Another Way To Approach Fear And Anger

Marguerite Theophil





A good number of us may cope with pain and fear by trying to ignore it all, hoping it will disappear. Or, as much of Western mythology teaches us, we can boldly `confront' fears and obstacles, in order to overcome them.However, in many Eastern traditions we are offered a somewhat different, rather surprising way to deal with fears and challenges. We are encouraged, whenever possible, to courageously choose to understand and `befriend' them.Stories that different traditions pass on contain wise approaches to some tough things that life tosses us. Let's look at a story adapted from Buddhist tradition about a demon who fed on the fear and anger of those of the human world, where there was no lack of food for him. It was all too easy to grow big and fat on easily provoked family quarrels, religious, communal or national hatred. He became even more ambitious and thought: “Shouldn't I move up from humans, and try with the devas, the shining ones?“ He decided to choose the realm of the 33 devas ruled by King Sakka, because, he knew that the inhabitants were far above petty and selfish quarrels ­ but though they were from a higher realm and therefore better than humans, only a few of them had really completely eliminated the shackles of fear, ill-will and aversion.
Fortunately for him, he arrived there when King Sakka was away . Finding no one in the large audience hall, the demon seated himself on Sakka's empty throne, waiting quietly for things to occur, which he hoped would bring him a tasty, satiating feast.
When the first devas entered, they could hardly believe their eyes ­ a disgusting monster sat on the royal throne, drooling and grinning.Recovering from their initial shock, they immediately began to wail and shout: “You awful demon! How dare you sit on the throne of our ruler? What insolence! Such utter disrespect! You should be cast headlong into the lowest hells, straight into a boiling cauldron! Get out! Get out!“ The demon continued to stay where he was, laughing at their tantrums, growing more elated as their anger increased.
Moment by moment gorging on their fear and anger, he grew in size, in strength, in power, in fearsomeness. And the anger he absorbed into his system started to ooze as a smoky-red, stinking, glowing mist that kept the devas at a distance and even dimmed their natural radiance.
Suddenly a bright glow appeared at the other end of the hall growing into a dazzling light from which the deva-king appeaka approached, unshaken by what red. Sakka approached, unshaken by what he saw. The smoke screen created by the anger of the devas parted as he slowly and politely approached the usurper of his throne, saying: “Welcome, friend! Please remain seated, relax. I can take another chair. May I offer you our hospitality?“ While Sakka spoke these genuinely friendly words, the demon, being denied his nourishment, rapidly shrank and finally disappeared, leaving behind only a faint whiff of smelly smoke which soon dissolved.
The story suggests that often an unexpected, more interesting, kind, adventurous, often playful approach to many issues is called for, one that develops our capacity for alternative solutions, not our immediately reactive fear.
The results can really surprise us.We could end up realising the `enemy' is weaker than we imagined; we could uncover and release past hurts; come to an understanding of the roots of our habits; find out gentleness is often strength; learn to trust our inner wisdom more deeply .

93% of alcohol consumed in India is hard liquor

Chittaranjan Tembheka

Mumbai:





