkets for the fistfuls of food that grain trading pawnbrokers paid them from pouches they carried about with them.

One observer says the buyers were always “aprowl” with their small rice bags and, if necessary, cash. Bengalis sold the metal roofs of their huts. They sold their plough cattle to contractors supplying meat to the military forces. They mortgaged or sold their rice-producing land. As a result, more than 250,000 Bengali families lost all the land they possessed.

In Ethiopia, women and children made long journeys to town to sell firewood or wild bush food they had gathered. But, again, since so many others did that, prices were much lower than in normal times.

Selling livestock in Ethiopia, especially the family ox, and the necessity of ploughing by hand were considered akin to the loss of self, a crisis for all the family. The health of the ox, or the ability to buy a replacement one, was crucial to a man’s amour-propre as a functioning figure beneath God’s sky; the number of cattle a man owned confirmed his self-worth. Sale or loss of livestock was a humiliation for millions of pastoral peoples.

In the two Ethiopian famines of the 1970s and 80s, the normal barter system broke down — no dealer wanted to exchange food for clothes or kitchen utensils. So, like the pastoralists, farmers had to sell the family livestock, mainly oxen and goats, for money. What they acquired that way quickly vanished — not only on foodstuffs, but sometimes also on water and fodder for any remaining animals. And so, hungry people would resort to moneylenders, as they did in Ireland and Bengal.

Somalian Child

After reducing food intake, selling family possessions and taking loans, a hungry people’s next step in coping is to turn to food they would not normally eat, to the food they considered until now as food for their animals.

In Ireland, turnips had been a despised stockfeed plant. Some farmers in Kilkenny, a better-off eastern Irish county, who had lived well until the famine struck, now locked themselves away in secrecy to eat turnips. These more affluent people considered it shameful to devour turnip boxty (turnips turned into a form of flat cake or bread), or eat the mashed-turnip dish named champ.

In Ethiopia, plants that grew on landraces, hybrids of wild and domesticated grains, were generally — like the Irish turnips — considered stockfeed, and so there was a similar reluctance to eat them. Ethiopians lay under even more serious food prohibitions and observed the same food laws concerning animals as the Jews. Animals with uncloven hoofs, and uncloven hoofed animals that did not chew their cud, had always been prohibited, and only those properly slaughtered could be eaten.

The traditional slaughter required the animal to be turned to the east, and the prayers “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost” or “In the name of Allah the Merciful” to be recited. It is unlikely that Ethiopians would have eaten prohibited animals during the famine since they were very rarely found in the country, but no doubt if other meat was encountered, the hungry would not have inquired whether it had been slaughtered according to the proper rituals.

In Bengal, food taboos concerned pigs and turtles for Muslims, and cattle for Hindus. Widows were required to be vegetarians, to avoid foods associated with lustiness: meat, fish, onions, garlic and spices. Again, hunger must have often overcome these prohibitions. Yet many Brahmin women, the members of the intellectual and priestly caste, rather than lower themselves to hunt for or accept food, wasted to death in their homes because they could not bring themselves to eat gruel prepared by either lower-caste or Muslim hands.

As well as unaccustomed or unsanctioned foods, emergency food growing wild — food that is not the product of agriculture or the pastoral life — was sought by the hungry. These were foods only sporadically eaten in times of plenty, and which could not be depended on as a staple. In Ireland, men, women and children travelled from the interior of the country to reach the beaches to scour the rockpools for limpets and fish for fluke in shallow waters. They collected all the seaweed they could find on the beaches — “shore food”, they called it.

Everywhere, Irish birds of all species were hunted down for food, and disappeared to the extent that a Wicklow landlord lamented that he never heard birdsong any more. People stole fish from landlords’ streams where possible, and ate worms dug up from the bottom of the river. They sought a plant named charlock, known as field mustard.

Common wisdom said that charlock grew plentifully in graveyards. So the landscape was denuded of previously common plants and fruits. Indeed, the census of 1851 argued that grass itself was eaten by the starving, since dead bodies were found with it in their mouths. In Ethiopia 140 years later, grass would also be eaten — where it existed — as a near-final resort.

Blood from animals provided some nourishment to the Irish. By dark, men would sneak up on young cattle, make a slit in a vein and collect the blood in a jar or pail to take home to their families. Before leaving the animal, they would seal the wound with a swatch of cow hair from the beast’s tail, and with a pin. Cows’ blood would be salted or fried or, if the family had further ingredients to hand, boiled with milk, meal, cabbage, wild mushrooms or wild herbs, and made into “relish cakes”. An oral account tells of a man called Curnane bringing seven or eight cows to a starving family to allow them to draw blood, a quart from each cow.

