Sunday, June 16, 2024

Oh Can't we See??

 

Oh Can’t We See?

 



 

Back in the 1970s, still wading through Watergate, Vietnam War, and  past  the civil rights protests, rock and roll came into its own.  With searing music, exploring strands from across the world, and asking searching questions.  Can’t you see was a one hit wonder from a relatively obscure band.  While it seems only a break-up rock song, its guitar work, flutes, and vocals were indeed haunting.  That “Cant you see” being a metaphor for “Cant we see?”  directed at those of us dreaming of a better India,

 

In terms of financial bandwidth, we have moved on.  When P Chidambaram presented his dream budget in 1996-97 for Rs 100,000 crores with the 20% each already allocated to servicing the debt, funding the states, funding defense, and paying salaries for government staff, he had only Rs 20,000 crores to develop the country - about Rs 200 per capita.  With such meagre resources, even a single flyover over one intersection was a luxury.  We seemed forever consigned to third world existence, While poverty was an un-mutable fact, what could be challenged was the swing to the right.  The horrors of the violence that we were witness to in the early 1990s kept us transfixed on what should or should not be the agenda for the country.  Like deer caught in those headlights we have not moved on.

 

India’s economy has certainly grown leaps and bounds,  The interim budgeted this February has a government spend which is 47 times higher than that at 1996  ..  at 47 00,000 crores.   While in 1996, we the consuming middle class were barely 10% of the population. Our influence on national politics was limited.  Who gets voted to power depended on the poor.  But much has changed since then .  With 15 million two wheelers and 4 million cars sold every year, the aspiring classes are at least 500 million strong – less than 40% of the country, but our voice carries, through the influence we wield on social media demanding amenities from the government, and the loyal discourses that we sustain through whatsapp university.  It is to this segment that I ask and  to those in the liberal left and the pro-establishment right – Cant’t we see?

 

If one were to Pareto out the problems that Indians face, it is lack of access to dignified housing for the urban poor – about 100 million Indians live in slums – in small shacks with poor sanitation, schooling and health care.  It is amazing that while Mumbai glitters like Manhattan, with more than Rs 100,000 crores spent on sea links and metros, the poor continue to live in such poor conditions.  The same applies across metros and tier 1 and 2 cities in India.    The problem is also one of a poverty trap that over 50% of those in rural India face, There is a paucity of jobs in India, Support prices of crops have not kept up with inflation for more than a decade.  Infrastructure for storage of agro-produce is non-existent.  Opportunities to augment incomes through distributed renewable energy (solar panels on roof tops and irrigation pumps), solar farms in fallow lands, biofuel and energy from crop waste have been frittered away in favour of Renewable Energy projects favouring a few large industrialists.  And those in rural India have poor access to schools, colleges and education.  In many small villages education is available only to primary and middle school.  Overcoming such barriers is something that the poor cant afford.  If one throws in caste structure into the mix the problem is even worse,  While climate change is an elite problem ripe for discussions, it is a lived crisis for the rural poor,  Climate change and  the normal vagaries of monsoon seem to have colluded to throw up either a cycle of relentless drought or destructive floods,  Large scale government and private intervention is needed to address this issue, to augment Renewable Energy for non-industrial use, and increased reliance on agro based biofuels for transportation.  If technologies for the same are invested such that the value add is at the farmers door step the near permanent poverty in rural areas can be redressed, It is the absence of ideas, policies and investment in this space that results in migration of millions to cities for a better livelihood.

 

While the agenda required for the country is clear, we have an almost Dystopian fight between the right wing and liberals over religion.   If one were to focus on day to life for the millions of the majority and minority, the rights to worship, attire, identity is fairly unfettered.  The banks in India shut down for Good Friday, while in US they do not.  Our stock markets close for Eid and Guru Nanak Jayanthi.  Each religion has its own civil code and rightly so, to be challenged only when individual rights are breached.  What we fight over and take cudgels with and rightly so, is on incidents of violence.  That said the elephant in the room is that at least 30 to 40% of the population is trapped into poverty with limited recourse for a better life.  And another 20% are just one crisis away from a slide back to destitution.   

 

Yet in the kaleidoscope of issues that I see being debated in the press, on TV and social media, it is – mostly focused on religious divide, whose single biggest benefit is to help us voice opinions which are in tune with our identity markers.  I feel like again screaming – “Oh Can’t we see?”  Because real issues are lost in irrelevant echo-chambers.  While the poor really struggle to live in dignity across India.

 

Saturday, April 20, 2024

A Travelogue - and Systemic versus Incidents of Exclusion

 

Systemic versus Incidents of Exclusion

 

Went through 25 days of charming and exhausting days of travel spanning three countries.   At 1:00 AM the roads in Bangalore were smooth.  The Toyota Etios cab seemed as spacious most in US.  The AC worked well.  Our previous Uber in NY was a Tesla with a translucent sunroof.  The car was driven by a Nepali Sherpa – his last name as a sherpa.  An hour of commute was peppered with conversations about US and India and Nepal and treks   The Uber drivers in US and France seemed to come from many countries – and many religions.  It is said that the US is a melting pot – and so it is.  Different cultures drawn from across the world seemed to melt into this pot, and come out homogenized, mostly accepted, and mostly conform to an American identity.  Any person who intends to live in the US – student, visiting professionals, immigrants implicitly subscribes to such a model.  While personal freedoms and privacy reign supreme, the question is, are there unsaid  limits to expression of identity of the sub-cultures they come from.  But the collective American identity in its intent is inclusive – so how much is lost.