Around 93% of al cohol consumed in India is hard liquor. Tipplers in the country love their spirits and are yet to warm up to beer, the chilled beverage that the rest of the world prefers.The consumption of beer (alcoholic content up to 9%) stood at only 7% leaving wine consumption with a statistical ly negligible figure of 0.1%, ac cording to a survey by All India Brewers Association (AIBA).
Interestingly, consump tion pattern in richer coun tries show beer and wine scor ing higher, says an AIBA white paper on the beer industry .
One of the reasons for low beer consumption in India is attributed to high taxation Higher VAT, service tax and excise duty leads to beer be ing priced as much as IMFL or at times even more, prompt ing people to go for spirits which give them stronger “kick“ than beer or wine.
Estimates from an NSSO survey show that at the nation al level, per capita per week consumption of toddy and country liquor was almost twice (1.9 times) the consump tion of beer, foreign liquor and wine combined. “For Rs 100 one can buy 180ml of loca whiskey , which works out to about Rs 1.3 per ml of alcohol The same amount will buy a 650ml bottle of strong beer, but because of the lower alcoho level, people pay over twice as much per mlr,“ the AIBA pa per said. “Beer if taxed ratio nally , positioned more liberal ly, viewed more positively wil wean people away from hard liquor. This will therefore do immense good to society at large, if beer is delinked from hard liquor in terms of perception, taxation, availability and distribution.“
“Neither the law protects people from such intoxication nor there is any policy that promotes other beverages than those containing larger amount of pure spirits to prohibit bad effects on health.Over and above the taxation is so high that beer prices are at an all-time high forcing people to drink hard liquor, which they apparently like more for the `kick',“ said sources. It has been observed that an average Indian pays five to six times the manufacturing cost, making liquor prices significantly higher than 95% of other countries and more so in case of beer.
“India needs to differentiate between distilled alcoholic beverages (high strength alcohol products) from fermented alcoholic beverages like beer. Moderation or responsible consumption must be encouraged by counselling and enforced by policing,“ said AIBA director general Shobhan Roy . Roy de manded pricing formula based on alcoholic content to place beer at level-playing field in the Indian market.“Beer has much lower content of alcohol compared to IMFL and country liquor, itsModerate consumption of beer as against other forms of alcohol products may lead to reduction in the level of intoxication and hence, positive societal impact.
Therefore, there is a strong case for the government authorities to provide necessary policy support for facilitating a shift in alcohol consumption from hard liquor to beer. Kerala has made an attempt and we need to support it,Beer taxation is becoming volume and price driven without considering the low alcohol content. This is the crux of the dichotomy that low alcoholic beverages like beer are declining and high spirits are progressing leading to social issues.“ he added.
As per the AIBA data, the major market for the beer is the southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, which account for almost 50%. Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh were the other big markets.
The paper pointed out that the beer market in India was valued at USD 4.13 billion (about Rs 24,000 crore) in 2013, contributing significantly to GDP and boosting tax revenues of the government. The industry had a compounded annual growth rate of over 12% between 2004 and 2013, but it declined to 3.3% in 2012-13.
For the full report log on to http:www.timesofindia.com

Source: Times of India, 9-02-2016

Species count down 15%, sets alarm bells ringing

New Delhi: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





Bird Watchers Call For Urgent Steps To Protect Wetlands

The results of Big Bird Day 2016 have left many worried as the total number of species in NCR seems to have come down significantly since 2005.The annual event, which sees participation from teams across the country , sends all its data to ebird portal which consolidates and arrives at trends. BBD organisers told TOI that each team reported a 10% to 15% decline in last year's numbers but birders arent' sure why .Members of the Delhi Bird Group, who organise the event, said wetlands in NCR need to be protected immediately and scientific studies should be conducted to understand why numbers are going down even as the number of birding teams are increasing. For instance, this year, four more teams participated and scouted new places.
BBD began in 2004 as a fun exercise for birders in the NCR but it is now conducted nationwide. The information gathered from this event is valuable for conservation too as it gives people an idea of whether biodiversity is declining or improving over years. “Last year, Bhindawas reported the highest number of species at 184.This time it saw only 150. Somebody , possibly the forest department, needs to figure out why numbers are dropping. Very good wetlands like Basai near Noida are facing immense pressure from the construction sector,“ said Bikram Grewal, author and birder.
This time there were a couple of surprises too--Dighal, a wetland near Jhajjar, reported 161 species while he wetland at Dhanori, which was included for the irst time, reported 109 species. Birders said that while no extremely rare bird was spot ed, those worth mentioning nclude Red Throated Pipit, Whistler's Warbler and Grey Bushchat. “There are vagrant species that are not seen very often in the city ,“ added Grewal.
Scientists at Yamuna Biodiversity Park (YBP) also reported a marginal decline in numbers with about 100 species in 2013, 95 in 2014, 109 in 2015 and 92 in 2016. “It is difficult to say what is causing he trend. It could be local habitat loss, degrading wet lands. The possibility of the warm weather in Europe affecting migration is also being discussed. I think lack of wetland vegetation like Vallisniria, Hydrilla, Phragmitis could greatly affect species. Marshes are fast disappearing,“ said Faiyaz A Khudsar, scientist in charge, YBP.
The park has, however, also reported sightings that bring new hope. The Common Pochard, considered a `near-threatened' species by International Union for Conservation of Nature, was seen in large numbers here. Also spotted were important species such as Common Teal and Red Crested Pochards.

Source: Times of India, 9-02-2009

Removing constraints in higher education

The Global Education Meet (GEM), which was convened in Kerala last week, caught the headlines for the wrong reasons. At the venue of the meet, Students’ Federation of India (SFI) activists assaulted the vice-chairman of the state’s higher education council, T.P. Sreenivasan. The motive: To prevent acceleration of ‘commercialization’ of education.

The resistance to privatizing education and foreign investment is often based on two flawed assumptions. First, privatization inevitably leads to profiteering and compromises education, and second, public institutions always do a better job.