We know a great deal less about the wild-food-collecting stratagems of the Bengalis, and there is a reason for that. The Irish and Ethiopian famines were visible history, but the Bengal famine seems submerged, specifically by World War II and its accompanying preoccupations. One of the reasons is that the area was closed off from journalists. For a long time, too, officials were more preoccupied with the threat of Japanese invasion than with the food crisis. But we do know something of the plants sought out by the starving. Among the Hindu population, Bengali Brahmin women sometimes chose death over undignified foraging. But others broke the taboos of their status to go out gathering famine foods their husbands had too much pride to collect.

Whether Muslim or Hindu, people searched for radhani, or wild celery, and for the fruit of the marula, or elephant tree. Cob-nuts (a form of hazelnut), wild mushrooms, rats and snakes and frogs were also hunted down. Similarly, wild foods were gathered by Ethiopian farming families, including the many hundreds of thousands of them forcibly and disastrously resettled in unfamiliar regions to the west or southwest of the country.

But the fruits that made up the broad spectrum of wild foods in Ethiopia and Bengal were like Ireland’s fish and seaweed and charlock — inadequate on their own to save life. Such sources were exhausted, in any case, by the time the starving had wasted away towards their final state. That was when the most appalling foods were sought. In famine the Irish would resort in the end, and in competition with other starving people, to diseased cattle, to pigs infected with bovine cholera, to dogs who had eaten corpses, to dead horses, rats and carrion in general. That is, they became recklessly omnivorous, as would also be the case in Bengal and Ethiopia.

In traditionally honest communities, stealing seed and other food, or even stealing money, became common during famished times. In Ireland, the number of people committed for trial for theft rose from 20,000 in 1842-46 to 42,000 in 1849. The statistics for other categories of crime remained level in the same period. Michael Cullinan, condemned to transportation to Australia, argued with some credibility that he had stolen a cow because his young family was hungry. But he was never shipped away, because he died in prison of dysentery.

If given an opportunity, famished Bengalis thieved from government food depots without any sense that their acts were “criminal”, and sometimes under the blind eye of compassionate Indian police. Attempted food theft became common in Ethiopia, too.

Under the pressure of coping, the ties between people, even within the same family, withered. Some separations were well intentioned: in Ireland, parents might send their children to the hated workhouses instituted under the Irish Poor Relief Act of 1838. There, at least, some form of spartan succour was available. Often the children would never see their parents again, and their parents knew this when they delivered them to the grim outer gates.

But other separations did not have the quality of being designed for mutual good. In northern Ethiopia in the hungers of 1983-84, out of pure desperation families abandoned the elderly and weak, a pattern that had occurred in hungers of the past and would in those of the future.

Vulnerable members of the family who seemed already too frail for relief, real or hoped-for, were frequently left behind to perish in the family house in the village.

In Bengal, among the families of sharecroppers, landless labourers, fishermen, weavers, barbers and potters, husbands abandoned wives and children were sold or left to die. Married men often expelled their widowed sisters from the house, and thus as good as condemned them to death by the roadside.

A frightful option taken in all famines is the maternal choice between feeding the child who might survive instead of the one who will not. An extreme Irish case of this preferential maternal love, reported by Mary Anne Hoare, a contemporary writer, was that of the woman who chose to neglect her “miserable pallid infant” to suckle an 18-year-old son, who worked on the road projects that were begun as famine relief. The family’s survival depended on the boy, not on the infant, the latter almost certainly doomed whatever the mother did. For starvation induces a pragmatic desperation in its subjects, and this choice, too, is a coping mechanism. And as a crime it is minor compared to some of the other options historically taken with children.

These acts, morally repugnant to the well-fed, were often the only means left not only to soothe an unhinging hunger but, above all — a potent motivation in all famines — to make sure that some of the family came through. A survivor of the Irish famine in northwest Donegal mourned in the Irish tongue that even apart from starvation, the associated inward-turning had other effects: “Sport and pastimes disappeared. Poetry, music and dancing stopped. They lost and forgot them all and . . . these things never returned as they had been.”