 




India had started with a different legacy.  Being a tropical country with abundant resources – of spices, textiles, crafts, India was one of hubs of global trade for centuries.  Buddhism emanated from its shores and spread to many locations – especially the far east.  Hinduism found its branches in Cambodia and Bali.  Christian, Zoroastrian, Islamic and Jewish traders immigrated and thrived along India’s coast.  While there were chapters of invasion and colonization.  The prevailing culture in India, at the time of independence in India was a mosaic – of cultures, languages and religions.   The founding fathers of India protected this legacy fiercely.  Many liberals including me carry the torch farther, taking the enormity of space and freedoms given for religious and cultural expressions granted, barely acknowledging  what has been preserved since 1947, and what has been carved out as an Indian version of diversity and unity for centuries prior.

 

France was our first port of call.  The city taxi cab counter at the Charles De Gaulle airport had its string of drivers who accosted us saying there is heavy traffic and it is going to take 90 minutes and therefore a fare of 140 Euros.  The Uber app mentioned 66 Euros.  After plenty of back and forth with cancelling drivers we found one who asked us to come to the departure gate.  We got dropped an hour later at the hotel.  The hotel was managed by an immigrant of of a French colonial origin.  With long locks, excellent English, and helpful to the bone – he got us the room, offered a pizza – and gave tons of help to explore the city on our own.  The cobble-stoned streets of MontMartre, with its ancient churches and cemeteries and restaurants and shops had us hooked,  a  small dinner and a glass of dinner made it a text-book Paris evening.  And thus went the remaining two days in Paris – the Rodin Museum, the Versailles Palace, Bastille monument and the jewish quarters and the Louvre – Paris seemed welcoming, accessible, charming, replete with history all rolled in one.  About 10% of its citizens practise Islam.  What is seen on the roads is quintessentially French culture – a blend of modern and the old – of churches and the gothic.  The Louvre and Versailles are emphatic examples of the same.   But there was no evidence of religious diversity.

 

Amsterdam is European to the E, a country whose terrain is as flat as a very successful flat stomach, blessed with answers for sustainability that blow in the wind, with wind turbines, and windmills, bi-cycling tracks that have  primacy over cars, and where public transportation rules.  It was interesting that we did not use an uber or a car during our stay in Amsterdam and around.  It was easy to blend in at Amsterdam.  By now much of western Europe is multi-cultural.  But Amsterdam has done a brilliant job holding on to its way of life – of superposing an efficient modern mobility system, with sustainability being a mantra (27% of commutes by bicycles!), in a landscape replete with historical heritage.  The Rijswijk museum, like Rodin in Paris and the Met in NY and historic Boston,  had school excursions of boisterous school kids shepherded by enthusiastic school teachers.  The school group in Boston had only Asians (Indian and East Asian origin).  In Netherlands there were a couple of girls wearing the headscarf – the only 4 or 5 spotted after 3,50,000 steps in 25 days in France, US and Netherlands, and saw one structure with Minarets in Netherlands and two synagogues – one in Manhattan and the other in Jewish quarters in Paris.

 

Which brings us back to inclusion or exclusion, systemic or incidents thereof in the different countries and continents I am exposed to. 

 

Coming to India, which I am at home in, which I criticize squarely like a quarrelling family member, I need to acknowledge that there is an in-your face vibrant diversity that is part of the landscape, flowing in our veins, and everywhere one looks.  While money flowed out in buckets from my wallets, I was on top of bank and credit card balances – accessing it through portals from across.  And watched the stock market too.  It was closed on Eid, the facebook and whatsapp pages had Eid Mubarak from many within the country. A day that seemed altogether ignored in mainstream media in US.   Our schools and offices were closed on Good Friday – march 29th, which we landed up in the US on the Easter weekend – with hotel prices heading north for a festive weekend.  We quarrel with India as it works now, based on exclusion events – some violent – which grabs headline and eyeballs.  It could be a past case of lynching, it could be remission of convicts, it could be on CAA (is it a systemic tamper at an inclusive society?).  But the system makes space for every religion which seems as natural and part of the landscapes as cherry blossoms in spring or tulips in Netherlands.  So are we conditioned to challenge sporadic events while we gloss over the freedom of expression that is inherent to India?  It is importtant that we acknowledge that because then our voices become more credible. Is there a nucleus for a change for the better?  For getting past violent events that pop us so regularly in India? This is a question to India.  Of exclusion and violence as part of a systemic history, the New York Met museum seems to have an interesting take – of showing to the choir (after all who goes to Met?) a mirror of what is great from across the world – Ganesha over the ages, Islamic art. The renaissance from Europe, American realism, and spaces for misses too - that show case the Native Indian art from across tribes, and the Harlem Renaissance movement – showcasing the world of arts from African Americans.   But outside the New York Met the question that really needs to be asked is are freedoms of expression of subcultures truly ingrained in day to day life?  Or is dissolving oneself in the larger whole, the current terms of endearment.  These are of course gentle puzzles and questions, that need to be ponder over in our different corners of the world.  

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday, March 21, 2024

There is only elephant in our room - poverty.

 


 

Middling through poverty – 1970s India.  I still remember myself as a kid, holding my fathers hand , sometimes my mothers, getting past the dread of exams and marks, but looking forward to that train journey that would cart us from Delhi to Madras, on that venerable GT express.  We were firmly middle class, my father a government officer, with the Railways, with the sole treasured perk being that first class pass, 6 times a year to any corner of India. So from that treasured perch, a compartment with doors to our little room with four bunk beds that would shut us from the rest of the world, unless we chose to see it from the window.  That I did, with almost 100% diligence, peering at the gravel below, the telegraph poles by the track, the flying stations, and the people in the platforms, squatting on the floors, on trunks, certainly looking a lot poorer than the dozens in the first class, who were mostly traveling free thanks to some perk that they enjoyed.   India is a poor country our civics books said with honesty, as almost an eternal fact.  Our  first TV, a black and white was more than 3 months of pay.  A refrigerator was two months of salary, a kitchen blender was a week’s pay-check.  We lived with limited possibilities.  Our focus almost completely on furthering ourselves and ensuring that ends meet.  Yet, pride for the country would surface – sometimes we would draw inspiration from the past, Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Tagore, they were towering figures, sometimes from the distant past – ah in those Vedic times, we were a wealthy nation.  Someone like Akbar, or a Rana Pratap Singh would get us to beam too.  The present day sources of pride were few and far between – our defence forces and the brilliant war – well they attacked us first – but we liberated a country – our heroes were Sam Maneckshaw, Gen Aurora, and Jacobs .  Our little gnats could take down the Sabre jets.  But tight through the 1970s, the 600 million odd Indians were toiling away with the single minded aim of survival – pride was an icing, a luxury.

