Why Hoard? Like Blood, Money Should Circulate

Osho





A society that condemns wealth will invariably become dishonest. Why the businessman of India is not productive? India has been condemning wealth for thousands of years. It has been saying that money is useless, money is dirt. But money is very meaningful, very useful. In life, money is a great medium of change, exchange, usage. Interestingly, saints who oppose wealth are nurtured by the wealthy businessmen of India. And remember, the businessman will respect that very saint who opposes wealth.Being creative asks for hard work; it asks for long term thinking, genius, lifelong perseverance. Then, in the end, wealth can be produced.
Wealth should be coveted, but coveting it means being creative: how we can produce wealth? But no one talks about producing because who will toil over a long period of time? Actually a society has to be such in which being honest should not seem to be an austere discipline, instead being dishonest and corrupt should seem to be an austere discipline.
The rich people of India, accumulate, they hoard wealth, they don't enjoy it.Why? Because we are taught: Simple living, high thinking. This is nonsense. The truth is: High living, high thinking.
And let me tell you that the society that produces hoarders, becomes rotten.People who can enjoy the wealth are needed: who spend the money, spread it, not hoard it. But India accumulates wealth. An Indian makes money so that it can be locked in the vaults. And the rich man lives like a pauper.People praise him that he is a great man. This kind of man is a danger to society because the money that is stored in the vault becomes useless for society. It is exactly like the blood circulating in the hands or feet getting blocked somewhere. As long as the blood is circulating in the body...the more it circulates the more the person remains young; the more easily, without any obstacles does it flow, the more the person will be strong. The body becomes paralysed wherever the blood circulation is blocked. The Indian businessman earns money and locks it in the safe. It becomes paralysed.
Money is like blood, it should circulate. The rupee is alive when it is moving, running. That society becomes richer and richer in which money circulates faster.
Right now we don't store air in our vaults but in the ture if air is in short supply we near future if air is in short supply we will start storing it in our vaults. I say to you that the world will become non-possessive if there is as much wealth in the world as there is air. And there can be more wealth than air.Technology has made it easy for us.And there is no need for any society to be poor except for unintelligent societies.
The day wealth will be available in plenty, the world will be free of the desire for wealth ­ a great revolution for spirituality! The moment man is liberated from money his mind will start moving towards religiousness.
I want to tell you the last thing.Produce so much wealth that the society becomes free of wealth.Produce so much wealth that for wealth no one has to be dishonest ­ no theft, black marketing and corruption.Produce so much wealth that wealth loses meaning. Abridged from an unpublished talk. Courtesy Osho International Foundation.

If you understand people, you find stories: Ruskin





Ruskin Bond, one of In dia's most loved writers, will be speaking about his life and writing and also holding a special interaction with children at Times Lit Fest Delhi on November 26-27.He spoke to Tulika Rattan on what inspires him to keep writing and his new projects.ExcerptsYou are a novelist, a poet, a short story writer: which form of writing comes most easily to you?
I enjoy all kinds. I don't suppose one can put me in a particular slot. Sometimes people refer to me as a children's writer -but I am not only a children's writer, I also write stories for the general or adult reader; it's just that some of them turn out to be suitable for the young reader or children. I like to write short stories, poems, essays, short novels -nothing too long because I am quite a lazy fellow.
But writing for children is not easy.
No, it is not easy .
Children want a good story -one in which the reader can easily identify with the protagonist.You have to cut short the long descriptions and start with the story immediately .
Does one need to be driven by an obsession in order to be as prolific as you are?
I am a compulsive writer.As a boy I would scribble away even when you don't expect those things to get published. I would often keep a notebook and jot things that might help me in my writing.But I am lucky , because for the greater part of my life I was able to make a living out of my writing -that is doing something I enjoy and earn a living out of it.
Where do you find your stories?
What motivates you to write?
And how do you develop your plots and characters?
Well, I guess people are stories. If you understand people you find stories. Then I love the natural world -nature, wildlife, animals, birds. I write a lot out of my own life too. And the older I have got the more there is to look back upon: people I have known, friends, incidents, adventures. You don't run out of inspiration.
Your first book was published in 1956. How has the Indian literary scene changed since? What is the future of writing in India?
Yes, it has changed a lot. Back in the 50s and 60s writers would try and get published abroad. We had a lot of magazines and newspapers though, so I would make a living by freelancing with them and I would keep bombarding them with stories and essays, that's why I have so many short stories. And then in the 80s the publishing sort of came awake, Penguin India came into India. So, now I think writers have quite a lot of publishers to choose from.
You have written so much about nature, I am sure it is all the more painful for you to see the hills being trashed with mindless construction.
It's become much commercialised now. I remember when I first came to live in Mussoorie about 40 years back, there were only threefour cars were in the town, and now there are more than three thousand to four thousand cars.
What are your future projects?
I am working on a book about other forgotten writers from the 30s and 40s.Then, there is a book about my childhood in Delhi -before Independence, during World War II, 1942-43, when as a small boy I lived with my father in a part of New Delhi, Connaught Place as it was back then, and streets of India Gate and what we did together. It is quite nostalgic. Also, there's an autobiography in the offing.
Times Litfest Delhi, presented by Rajnigandha Silver Pearls, is on Nov 26 & 27 at India Habitat Center, Lodhi Road. Entry is free.
All welcome. For schedule & details, visit TOI.inTLFD