Short of selling one’s flesh for food is the stratagem of selling one’s body. A famine play of 1945, The Black Stranger by Gerard Healy, raised the next-to-taboo issue of Irish women’s prostitution in the famine, though the chief theme of the play is emigration, another coping strategy in all famines. In one scene a character named Bridie sells her body to buy cornmeal for a pregnant woman, and one of her companions declares, “I’d do the same meself. What’s a little thing like that, or the sins of the whole world, compared to the life of my baby?”

Did Healy’s play reflect the reality of the situation 100 years before? It is interesting that other works of literature and history on the famine did not raise the issue. But prostitution did occur. There was a rise in the number of younger women admitted to the Westmoreland Lock Hospital in Dublin, whose main brief was to treat prostitutes with sexually acquired diseases. Arrests for prostitution in Dublin were a number of times higher during the famine years.

In Bengal, by early 1944 the government had expressed grave concern at reports received from “various sources” that young, destitute women were being recruited by “facile promises”, and were then allocated to brothels or street prostitution. The consequence was not only a gender imbalance due to the death of young men and the survival of child prostitutes, but a massive impact on the morale of the nation; a belief that Bengal after the famine would be threatened with social chaos. For the problem for those women who wanted to return to their villages once the emergency was over was that they would be considered unmarriageable outcasts, and this would be their destiny for life. The practice of selling children into prostitution was reported by a number of witnesses.

Even farther along in the starving crisis, the most baleful coping mechanism is cannibalism. There were a number of cases of cannibalism in Russia in the early 1920s, during the collectivisation-induced famine of 1919-23. In fact, dead bodies were sometimes traded and human flesh was transmuted into meatballs, cutlets and minced meat. So many cases occurred in Leningrad during its 900-day siege by the Nazis in World War II that the Russian security forces formed a special squad to punish those guilty of it. But for people who would dig up the buried bodies of animals to eat, cannibalism might not have seemed a huge further step.

In 1851, the Irish census stated that a stipendiary magistrate in Galway City heard the case of a prisoner arrested for stealing food, who was discovered in his cabin with his family and a part-consumed corpse. With astounding tolerance, the magistrate found there were extenuating circumstances, since the man was subject to the mania that struck people in the late stages of starvation.

Dawit Wolde Giorgis, the Ethiopian army officer who ran with questionable success his country’s relief agency, had the same reaction when he saw cannibalism in an inadequate feeding centre in the Ethiopian highlands. These people were not to blame, he argued. Because of the blankness of the Bengali record, we do not know if, or on what scale, famine cannibalism existed. But Bengal would have been unique if it had not happened there also.

This is an edited extract from Three Famines by Tom Keneally, published by Knopf Australia, $49.95.

Excerpts from The Australian Newspaper.

Gandhi & Jinnah: Indian Freedom Movement

Madhav Desai — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:14:40 +0000

Mahatma Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Indian Independence Movement, is one of the topics of a great interest to me.

I feel mostly the NETAs and Freedom Fighters of that time have largely been misinterpreted by generations of Independent India. This I believe is largely because of our elders who fought in the Independence movement always took the Freedom Fighters as Gods, invincible.

The other part of the blame goes on to the Text-Books that puplis in India study (or Rot) in India. The freedom movement is always characterized as somewhat Holy, and the Freedom Fighters as somewhat Godly in their character.

It is almost unacceptable in India and even in Pakistan, to rationally discuss the Freedom Fighters. Largely anyone who is trying to make a general analysis or study the situation is branded unpatriotic by the population in general.

So, let me dare today and analyse some of the big figures of the Indian / Pakistani Freedom Movement, a bit of my blog-post will also include scenarios of Post-Independent Country. So, let’s start….

Mahatma Gandhi

Worshipped in India as God in its human form, and have been well-known throughout the world for his concepts of Satya and Ahmisa (Truth and Non-Violence). Largely, people feel that this was the strength that the Mahatma had and nothing more. But it is cordially ignored that Mahatma Gandhi was not only the ONLY architect of both Indian Independence but also the future of India that we are so proud of today.

I see Gandhi as a visionary, a person who could think of future and could also ammend it for betterment of India. How? Well, India is the only country who achieved Freedom without any external help, or violence. The concept of Satya and Ahmisa was mere pawns to the Grand Indian Nation Building Strategy.

Gandhi showed the way of Satyagrah (Peaceful Movement) and Desh Bhakti (Serving Nation). This ensured that Indian generations then and the one today are not like Iraqi or Afghanis who bomb themselves and kill hundreds more, to prove a point or to show their disapproval of anything that is happening. Imagine India if Gandhi had never took on the path of Satya and Ahmisa…

People would only be bombing each other. Gandhi knew that the Indian public is like Sheep… and this concept ensure that we only took to Andolans, Dharnas and Satyagrah to show our displeasure or disapproval.