While the merits of GEM’s specific approach of establishing International Higher Education Zones—a kind of special education zone—are debateable, the fundamental clash of ideas on display in Kerala is telling. The protesters claimed that inviting foreign investment and foreign universities to Kerala would facilitate a “global trade in education” and would be pointless as this would benefit only a minority of students. These arguments are both atavistic— pointing to a belief in an isolated, idealized form of egalitarianism that is unworkable in practice—and indicative of the manner in which those flawed assumptions can lead people to ignore the experiences of the countries that dominate higher education globally.

The establishment of big universities with state-of-the-art facilities may not serve the purpose of educating and training every one of the multitude of India’s youth. But they raise the bar by creating healthy competition. And they have beneficial spillover effects. They can lead to establishment of enterprises, which thrive from the human resources in the given area and potentially drive the entire city’s urban growth, provided it is integrated with the city and not walled off from it. Silicon Valley benefiting from Stanford academia and Boston from Harvard and MIT are cases in point.

The structural issues inherent in India’s current higher education system—walled off for decades—are the reason for the demand-supply gap in its skill market. Private institutions account for almost two-thirds of the higher education in India (according to a 2011 report by Ernst and Young and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry). Some of them even provide the finest education in the country. Despite this, barriers are present at every level for these institutions—entry, operation and exit.

Private universities and deemed universities currently have no power to affiliate colleges, fix salaries of their faculty or even include courses in their colleges. This privilege lies entirely in the hand of the state or central university. The control of these universities, in turn, lies in the hands of the University Grants Commission (UGC), the professional councils and the government (centre and state).

Restrictions also exist on entry of foreign universities, foreign faculty and foreign collaboration. Though 100% foreign direct investment (FDI) is allowed in the education sector, the provision comes with riders. Not-forprofit principle and permitting only Section 25 companies with no foreign investment to invest in technical institutes are just a few of them. If these bottlenecks do not scare away interested foreign institutes, they can engage in exchange programmes, distance education and faculty exchange programmes with existing Indian institutes.

If India has to accommodate its rising need for higher education, granting autonomy to private institutions, liberalizing laws for foreign entrants and decentralization are a necessity and not a leisurely choice.

According to World Economic Forum’s latest report The Future of Jobs, 65% of current primary schoolchildren will end up working in completely new jobs that do not exist yet. An evolving dynamic course structure should be framed through a symbiotic association with both private and foreign partners if India has to keep pace with the world of nanotechnology, biotechnology, robotics and space research.

Research has to form an essential part of the curriculum and be linked with the industry’s requirements. The Digital India fund set aside for education may be effectively used for complementing these objectives through information and communication technology (ICT) and massive open online courses (MOOCs).

With half the population of India falling below the age of 29 and the age distribution chart swelling up considerably after 15 years, there is no better time to look at and revive the higher education sector in India. The land of Nalanda, Vikramasila and Taxila, which featured vividly in the accounts of travellers like Hsuan Tsang, I. Tsing and Strabo, currently has no varsity in the world’s top 100 ranking. Higher education in India needs more than just reform. It requires a revolution.

Will private and foreign entrants help in reviving the higher education system in India? Tell us at views@livemint.com

Source: Mint, 5-02-2016

Going against the grain

For rural India to be vibrant, the way forward is to address the twin challenges of reviving the dynamism of the farm sector by building its climate resilience and creation of quality employment in non-farm segments.

Recent reports say India has become the world’s fastest-growing economy in terms of GDP growth, overtaking China. While this may be the case, we must pause and reflect over what this means for the 800 million-plus population that lives and works in our rural areas. The picture there is a lot less spectacular.

Between 2003 and 2012, there was a clear turnaround in our agricultural performance. But the rate of growth in agriculture and allied activities is down from about 4 per cent per annum in the 11th Plan period to just 1.7 per cent in the first three years of the 12th Plan (2012-15). Over 300,000 farmers have committed suicide in the last decade, and in Maharashtra alone, over 2,000 such cases have been reported last year. Worse, India is currently reeling under the impact of an unprecedented drought. For the second year in succession, rainfall in the monsoon season has been less than normal; 302 districts in the country have been declared drought-hit. Since agriculture is the source of livelihood for millions in rural India, droughts push the already precarious lives of smallholder farmers and agricultural labourers to the brink, leading to massive rural distress.

The changing rural economy

The World Bank’s World Development Report 2008 shows that agricultural growth is at least twice as effective in reducing poverty compared to growth originating in non-agricultural sectors. In India, too, 80 per cent of the people officially counted as poor lived in rural India in 2011-12. This means that for making a significant dent in poverty, rural incomes have to grow at a faster rate. The gap between urban and rural consumption levels has increased over the years. Recent studies have shown that despite the spurt in rural incomes between 2005 and 2012 caused by a rise in commodity prices and favourable terms of trade for agriculture, the level of non-farm incomes is at least three times that of farm incomes even today.