Source: Times of India, 17-11-2016

Complete issue will be online next month  symposium participants THE PROBLEM Posed by Rakesh Pandey, Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi FREEDOM SPEAK Peter Ronald deSouza, Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies; holds the Dr S. Radhakrishnan Chair of the Rajya Sabha (2015-17), Delhi PERFORMING DISSENT Rustom Bharucha, Professor, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi RESISTING HINDUTVA Vasudha Dalmia, Professor Emerita, Modern South Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley THE PEDAGOGY OF NATIONALISM Shahid Amin, former Professor of History, University of Delhi CONSCIENCE, THE SOURCE OF DISSENT Tridip Suhrud, Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust, Ahmedabad	#686 October 2016 PEDAGOGY OF DISSENT a symposium on the cultures of freedom and dissent in the world of learning  cover design by www.designosis.innext month: The Tech Promise	EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY M. Madhava Prasad, Department of Cultural Studies, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad  ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND THE HUMANITIES Aniket Jaaware, Department of English, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shiv Nadar University, U.P. META-VERBAL HARASSMENT AND THE IDEA OF THE UNIVERSITY Probal Dasgupta, Linguistic Research Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata QUIET PEDAGOGY V. Geetha, historian and editor, Chennai LEARNING AND KNOWLEDGE T.M. Krishna, Carnatic vocalist, thinker and writer on contemporary issues, Chennai BOOKS Reviewed by Louise Tillin REPORT  On Democratic Dynasties BACKPAGE

Assam boy gets National Child Award for exceptional achievement

Assam boy Abhisekh Saharia received the National Child Award for Exceptional Achievement from President Pranab Mukherjee on the occasion of Chidren’s Day at Rahtrapati Bhawan on Monday.

Saharia, a Class 12 student of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Khanapara here, was awarded the Inspire Award Certificate for innovation in Science Pursuit by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development for his innovative project of designing and preparing an infrared blind aid kit, an official release said in Guwahati on Monday.

Saharia received a silver medal, a cash prize of Rs 10,000 and book voucher worth Rs 3,000 for his exceptional achievement in the field of innovation.

The President gave away the awards to children for their outstanding achievements and to individuals and institutions for contributing to child development and child welfare.

The National Child Awards for Exceptional Achievement gives recognition to children with exceptional abilities in fields such as academics, culture, arts, sports, music etc, the release added.

Source: Hindustan Times, 15-11-2016

Artificially created distress

To prevent further damage to the economy and to relieve distress, demonetisation should be revoked immediately

Without adequate preparation or thought, the monetary authorities and the government have taken a drastic step declaring as worthless over 86 per cent by value of the currency notes in circulation with the public. A prior large increase of lower denomination notes should have been ensured through banks and ATMs, so that overall money supply did not reduce and a normal level of activity could be maintained. This was not done, so effectively a very severe monetary contraction has been imposed, the purchasing power of the population has been suddenly taken away, reducing the level of economic activity and causing distress to people, which is getting worse as time passes.