Mohammed Ali Jinnah

Contrary to learning and looking at vision of Gandhi, Jinnah opted for an independent Pakistan for Muslims to live and abide in peace. He is the only and sole responsible person of the misery that Pakistanis are going through today.

The Pakistani state is at the verge of collapse, it cannot fund itself and needs external donations to even pay cheques to Government Workers. It is also the world’s most corrupt country, with deals like NRO being drafted in favour of corrupt politicians. From Corruption to Jehad, and from State Bankruptcy to Hunger – only one man is to blame and that is Jinnah.

Now I am not being biased in my opinion. Jinnah for all right reasons was a secular person, but he wasnt a visionary nor was he a good statesman. He was more passionate about Indian Freedom Movement then I can say Nehru was, but again he was not a statesman or a politician.

He was driving his political career fully depending on day-today happenings. When the Grouping scenario was accepted by Congress under certain conditions, he moved out and said he wont agree to it just because Congress accepted it (not because Congress put in some conditions).

He then went to forming Pakistan and never bothered providing a constitution to it. Moreover, unlike Gandhi, Jinnah was ambitious and enjoyed being the President of Pakistan (even if that was for very very short period).

At end of his life, he regretted forming Pakistan, as after Partition – almost 80% of Hindu+Sikh population in Pakistan had to migrate because of Pakistanis.

If Mahatma Gandhi had not forced the Congress to give monies to Pakistan from India after Partition, then Jinnah today would have been hated by Pakistanis, as it would have failed within few months from Partition.

It although goes without saying that by nature and character he was an aristocrat and did breed secular beliefs within his mind. He was never a devote Islamist, and he should never be portrayed as one. He was only a failed statesman, a poor negotiator and a very weak politician.

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Do let me know what are your views… and do stay tuned to see other figures discussed here…

Microsoft IE9 Copies Chrome

Madhav Desai — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 23:58:46 +0000

I now believe that all the people that work at Microsoft are hired only looking at their skills to copy something. The New IE9 looks good and is very slick, but the whole concept seems to be of Google Chrome.

Its so Chrome like. From the Tabs and their features of drag and drop to the Star that you can use to mark a bookmark.

You know what? Microsoft should hire more imaginative and creative people to give them ideas on the products. I will tell you this is the end of Microsoft, in next 10-15 years they wont be there… They are taken over as the largest software company by Market Cap by Apple Computers – which was nowhere near to them just 8-9 years back.

I dont understand what Steve Ballmar does in his office? Day dream? I guess not even that…. How can a software giant of this size cannot come up with a pioneering product? and that too for such a long long time.

Portable Music Players, Better Operating System, Browsers, Mobile Phone Operating System, Tablets, Web Search,Blue-Ray are all aced by someone else and not Microsoft. What does not make you strong, makes you weak – and the innovations team at Microsoft is make it weak. R&D at Microsoft sucks.

You might say Tablets were initially introduced by Microsoft and their partners, but its not about introducing – it is about innovating and improvising. What Apple came up with is brilliant. Ipad rules and if the future is all about Tablets – Microsoft is going nowhere.

Microsoft also has infrastructure and know-how of Cloud computing, but you will see Google will pioneer it and they will do it so well that Microsoft wont be an alternative.

Don’t believe me? Look at Hotmail… Its pointless now – compared to Gmail.

Microsoft is all set to become the next Yahoo! deep failure after fabulous success.

Law 5: Commonwealth Games New Delhi, Reputation tarnished, Big Shame

Madhav Desai — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:49:30 +0000

Reading Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power is something really interesting, but I guess the bureaucrats and politicians of India are simply not in to books that much.

The 5th Law of Power is: “So much depends on Reputation, Guard it with your Life”. With India aspiring to become an economic power, the decision makers should have read the book.

So much is lost now already, with this Commonwealth fiasco. It was never about games, and it has never been about games. Countries like China, South Africa, Greece show their strength and change public opinions about them – they show the world that they are really meant and bent to become emerging powers.

Same goes for India; these games were to show and convey that India is not all about the rope-trick, accounts, IT boys but it is a country that can function to become one of the greatest economic power of the world. But guess what we didn’t even learn Six-Sigma concepts. India has failed terribly in delivering the Commonwealth Games 2010.