 

Ah we have computers too, cant be that poor? By the time I was past my teens I had a ringside view of India’s scientific capabilities – In IISc we were beaming with pride because we had the first scanning electron microscope, in a dark room, powerfully airconditioned, with LEDs and a scrolling screen, with a camera to take the picture of that metal at 10,000X – we could whisper that we were second to none.  Or go at night, hack away on a typing machine to get the Fortran cards punched, and submit a deck to the computer room, and go back and look at the outputs the next day – damn – that typo on the 43rd card – we would correct it and resubmit it the next day and await the output.  About 2000 KM north Delhi was preening itself for the Asian Games, Indira Gandhi allowed colour TVs, we started watching Wimbledon live on the black and white TVs, praying that the match would get over before the 9PM news, or they would defer the news and have us watch Borg and McEnroe play till they dropped dead.  With a publication under my belt from my thesis and overseas admissions and aid I was on a flight to the US, with a slight spring in my steps – we have our microscopes and computers too, we can’t be that poor or backward as a country, and New Delhi looked quite spiffy.   My first stint in the US was in Raleigh. NC, a town which was idyllic in its beauty – the streets spic and span; everything was lush green.  The supermarkets wonderfully airconditioned – the cars seemed a couple of notches better than what any of us ever had in India.  1984 was a year when India sprang into headlines for all the wrong reasons – the Operation Bluestar which the western media could never place in perspective – could someone imagine a state like Connecticut separating from the US, instigated from a neighbor like Canada?   - Punjab was that, developed, prosperous, its people loved and celebrated – and then Mrs Gandhi’s assassination and the Bhopal’s Union Carbide disaster.  The country looked chaotic, unorganized, poor and third world.  But we had our soft corners, for those of us in the US, the first trip back home was a journey to heaven – something that we would start counting down for months in advance.  My trip back – to be back with the family, to see the streets of Madras, and Delhi, to be on a road trip to Ooty, to be on the train ride from Madras to Delhi or wherever. Nostalgia was at its best.  Yet when I rode on a cab from the Bombay Airport to Chembur, through Kalina, and Dharavi, the starkness of India’s poverty remained etched in my memory.  Will we ever get past this?  Like Buddha who questioned suffering and the GINI of his times we did too.  We did not have a formula or a solution to set any of this right.  I was back in US, if there was pride in the country it was that we were a democracy ,found  a unique way to win independence, and were backed by an ancient civilization wisdom. 

 

The elusive promise of liberalization? Years whizzed by in the US.  The experiences I gained laid a fabulous platform for professional growth,  But something magical happened in India in 1991.  A new leader Narasimha Rao grabbed the moment, and converted India’s economic crisis into a spring-board for reform along with Dr.Manmohan Singh an Oxford educated economist – this while others were whipping up passions around caste and religion, here was a group that had their sights set forward.  We saw what Japan, Korea, and Taiwan had accomplished by embracing market economics – was this our magic bullet.  I subscribed to India Today, and read the business section of Times of India while in the US, looking for signs of India galloping ahead.  Yes, there were new car manufacturers, Contessa? Nissan 118NE – a rust prone Lada with a 1975 Japanese engine, and a Standard 2000 that looked like an elongated Ford Pinto, and of course the Maruti.    We had many motorbikes and scooters flooding the market.  There were restaurants galore in major cities serving every cuisines, while resorts mushroomed around all major cities if we wanted a weekend get away.  And there I was back in India for good, with tons of optimism working for a national lab, and traveling across India for work and family and soaking it all in.  My friends and cousins said it was only the rich getting richer- the poor were staying poor.  During one of those train rides, past Dadar, with slums choc-o-block, I wondered whether anything had changed, and what would it take.  My road trips across south would tell me that abject poverty was no longer seen.  The fact remained that while we  saw progress it was not enough.  Not even after PC’s dream budget of 1996/97.  By 1998, we BJP clawing its into power, mustering enough supporters to survive in 1999.  But the leader Vajpayee seemed a good man, and his cabinet were full of stalwarts.  While Gujarat lurched to the violent right, Vajpayee launched the Golden Quadrilateral, ensuring that the major metros were linked by 4 laned highways – leap-frogging the elite into modernity while generating thousands of jobs in rural India.  His finance minister, Yashwanth Sinha, had fiscal discipline in his veins, interest rates plummeted and the country seem to be on a roll..  So what were we proud of?  I think there was a sense of dignity and strength with which we dealt with Kargil, it was amazing that a government with a badge of Hindu Nationalism would pave the way for APJ Abdul Kalam as the President, Hitting those three figure speeds on a four lane highway felt good, . Vajpayee campaigned with the India Shining tag line.  We had only one breakthrough year of economic growth – of 8% in those 5 years   India’s car market had barely crossed a million vehicles.  More than a decade into liberalization, India was struggling to make serious dents in poverty,  The poor were voting for their wallets, and UPA got elected in 2004.