The denomination puzzle

The government’s rationale for the extreme measure of demonetisation is not clear. There is talk of targeting black money, but the denomination of notes has nothing to do with the existence of black money, which is not held in hoards of notes but is a circulation of unrecorded and undeclared incomes. Those larger-scale activities where income is declared produce white taxable money, while large incomes generated in legal or illegal activities where these incomes are not declared in order to evade tax constitute black money. There is a constant parallel flow of black money in the economy. Clearly the monetary authorities or the government itself do/does not naively believe that black money somehow is connected to Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes which they call ‘high denomination’ — if they did, they would not have chosen to issue a new note of Rs.2,000 which is of even higher denomination. So what is the point of the measure? Investigation of and raids on suspected tax evaders do not require such an extreme step as almost complete demonetisation, which in present conditions of lack of preparedness, amounts to economically disenfranchising the entire population.

The adverse impact on the economy of sharp monetary contraction (to the extent of around Rs.14 lakh crore) is already evident, and the greatest sufferers are the rural population, and the urban poor and middle class. The first impact is on the supply chain of goods and services which is disrupted, and this is then feeding back to impact production. Traders and retailers have been deprived overnight of the funds to carry on their business, and the former can neither source goods after using up their existing stocks, nor can they pay for the transport of the goods to the market. Retailers cannot sell the goods since customers do not have money to buy them, and they can provide goods on credit to customers only up to a point since they need to pay their suppliers and cannot obtain enough new notes to do so. The entire chain of supply and distribution has been thoroughly disrupted.

In villages the kharif harvest is not yet fully marketed in many regions, but producers are unable to sell their crops owing to the shortage of the new money. Many are being offered drastically lower prices for their produce which runs the risk of damage in coming days. Farmers who have already marketed their kharif crop and have existing notes in hand now cannot buy seed and fertilisers for sowing rabi since there is no lower denomination or substitute money available in their nearest banks. Delayed rabi sowing is bound to affect future output. The majority of farmers are net purchasers of food, and rural labourers and artisans are entirely dependent on purchase from the market. They are in the greatest distress since they cannot purchase basic necessities for their families with their existing money, and their attempts to change it for new money is fruitless since the latter is simply not available to the required extent in banks. Even in a relatively organised sector like tea plantations, daily wages in the new money have not been paid to workers who are unable to meet their subsistence needs.

Hitting the most vulnerable

The worsening situation in urban areas is well known — not only the wage-earning poor but the middle class too is adversely affected by the overnight artificial and extreme loss of purchasing power involved in the demonetisation exercise. Millions of hours during working days are being wasted by people in standing in long queues at banks, and many are turned away eventually with the new cash running out. For the physically frail and senior citizens, it is a risky and indeed impossible exercise to obtain the new notes. A number of deaths have taken place already owing to the inability to purchase medicines or obtain timely medical care. The government has admitted that it will take many weeks to fill the gap in money supply.

With the severe loss of purchasing power, the country is being driven into an artificially created recession and the level of economic activity is declining. To prevent further damage to the economy and to relieve distress among the people, the measure of demonetisation should be revoked immediately. The government can replace existing currency notes with new notes, but in a more planned, orderly and phased manner and over a longer period, bearing in mind that the bulk of our population needs humble money to carry on myriad small daily transactions, and Rs.2,000 notes which cannot be changed are of no use to them. Citizens and leaders of all political parties, including the ruling party, should unite to demand immediate revocation of the demonetisation measure before the situation worsens any further. There is nothing to prevent the government from continuing to investigate or raid suspected tax evaders.

Utsa Patnaik is Professor Emeritus, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi

Keywords: Demonetisation, RBI, BJP, bank notes

Source: The Hindu, 16-11-2016

Searching for an equilibrium

Questions recur about the rightful limits of judicial intervention in the matter of policy choices in the executive and legislative domains

In the 67th year of the Republic and 70th year of freedom, we find ourselves engaged in a heightened debate on the imperatives of preserving the constitutionally ordained jurisdictional equilibrium between the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the Indian state even as we celebrate the expansion of constitutional freedoms and the resilience of our democracy. At the heart of this debate is the reach of judicial review power exercised by the Supreme Court. Given the tenuous relationship between the executive and judiciary, the subject is increasingly relevant to the functioning of our constitutional democracy. While the sterling contribution of the court in asserting the inviolability of and expounding the right to dignity as the core constitutional value has been universally acclaimed, questions recur about the rightful limits of judicial intervention in the matter of policy choices in the executive and legislative domains.