Corruption in India used to be always a cause of concern, but while politicians and bureacrats ate up monies, they also did ensure that the contracts were awarded to right parties and that the goods / projects were delivered. Under Kalmadi none of this has happened. He and his team has portrayed India as no better than Pakistan.

Forget about seat at UN Security Council, how can you manage to police the world when you cannot conduct a simple game? Our reputation is tarnished for eternity, and we should forget about being recognised as anything but corrupt and lame society.

Atithi Devo Bhava, is not what team of New Zealand is experiencing in New Delhi right now. In fact they might be looking at us with pity and thinking what a looser is this society? With 1.2 billion people, and a trillion dollar economy these guys were not able to pull enough manpower, and could not satisfy enough greed to deliver it at the end!!

I was very optimist just before today. Deadlines were being missed, but I thought India is India and will pull it up right at the end, but NO it didnt happen at all. We are not even near conducting the games as at today. How can a pedestrian bridge fall? It fell of by just being there? Something is terribly wrong.

I have no solution today but have a suggestion… Just hanging my head in shame. Kalmadi and his team should be barred from being Directors or Manager of anything for at least 10-15 years. In the UK if a company fails and it has unpaid debts, the Judge will not allow the Directors to run any other company for certain amount of time, and the similar punishment should be given to the whole team who project managed this shameful show of our weakness.

Meanwhile, pray!

Naxals: Patriots or Terrorists?

Madhav Desai — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 01:45:01 +0000

220 Districts in 20 states is not a small number. Rising Naxal activity in India is my cause of concern today. Well I got inspired to write this post after one of my friend tagged Naxals as terrorists…

The reality however bitter it is, is that there are two different India that exists today. One India is Shinning and the other India is Crying. But this does not in anyway breed Naxals. Support for Maoist thinking starts when the Shinning India starts to encroach on to the basic human rights of the Crying India.

If 1000 Para-military forces of any state makes mass killing of its own people, for any cause of or concern, is when this thinking grows. And when women and children are blatantly abused in front of their men, is when a person adopts the Maoist theory of communism and becomes Naxalite.

So what do Naxals really want? Well cutting all bullshit, Naxals want to overthrow the Government of India and replace it with a government that suits their ideology. They are fighting for the Crying India but in no-way they take the Shinning India as their enemy.

Even a kid on street knows that today Pakistan is in brink of collapse, but what we miss is that India is only slightly better. The endless corruption, from Commonwealth Games to a peon in Government Office is a blatant show of our failed democracy and Gandhian idealism.

We have let our own people down, and that too in worst possible way. Government of India is very strong and uses its power now and then to prove its point or to pursue its long-term agenda. We see tall buildings, large high-ways, increased infrastructure, $1 billion Cricket League, etc etc, but we shamefully forget that there is a farmer in various state of India that is thinking of killing himself the next day.

What 9% growth? Indian economy failes every time a farmer commits suicide, it fails every time when a woman is raped, it fails every time when an honest man’s land is encroached up on and there is no justice, it fails every time when a child is made to leave school and made to work as a servant….

Indian businesses have prospered so much only because of India’s stability, but a revolution seems very near (by near I mean anotehr 25-30 years), Maoist mentality is taking over on many poor of India. When push comes to shove, none of the businessmen or middle class India will come on streets or fight till they die – it will be these Naxals who have all the strength to topple the government. They should not be underestimated, as Maoist ideals toppled even powerful Government of China.

Some may think I am crazy as Government of India is so strong that there cannot be any threat to it in next 5 decades. It has become a sultanate in a way. But even Roman Empire came down…

See Sharad Pawar, doing million dollar deals, but is unable to feed a poor farmer with Rs. 10 ($0.25) meal. See Mayawati, a man in her state killed himself as he could not send his children to school or even feed them properly and she has gone-on to waste millions of dollars in building parks. This is dangerous – This is very dangerous.

I hate communist ideologies, I am a pure democrat. I do not ask for businessmen to donate to poor and hungry without their own will. But I cannot accept Government of India spending Rs. 6 crores in advertising on Rajiv Gandhi’s birthday – while a guy on street is going crazy thinking how he would put food to his family today.

Looking at this, I feel Naxals are 1000 times more patriotic then some of our Netas (Politicians). What you think?

PS: For all Pakistani media that are now-a-days going crazy celebrating and talking about Naxals being a threat to India – you are mistaken. Naxals wont break India, actually a Naxalite Government would be very hostile towards Pakistan. A Maoist government would keep Union of India intact, it will be worse for Pakistan than for India.