Amid the din did it come together?  In 2004, the elections brought in a regime change – Dr, Manmohan Singh was anointed as the Prime Minister, and he brought in a capable finance minister.  But he was a humble listener.  Left leaning economists and leaders, people like Aruna Roy and Jean Dreaze had his ears too.  While continued reforms took care of urban organized economy, the surpluses from the same were getting ploughed back into a right to work program – called MNREGA.  The farmers were making better incomes through continued growth in Minimum Support Price, while better PDS ensured that affordable food grains reached most.  While many questioned what MNREGA would accomplish, it reset the market rates for manual labour.  A poor labourer could earn Rs 500 for six hours of work loading a cement truck.  Manual labour began to pay.  And it had a cascading effect.  Plumbers and electricians  made enough money to have smart phones, two wheeler sales soared in the villages; Fast moving consumer goods found volumes in rural India.  India’s 2 wheeler sales grew 300% in a decade after 2002,   car sales zoomed 250% by 2013 from 2004.  .  Creating policy instruments that gave money directly in the hands of the poor and aspiring classes had a cascading effect on the economy.  Until the financial shock world wide in 2008, India managed to do much of this without a surging deficit.  In fact deficit was at its lowest in 2007.  The surplus that India produced was also ploughed into modernizing its airports (Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Mumbai) and starting metro construction in several cities.  Commentators started talking about eradicating poverty within a decade, Tata wanted to mass produce a car that could be sold at a two wheeler price to the masses.  If we wanted to puff our chests in pride, the self effacing Prime Minister was the very opposite, he went about his business like a shy school boy,  If there were corrupt ministers Manmohan seemed to be quite content looking the other way.  After all India always operated like that?  But the din of corruption and scams was built up by the opposition.  A 300% growth in GDP or 250% increase vehicle sales or 140 million Indians escaping poverty  in a little over a decade barely won respect, while we got worked up over corruption.  Real or otherwise.  In the mean-while after more than 25 years the reins of power in the Congress party was formally back in the hands of the Gandhi family.   For a society increasingly used to meritocracy at work , in sports and more, having a less effective family scion was at odds.  Thanks to the din of corruption. and seeing the Gandhi family back in the saddle and Hindutva first, many voted for BJP again.  While those of us looking for pride in India failed to grasp the substantial  progress in economy during the Manmohan days, we just got lost in the din. 

 

Data and the roar of the lion? If Manmohan Singh had the voice of a lamb, Modi roared like a lion. Modi had a multipronged agenda – of making India proud of its Hindu roots, drive a majoritarian rule, reverse Article 370, and demonstrate economic development through top down, visible projects – a 10 lane expressway, Vande Bharat trains, decked up stations, renewable energy, digitization (nothing escapes the tax man) – while being free from the tyranny of small change) and more.  Each of these initiatives were done under the branding of Prime Minster. Almost a decade into the Namo regime, his branding and name are driven very effectively in social media by hundreds of peers.  The question is have we cracked the development piece?  Of launching India into the orbit of developed nations?  I go back and look at emerging economies of the 1980s.  – like Korea or Taiwan, which were growing at 8 to 9% annum, producing almost all the goods that the world wanted, or China between 2003 and 2018, that emerged as the worlds largest car market, largest producer of steel, of computers, cell phones, solar panels, of eliminating poverty and slums all together.  A trip last year from Mumbai airport to Navi Mumbai took me past Kalina towards Sion and New Bombay.  The disparity between the glittering high rises and those on the streets seems as stark as ever.  A full 50 years after childhood, I find many more affluent traveling in fast day time trains like Vandi Bharat; but across the platform one may chance on a train that does improbable destinations such as Alleppey to Darbhanga, or Kanyakumari to Dirburgarh, or just Mumbai to Kolkatta.  The unreserved coaches are called Deen Dayalu, chances are the coaches are packed to the brim.  They are prepared to crouch, stand or squat for 30 hours or more to go home, in UP, Bihar, West Bengal.  One would have expected a cleaner government with a bias for action to drive higher GDP growth.  But that is not to be.  India’s two wheeler sales reached their peak of 20 million in 2018 and slide down to 14 million, the same as that in 2014.  Indias car sales volume is barely 35% more than the peak seen between 2004 and 2014; the market size is one ffth of China.  Consumption of FMCG has continued to see anaemic growth.  The elephant in the room is how do we address underdevelopment and poverty.  The government’s answer seems to be to drive policies that provide more amenities to the poor – in the form of piped water, subsidized food grains or very modest cash transfers.  But what has not happened is to creation of policy instruments that increase disposable income for the poor.  The per capita income gap between states like UP, Bihar have only widened in comparison to TN, Karnataka or Telengana, or Maharashtra  Unlike left leaning liberal newspapers, Times of India peddles hope, most of the time.  Its centre page had someone from UP state – that all this Mandir is good, but was this all distraction? 

 

We have a living heritage:  India’s cultural heritage is deep, its temples and forts and palaces remain magnificent; and amenities around them are improving rapidly.  India’s music – folk and classical, poems and prose – classical or Kabir, are living traditions.  India;s mind boggling nature capital - from snow clad peaks and glaciers to rain forests to montane sholas and grasslands to coastal mangroves.  It is everywhere.  India’s philosophy, springing from Vedanta, or Buddha, or Guru Nanak are alive and kicking.  Abrahamic religions have a sound footing in many parts of the country and they contribute to the nation in a myriad ways.  Just look at the cricket team – veritable mosaic of languages, religions, economic strata and see how they gel together.  


So that elephant in the room?

So there is only one elephant in the room

 I would like to ask, are we on a trajectory to erase poverty and ensure that 700 million or more in rural India and the 100 million or more living in crowded urban dwellings, live a life of dignity, just like a government bureaucrat in RK Puram. Anything else is a distraction.  If we stoke the religious divide, or obsess over Hindi, or say Tamil for that matter, we will invite other elephants into the room.