The rural economy in its current juncture is a lot less “agricultural” than it used to be earlier. With the fall in the average size of landholding, over 90 per cent of farmers are now in the small and marginal category and they cultivate over 50 per cent of the cropped area. Smallholder farmers are increasingly forced to combine non-farm work with work on their own land. Data from the 68th round of the National Sample Survey (2011-12) show that about 36 million workers have shifted from agriculture to non-agricultural sectors between 2004-05 and 2011-12, meaning that a major part of their income comes from work outside agriculture. On account of this inter-sectoral movement, the share of agriculture in the total workforce has fallen below the 50 per cent mark for the first time after Independence. While this number has been contested, the fact remains that sectors like rural construction are now the sites employing substantial numbers of workers. Given the poor working conditions in these sectors and the overall decline in quality of employment in the economy, this is likely to be the result of a swapping of low-income farm work for low-quality non-farm work, as many observers point out.

Hence, the huge challenge of employment generation needs to be addressed. As the Economic Survey 2014-15 shows, regardless of the data source used, employment growth (1.40 per cent) has lagged behind growth in the labour force (2.23 per cent) between 2001 and 2011. Clearly, employment elasticity of growth, showing the effectiveness of the economic system in generating employment, seems to have declined over time. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has provided relief employment to around 5 crore rural households per year over the last decade. However, since 2012, both the number of households covered and the number of person days of employment generated under MGNREGA in the country as a whole has undergone a steep decline.

Public investment the key

For rural India to be vibrant, the way forward seems to be to simultaneously address the twin challenges of reviving the dynamism of the farm sector by building its climate resilience on the one hand and creation of quality employment in non-farm segments of the rural economy on the other.

Public investment holds the key to addressing the long-term structural constraints of the rural economy. Official land use statistics show that 55 per cent of cultivated area still has no access to irrigation. Variations in the pattern of seasonal rainfall themselves create extreme vulnerability in this rainfed segment of Indian agriculture. The experience of watershed projects over the last three decades has shown that local harvesting of monsoon run-off can be a good drought-mitigating mechanism as it provides supplemental irrigation to crops at crucial periods of plant growth. Investments under MGNREGA and watershed programmes need to be converged in this overall framework of drought-proofing rainfed agriculture. Since rainfed agriculture produces about 40 per cent of our foodgrain and a major share of pulses, millets and oilseeds, investments are urgently required from the point of view of food security.

Soil is another critical area where investments are needed. Due to poor organic matter incorporation, organic carbon in soil is below the required level in most parts of India. Indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers has further eroded soil health. Many methods of soil enrichment, including by recycling organic matter and converting “waste to wealth”, have been demonstrated on the ground by scientists as well as farmers. The task at hand is to scale up these for greater farmer uptake. This would also mean a reframing of the current fertilizer subsidy regime, which is heavily biased in favour of synthetic chemical fertilizers. Though there is a growing awareness about the harmful effects of chemical pesticides on environment and human beings, the fact still remains that chemical pesticide use has gone up over the years. The pesticides used in India are more harmful than those in many other parts of the world. There is an urgent need to promote alternative ways of pest management, such as non-pesticidal management (NPM) practices to eventually phase out the use of synthetic pesticides and make agriculture chemical-free.

Promoting crop diversity

Crop diversification is another big challenge. Even with changing consumption patterns, pulses are the main source of protein for the poor. They have a crucial place in the country’s food security architecture. Millets impart greater resilience to the cropping systems against climate risk in traditional millet-growing areas. Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) have been beyond the reach of most of the farmers growing pulses or millets, and there has been no system of public procurement of these crops. The recent experience of States like Madhya Pradesh is useful in organising decentralised procurement of pulses and millets in those rainfed States where they constitute a major share of the cropped area. Such procurement of local foodgrain, feeding into programmes providing supplementary nutrition like the Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDMS) and Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme, can be effective in reducing pervasive undernutrition among children, adolescent girls and pregnant women in India.

Agricultural research plays a crucial role in promoting diversified cropping systems. Currently, the public expenditure on agricultural research is only 0.7 per cent of the agricultural GDP. There is a strong case for raising this by at least three to four times. While doing so, attention must be paid to include crops like pulses and millets and attempt to develop climate-resilient cropping systems. Scientists and extension workers of the public-funded agricultural extension system have played a huge role in the agricultural transformation of the country. However, this system is virtually defunct in many parts of the country, especially in the rainfed tracts. Concentrated efforts are required to revive the agricultural extension system and build its capacities by both human resource as well as technical know-how. Organisations like the Agricultural Technology Management Agency (ATMA) and Krishi Vigyan Kendras need to be energised to become active agents of change in rural areas.