 

From a heart that is beating with a pinch of pride, a bit of hope, a bit of humility, and some angst.. And may be some nostalgia, because amidst the din the doctor sahab seemed to have gotten this right.

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

 

Peripherally yours, Chennai

 

Centrifugal forces have been acting on me at large,  and over the decades, getting me to explore new facets of Madras – now Chennai – in its different facets.  We would  as kids travel from Delhi to Madras, spend a few days in Mylapore and quickly take the meter gauge train from Egmore to Thanjavur and descend further into quaintness. 

Yes, there was less traffic in Madras, and yes the pace was unhurried, but the poverty was stark, and the differences between haves and have-nots was a really deep chasm.  By early 1980s things began to change – we moved to Adyar while grandparents lived in Mylapore, a few airconditioned joints showed up in Mt. Road, a hole in the wall in Adyar had a name called Hungry Tiger doling what was called Pizza, and if we needed Chinese food, we could catch a 5B, or drive a herald or a vespa and eat at Waldorfs just before the IIT gate,.  A decade and more later, with Ford at Maraimalai nagar, and TCS at the TIDEL park in madras, the city actually had a consuming middle class – along with an array of restaurants – Eden, Wangs Kitchen, Dasa Dosa, Cascade and the like that kept those looking to unwind a place to do so, in airconditioned comfort and friendly service.  And with movie theatres and a mall (Spencers) and the sabhas in December for the cultural affirmation.  If people wanted an outing and a swig,  Mahabs was an hour away and two hours more there was Pondy.     And for an evening stroll on the beach there was Bessie,.  Madras or Chennai seemed to still retain that cosy feel, while growing in comforts.  Those who were in were in.  Lets leave it at that.

Perhaps our future has little in common with the black hole, with its mammoth inward pull..  As it often happen in these modern times, people find other places and pursuit to disperse into.   While life had taken me to US for a decade and more I have found a nest in the cooler Bengaluru, assignments and family still calls me to Chennai – but this time around it is as far away as Kalyan is from Churchgate.   To places like Maraimalai Nagar and more.  Even a city with a reputation for efficiency as Chennai will throw a traffic jam or two if the commute is 50 KM.  I found that the magic lies in multimodal transport – a fast airconditioned metro to Meenambakkam and an Uber from there.  Sometimes meetings would yank me around like a yo-yo from south Chennai to places like Padi.  So I get Uber to take me around.  My first question to the Uber driver is, is the AC good.  Some of them will say – sir – come to the front.  And  in the next 40 minutes I would strike a conversation or sometimes listen in to their world.  His daughter asking when is he going to come home – his wife asking him to buy sweets as guests are coming.  I would ask them where are they from – Bodi, Ramanthapuram, Chengam, Nellore.   The drivers are a polite lot, each having a different taste – the radio-stations whose film songs play to the lowest common denominator in any language were often ignored by the drivers – “yaaru sir, atheu paatu kaettindu, thalai than valikum – who can listen to these songs again and again – it is just a headache”.  Some of them play a downloaded movie on their cell phone – Jai Bhim – that’s discerning..  he turned down the volume and turned to me and said – sir – my target is 3000 rupees a day, 25 days a month.  If I do that I run my home, take my family to the movies, send my kid to an English medium school and send money to my village,  Another driver drove clients from Truichy and was trying to Uber his way back, at least till Mahindra world city to cover his fuel and toll.  He said Truichy is not an Uber city – he has his network of tourist hotels and thrives on temple tourism.   Most recently a Wagon R  had a large central console – the driver logged me in, touched the touch screen, scrolled to a You tube channel in Tamilnadu – the topic was polluting thermal power and nuclear plants and their safety.. what happened in Fukushima was lucidly explained.  So I asked the driver is he an engineer – yes – I drive Uber sometimes – and he talked about solar panels in every-rooftop with batteries to reduce load on thermal power and much more -  yes – we prosper here because there is peace and there are no divisions based on religion and there should not be any class / caste differences –no one higher and no one lower,  if that really happens it would be even better.   Mylapore is of course 50 KM away from these conversations.  The evening took us to the fabled Old Mahabalipruram Road – from GST road, and Vandalur, bisecting the gloriously wooded  zoo the  left and some land cornered by forest department – equally wooded to the right.  More patches of lakes and woods followed – giving way to VIT,  and then residential towers and IT parks and on to Old Mahabalipuram Road – Madhya Kailash (at Adyar) – 30 KMs it said – while IT complexes and swank apartments sprung out of land in or abutting water bodies – with restaurants and malls on the main road.  A new Chennai – hopefully a bit more peripheral to the hardened divisions of class and more, knitted together by Ubers in case one wants to mingle a bit more by design or circumstance, instead of our own cocoons of commute to office and home.


Wednesday, August 30, 2023

For the threads that bind...


 

On the threads that bind…

Happy xxxx is a greeting often seen in social media, and today’s feed was no different. A day spent to honest materials research under a hot shop floor with cutting edge materials and a data logging laptop was interrupted with a happy Onam. Yes happy Oman I messaged back. Happy namo came another response. Sure he is I thought and got back to work. The day done; a cool Uber took me to an air-conditioned metro which took me to Chennai central.  Happy Onam the lady greeted to someone over the phone. That done her phone with a Jesus Saves as the DP buzzed, her tone was more than a tad respectful. What did you eat? Was the Avial OK? He is on a call, right? I will take a metro and come home. Not to worry. Ah. Ah. Sure. Thanks. Tomorrow is Avani Avittam? Oh yeah. Are we going to make payasam? Sure. The person next to me was juggling cultures and schedules. Unfettered by healthy diet, I waved out when ice-cream vendor passed by, cutlets, avoided cold dosas with rivers of chutney and dozed off. My school group buzzed. There was an argument between free speech loving American desis and anti-preached desis. Happy Raksha  bandhan and happy Avani Avittam said another thread. While these are well intentioned events, with the former supporting some interaction between genders when it was all frowned upon, while the latter is a brahmin male’s ritual committing to learning and piety, marked by the changing of sacred thread, to mark  the  retrieval of Vedas stolen by demons back to Brahma – however this tradition excludes women and men who are not brahmins by birth.  Hence the debate, to put it mildly.

The best interpretation of the Raksha Bandhan is that women are vulnerable, and the men protect them tying what is a platonic knot symbolised in the form of a thread. Who are they protected from? The nameless underworld? A frustrated lumpen? Or those who belong to any other? And why not the other way round. The men who are vulnerable to myriad pressures, including being robbed, mugged, cyber duped? I That only the males offer protection is a stereotype.

Avani Avittam is the day when Brahmin males change their sacred thread. A morning spent in gentle male bonding within the clan, with shlokas narrated, Ganesha propitiated, an hour spent cross legged in front of a smoky fire, verses narrated without comprehending the meaning.  The girls don’t get to partake, they can of course cook dishes to mark the event.  People from other castes are not a part of this ritual.   A tradition that is kept alive partly out of belief, and partly because other good traditions are under assault.  Well, others are not equipped to understand is the refrain.  The shlokas, even the more profound ones are not too complicated. If high school kids can solve differential equations and perform matrix inversions and multiplications they certainly will not blank out when asked to narrate the meaning of Gayatri Mantra. While these rituals are replete with meaning and symbolism, connecting us to the divine, exclusion is the only problem.

So here is a simple appeal to make all threads universal.

Switching to the corporate world, threads have become a buzz word. Especially a digital thread. In such a magically connected world, the digitised design process would interface with CAD drawings and on to production and on to production records and on to service records. The digital thread becomes the nerve Centre of organisation learning and memory. To lend complete meaning one needs to have a digital twin that connects changes to a component in service to how it got there in the first place, the manufacturing parameters, supplier heat numbers, quality records,and operating conditions including life limiting locations. Getting those threads connected is more that appending files, but getting to really understand material response to service conditions. Such a philosophy can be applied  to anything that is manufactured and put to use.   From implants to airfoils to batteries. A thread built on rigor. But like all engineering proclivities this such an approach tends to  be reductionist in nature, trying to simplify the complex. The unknowns are not dug further. But mashed under a probabilistic response. The focus has shifted more towards the digital thread and digital twin.  In some ways the systems response is like solving a multiple choice tough exam.  The toughest of the problems is left unsolved, while those that find traction are solved.   The corrosion condition that pushed the material to pit and crack gets ignored; the failure of a seal upstream in allowing the hotter gas flow to reach critical locations is ignored too.  The digital twin supports decision making for typical conditions while transients and upset events which are life limiting often get ignored.  But like a college kid who could ace the exam without knowing everything, initiatives like the digital twin continue to allow the organization to live the 80 – 20 rule without comprehending that when the bad 20% catches up one could be caught napping.

Therefore we engineers, have not quite gotten ourselves to say happy digital thread day..: today is Avani Avittam. Time to reboot the computers and data.  Partly because engineers on the ground, except for  the super ambitious are grounded. They are quite aware of the physics that is missing, in not being able to predict that corrosion fatigue failure, that fatigue interaction, that flutter induced damage event. With so many unknowns, the ones who are honest say, well the digital twin is great when the entire physics is nailed, but we need money to nail the entire physics.  However, the lure of a digital twin, that combines probabilistic algorithms with an 80% understanding of physics, to predict machine performance and failures, caught the upper leadership and drove a culture where the physics need not be completely understood.   The digital thread falls short of the ideal and needs to be further tuned.

Which gets us back to other threads in the society that bind and divide; Can all other societal threads be tuned too. To produce a twang that sounds inclusive

 

Saturday, April 22, 2023

 

A full court press to reduce emissions.

Dr. K. Anand

 

Today, April 22nd is earth day.  The CO2 emissions level stands at 420.87 ppm.  It was 395 ppm a decade ago in 2013.  We are registering an annual increase of 2.5 ppm per year.  The median CO2 ppm for the scary 1.5 deg rise is 520 ppm - we are just 4 decades away that milestone if not sooner.  Power generation is the biggest contributor to emissions, accounting for more than 50% of green-house gas emissions in India.

 

Climate change, along with the urban heat island effects have pushed energy consumption to record levels  For example peak power demand has gone up by 50% in Tamil Nadu in less than a decade, and well before summer.  Despite the growing footprint of Renewables (RE), about 75% of the energy on tap comes from fossil fuel in India.  Given that wind energy is seasonal and feasible only in pockets, and solar energy is subject to variability in weather (smog, clouds, dust), this should come as no surprise.   With the country recovering from COVID the last two years have seen some of the highest offtake of coal in recent times.  Coal – freight trains now clog the tracks dispatching fuel to thermal power plants cranking at full capacity.   Given that the energy demand continues to be met through increased use of fossil fuels one needs to be honest in facing these facts and ask where the solution for the energy sector is, develop technologies and invest accordingly.

 



 

Fossil fuel-based power comprises of more than 75% of the delivered energy

Electricity sector in India - Wikipedia

An interesting question is can nature-based approaches such as afforestation and rapid increase in green cover provide a solution.  It would be interesting to take data from one state to explore this further.  Tamil nadu consumed forty-one crore units of power in one day on April 20th according to The Hindu.  With 75% of the power coming from thermal power, this translates into thirty crore units of power from thermal power or close to fifty crore  Kg of coal burnt per day, resulting in 125 crore Kg or 1.25 million tons of CO2 in a day.  To sequester this back through forest-based solutions is a
daunting task.  . 
Tamil Nadu’s standing forests of about 26000 sq km (20% of area) – six million acres would redress sixty million tons of CO2 or 60 days of emissions.  To sequester a year’s worth of emissions about 120000 sq.km of land area – or over 90% of the state needs to have green cover, which is impossible.   However, there are opportunities to mitigate this further, by converting lower carbon per hectare monoculture plantations to six hundred Tons / Hectare rain forests and sholas where possible, by regenerating mangroves across the coast, by converting barren coastal regions to dry evergreen forests such as those seen in Guindy and Point Calimere.  However one needs to be honest in acknowledging that these are mitigative steps and not the sole pathway to reach Nett Zero emissions.