There is also the major challenge of employment generation to be addressed. Projecting the current trends of employment growth to the future, estimates show that the number of non-farm jobs to be created has to be at least thrice as much as the current growth rate of 5-6 million jobs per year. A significant number of these jobs will have to be created in the rural non-farm sector. Hence, we need to identify sectors within the rural economy which have high growth and employment generation potential and support them through a carefully worked out policy package. Sectors like agro-processing and value addition to agricultural produce offer huge scope for local employment and for greater control by the local producers over the value chain. Public investment in rural infrastructure is known to leverage substantial private investment and generate significant local employment multipliers. Available evidence shows that even as the overall rate of women’s labour force participation has declined, there has been high labour force participation of women from poorer households, especially in times of increasing agrarian distress. This underscores the need to revive MGNREGA, which has a proven track record of providing relief employment to a large number of rural women.

(P.S. Vijayshankar is founder-member, Samaj Pragati Sahayog, an NGO based in Madhya Pradesh.)

Keywords: rural India, GDP growth

Source: The Hindu, 5-02-2016

Free of Guilt

V N MITTAL





The worst thing one can do when feeling guilty is to do nothing or abandon one's duty as Arjuna contemplated (Bhagwad Gita, chapter 1). He feels guilty about his decision to fight against his own kinsmen and becomes despondent. Krishna convinces him that his guilt feeling is inappropriate.One day , Emperor Akbar lost the ring his father had gifted him. He asked Birbal to help him find it. Birbal said, “Your Majesty , the ring is here in this court, it is with the courtier who has a straw in his beard.“
The guilty courtier immediately moved his hand over his beard. Birbal pointed towards the courtier and said, “Search him.“ Akbar didn't understand how Birbal found the ring.Birbal told Akbar that a guilty person is always scared.
All guilt emanates from the mind. It is an emotional warning sign. It robs us of vitality , health and the peace of mind.Guilt upon conscience is like rust upon iron -guilt consumes the guilty . Conversely , guilt might not be always a negative emotion. A Stanford University study found that feelings of guilt may signal leadership potential; guilt-prone people carry a strong sense of responsibility to others, and that responsibility makes other people see them as leaders.
Chronic guilt affects mental health adversely . If guilt is suppressed, it may result in laziness, suspicion and frustration. Scriptures recommend confession and atonement to overcome guilt. How can you rejoice when constantly feeling guilty and condemning yourself ?

Production high, but Indians eating less fruits & veggies

Vishwa Mohan

New Delhi:





Chennai Tops In Intake, Kol At Bottom

India may be among the highest fruit and vegetable producing countries, but Indians are lacking in adequate intake of these horticultural produce.Though availability is an issue due to barriers in supply chain, the lower intake of fruits and vegetables is largely determined by dietary choice of individuals in India which is skewed towards cereals. Ironically , in a largely vegetarian country, fruits and vegetables account for only 9% of the total calorie intake in the country .
The trend in consumption pattern, however, varies from region to region with people living in south Indian cities consuming more fruits and vegetables as compared to those in the north .
These findings are part of the India's Phytonutrient Report, brought out on Thursday by the Delhi-based think-tank Indian Council for Research on International Economic Rela tions (ICRIER). It is based on a survey done across five cities -National Capital Region (Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida), Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata covering 1,001 individuals drawn from upper and middle income groups.
Chennai tops the list with the highest number of servings of fruits and vegetab les, while Kolkata is at the bottom of the list. “The grea ter number of vegetarians and relatively higher income can partly explain the high levels of intake of fruits and vegetables in Chennai and Hyderabad“, says the report.
WHO recommends a daily intake of at least 400 grams (or five daily servings with an average size of 80 grams) of fruits and vegetables, excluding potatoes, cassava and other starchy tubers to “prevent diet-rela ted chronic diseases and micro-nutrient deficiencies“.The report notes that the Indians consume quite less than WHO norms.
The country has, howe ver, been producing fairly good quantity of fruits and vegetables. India had during 2013-14 produced 88.98 million metric tonnes (MT) of fruits and 162.89 million MT of vegetables. The country at present ranks second in the production of fruits and vegetables in the world after China.
The report highlights a number of regulatory issues related to the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act and consumer protection regulations, which if rectified, could support an efficient supply chain and help to increase the consumption.

Source: Times of India, 5-02-2016