 

A six hundred Tons / Hectare Shola Forest in Nilgiris

 

 

.   Clearly nature-based approaches are only part of the puzzle. One needs to redress emissions footprint for the different power generation modalities,  at source.  Potential solutions for include:


Technologies to Reduce Emissions from Power Generation by 5 to 30%:

 

·         More efficient thermal power. ultra super critical thermal for coal, coal gasification. And combined cycle gas turbines powered by syn-gas for reduced emissions even at higher cost.  This would reduce emissions from existing thermal power plants by about 20%

 

·         Combined cycle gas turbines at 64% efficiency as against 36% to 42% for new coal-based power plants.  This can reduce emissions by 30%

 

·         Carbon capture at an industrial scale.  While this would increase energy demand by 5 to 10%, all of CO2 in principle can be captured  - and could be part of a nett zero emissions play,

 

·         Thermal power augmented with biofuel – includes agro-residues, municipal waste.  Agro-waste is a renewable resource, and it contributes to reduced emissions to about 10 to 15% maximum.

 

 


Technologies for Zero Emissions

 

·         More renewables , offshore wind to address peak power demand in the evening. (5 to 10% of local energy demand)..  Of shore wind can generate up to three times  the energy per acre compared to on-shore installations

 

·         More Solar and wind energy,  rooftop solar and wind,  Irrigation pumps powered by solar contributing to zero emissions.

 

·         Nuclear.- despite risks this is a mature technology capable of delivering 24 x 7 power.  Counties such as France had shown clear thinking by resorting nuclear energy to meet 68% of its energy requirements through nuclear power.  Small nuclear power plants are an alternative that reduce risks of catastrophic exposure of population to radiation leaks should there be an accident.

 

·         Small Hydro  – these runs of the river installations amounting to less than a MW of power can harness energy from flowing streams. 

 

·         Agro-waste driven distributed power can unlock more revenue streams for farmers.  Crop waste, excreta from cattle could be used to generate either liquid fuel, methane, natural gas, or hydrogen to generate power, making farmers nett suppliers of energy.  Since any form of agro-waste or residue is a renewable resource these sources of energy are nett zero in emissions,

 

·         Green Hydrogen and ammonia – derived from renewable sources.

 

We have a plethora of technologies to reduce emissions.  Among these the only ones that are deployed at a mass scale accounting to a significant proportion of the energy mix are solar and wind energy.  The country requires a full court press – including technologies to reduce emissions from fossil fuel-based power, all renewable or Nett zero emissions energy sources, and nature-based solutions to sequester back greenhouse gases.

 

The country can clearly do more than what is being done now.  These tangible steps to maintain energy security while reducing emissions footprint could be the driver for future economic growth,

 

 

References

 

1              Electricity sector in India - Wikipedia

 

2.            Natural Resources Research (


 2019) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11053-019-095
TV Ramchandra et. Al. “Carbon Sequestration Potential of the Forest Ecosystems in the Western Ghats, a Global Biodiversity Hotspot”

 

 

 

 

 



 

Sunday, August 14, 2022

India @75 - Setting the Agenda

 

When India attained independence in 1947, it was one of the poorest countries in the world.  Holding its diverse population together, with different religions, speaking in more than 20 different languages, and preventing mass famine and fatal epidemics was India’s main challenge.  However, thanks to its freedom movement, which brought together educated and visionary leaders and idealistic masses, the country retained a core dignity and promise which other newly independent nations strived for.  India became a natural leader of the developing world, forming the non-aligned movement which carved out a separate space for countries that did not want chose between the Soviet and USA blocks.  The country’s leadership worked hard to modernize India, creating public sector organizations that industrialized India, creating national labs for industrial, nuclear and space research, and technology universities that were world class.  While India made steady progress in major indicators – 60% increase in life expectancy from 1950 to 1990, a 300% increase in per capita GDP from 1960 to 1990, other developing nations leaped ahead, some close to joining the ranks of developed economies such as South Korea or Taiwan.  China while remaining under the rule of the Communist Party, opened its economy in waves, starting from 1979, and again in 1990s to now emerge as the world’s second largest economy.  Smaller nations such as Malaysia and Thailand embraced the manufacturing and services economy to grow out of poverty by the early 1980s.

 

India by contrast never quite had a plan.  The opposition was more interested in identity politics – mobilizing people along the lines of caste or religion.  Congress was stuck in scams and slogans of the past, till an impending economic collapse forced it to liberalize in 1991.  While the potential benefits was all too evident, when one considered nations like China, Korea, or Malaysia, neither the intellectuals nor the opposition had really signed up for the policy changes in 1991.  After a decade of moderate growth, India began to accelerate economically from the early 2000s, with benefits in the form of better amenities, airports, metros, malls, communication tools, higher wages available to many; more than 140 million people climbed out of poverty.  Even relatively poor states such as UP by now have about one in three homes with a two-wheeler.  Yet about 38 to 52% of the population is poor in states like UP, Bihar and MP, as defined by NiTI Ayog’s Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (MDPI) in 2022.   When one examines other metrics such as infant and maternal mortality , % literacy, life expectancy, we continue to perform poorly as compared to neighbours such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and not much better than several Sub-Saharan nations.  So the benefits of liberalization and economic growth have not been far reaching  - and India remains in several large pockets, poor and underdeveloped.  For many in the middle and upper middle class – about 30% of India, life has turned out to be better.  The amenities that one could afford now were way beyond reach or unavailable a generation ago, and this includes TVs, appliances, vehicles, smart phones, vacations, air travel. 

 

However there is work to be done, the roads tend to be dusty, potholed, with pockets of garbage strewn around.  24x7 water and power supply for many is a pipe-dream. Sanitation is poor in villages, with open gutters carrying sewage being the norm.   The railway transportation is way behind China and Europe in terms of speeds and comfort.   Pollution is a major issue across northern and eastern India, and impacts over 500 million people.  The society is unequal and stratified along religious and caste lines.  India is facing extreme weather events thanks to climate change and increased emissions.  And over the past 3 decades India had to face up to sponsored terror from one country and military intrusions from another.

The question is seventy-five years post-independence, can the country square up to these challenges and get its act together.  Do citizens of the country understand and feel the pain?  Do its citizens realize that the agenda for the country needs to be far more focused going forward compared to what it is being driven today?    So what should be on the agenda for the country?

There needs to be a quantum leap in the level of amenities that need to be available and within reach for its citizens – this includes roads, piped water, sanitation, primary health care, good schools, and housing.  India’s GDP is $3 trillion.  The country spending in the social sector is barely 10% of its GDP.  The resources required need to be an order of magnitude higher.  This cannot be done by the government on its own.  It needs to be a partnership with the private industry and NGOs, where it makes sense.  The government needs to spend more on human resources – teachers, anganwadi workers, asha workers, nurses, doctors to make a dent in education and health care.  Yet the country cannot print money – any strategy that does not consider macro-economic factors such as fiscal prudence would quickly put India and Sri Lanka of 2022 on par.  The resources required to make India a developed nation can come only from broad based economic growth, aided by a supportive government, a moderate and soft tax regime, a simplified bureaucracy, and innovative policies that direct economic growth and better wages towards the poor.  The last masterstroke was MNREGA.  The country cannot ride that horse forever.  It needs to drive business innovations and technologies where rural India derives more value from its food grain and horticultural produce, and find new opportunities from agro-waste, resulting in agrofuels and energy.  The county needs to democratize renewable energy and ensure that even poor households are able to sell power back to the local grids from their roof tops.

The citizens need to internalize and understand that it is only broad-based socio-economic growth that will help the country stand tall.  Yes, India’s unique cultural heritage and plurality makes the country special.  But if India’s culture gets mired in identity politics, its heritage would become a millstone.  To progress India needs to maintain a focused agenda which is stated below.

1.       The basics cannot be compromised, this includes maintaining fiscal prudence, strong defence, preserving its nature capital, and increased self-sufficiency especially for its basic needs – food, energy , transportation.

 

2.       8 to 10% GDP Growth.  A decade of 8 to 10% growth in GDP would result in the economy trebling in size which would provide the required resources to upgrade India’s infrastructure when it comes to roads, housing, healthcare, sanitation and water, and education to that of a middle-income country.  India grew at 8 to 10% GDP for nearly a decade from 2002 till 2011.  India must do this again. 

 

3.       New Jobs in Sustainability and Climate Change:  This would take investments, R&D and building capacity in current and emerging modes of renewable power and water resources.  The country needs to create skilled manpower to support renewable energy and decarbonization.  However mitigating climate change would also involve maintaining and augmenting the country’s natural capital.  Ecological restoration is required in arguably 10 to 15% of India’s landmass and this would require knowhow and participation of local communities.  Sustainability as an economic pillar could readily exceed 15% of India’s GDP and can cut across manufacturing, agricultural and services sectors   Sustainability should be treated as a key vertical for the country and provide employment across the spectrum, from  manual labourers to PhDs.

 

4.       Agriculture – throughput and value creation and addition:  India has made impressive gains in agriculture.  Techniques such as SRI have improved productivity of rice and sugarcane.  Mechanization compatible with small land holdings has emerged in several parts of the country which reduces input costs and improves productivity.  Drip irrigation is now commonly used to reduce water consumption.  Solar and wind powered pumps can improve energy and water security.  Cold storage, seamless and decentralised farm to retail shop connect can help.  Developing new pillars around biomass-based fuels specially for the ethanol blended fuels and energy would be vital.

 

5.       Current segments in full throttle:  India has a fairly mature services and manufacturing economy.  Its IT and financial sectors are booming.  Inflation and efficient taxation have reduced disposable income for most consumers.  India’s recovery will be consumption driven.  India’s taxation policies need to in tune with the imperatives of growth.  Once growth is kickstarted across the country, India’s coffers would automatically go up.  And this would enhance the ability of the government to make a more positive impact on the livelihoods and amenities enjoyed by the common man.

 

6.       A decade of peace:  it is a given that for any country with a history as long as that of India, there could have been historical injustices and violence suffered by different segments of the society.  But that is distant past.  India has signed up for a secular present and future where everyone is equal.  At least now, this should be the decade for Indians to live in amity, knowing that heart of heart very few countries provide the space and freedom to practise one’s cultural heritage and identity the way India does.   We as citizens of India need to watch out and ensure that the agenda is that socio economic growth, and not strife.  We have a President of the country who comes from the Adivasi community.  She cannot be a token leader. Just as the tiger, a flagship species represents India’s nature capital, so do Adivasis, in demonstrating how life could be led in coexistence.  Their aspirations and needs have to be met too,

 

India, the world’s 5th largest economy is at a fork, never has the promise of prosperity for most been more within reach, nor has its vulnerabilities so sharply exposed. This is the time for India to stand up.  On the 75th anniversary of our independence.