The foundational principles

Some of the court’s transformative judgments are recalled to indicate the evolution of our constitutional order, premised on protection against the arbitrary exercise of power, non-discrimination and “constitutionalisation of socio-economic rights”. Establishing the procedural fairness and reasonableness test in Maneka Gandhi (1978) to determine the constitutionality of the exercise of executive power and declaring in M. Nagaraj (2006) that Articles 14 (right to equality), 19 (right to fundamental freedoms) and 21 (right to life) “stand at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of constitutional values, the court recognised that human dignity, equality and freedom were “conjoined, reciprocal and covalent values” (Sandra Liebenberg, 2005).

Ashwani Kumar

While expanding human rights jurisprudence and recognising as fundamental the citizens’ right to food, health, education and clean environment, etc., the court in an expansive interpretation in V. Markendeya (1989) recognised the Directive Principles of State Policy as “the conscience of the Constitution” which give shape and meaning to fundamental rights. Having thus established the foundational principles for the exercise of a wider judicial review jurisdiction traceable to Articles 13, 32, 136, 142, 147 and 226 of the Constitution, the court declared that judicial review was a “constituent power” and an integral component of the unalterable basic structure of the Constitution (Kesavananda Bharati, 1973).

Expanding review jurisdiction

However, moving beyond the socio-economic rights, the court’s review has been invoked in “public interest” to question major decisions of the government concerning policy choices, for instance in what are now known as 2G spectrum and coal mine allocations cases. Challenge to proceedings of legislative assemblies and decisions of the Speaker have also been entertained by the court (Nabam Rebia, 2016). Recent decisions of the court voiding a constitutional amendment approved by Parliament to alter the procedure for appointment of judges (National Judicial Appointments Commission or NJAC judgment, 2016), exercising review powers in what is popularly known as the AFSPA — Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act — case to hold that the use of excessive force by the Manipur Police or the armed forces of the Union was not permissible, has extended the courts’ review jurisdiction to domains hitherto regarded as the exclusive preserve of the executive and legislatures.

Protagonists of a wide judicial review jurisdiction argue that it subserves the rule of law (Dicey, 1956), advances the cause of justice, is consistent with democracy and rules out only those choices that are obviously unreasonable and inconsistent with democracy (Ronald Dworkin, 1986). Socrates’s condemnation to death by Athenian democracy is recalled to argue that liberal democracy needs to protect itself against “the rule of the mob”. James Madison had argued for “auxiliary protections” to secure the fundamental liberties of citizens (The Federalist Papers).

Limiting the ambit

Even so, questions abound as to the rightful ambit of the court’s judicial review jurisdiction within the framework of parliamentary democracy premised on the assumption that people exercise their sovereignty through elected representatives and not through the unelected judges. “Judicial supremacy”, “judicial excessivism” or “judicial despotism” are seen as antithetical to democracy and contrary to its first principles. It is argued that representative democracy is as much a part of the basic structure of the Constitution and that judicial review, although constitutionally sanctioned, cannot be exercised to negate or subordinate other fundamental features of its basic structure.

In some of its recent judgments, the Supreme Court has itself cautioned against ever increasing expectations from it. In a substantive judgment in Santosh Singh (2016), a Division Bench of the court declined to entertain a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking a mandamus for the inclusion of moral science as a compulsory subject in the syllabus of school education. In an eloquent exposition in the NJAC case, Justice J. Chelameswar in his minority judgment rejected a distrust of the legislators in securing the constitutional fundamental and argued: “To assume or assert that judiciary alone is concerned with the preservation of liberties and does that job well is an assumption that is dogmatic, bereft of evidentiary basis and historically disproved.” In its opinion in a Presidential Reference, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court had earlier opined that “Parliament and the legislatures, composed as they are of the representatives of the people, are supposed to know and be aware of the needs of the people and what is good and bad for them. The Court cannot sit in judgment over their wisdom”. In a recent order, the court declined to entertain a PIL seeking the court’s directions to restrain the Union government from incurring security and other expenses in respect of certain individuals in the State of Jammu and Kashmir on the ground that these writs are “judicially unmanageable”.

Looking for the middle

Benjamin Cardozo, the celebrated American jurist, had cautioned years ago that “there is no assurance that the rule of majority will be the expression of perfect reason when embodied in the Constitution or in statute. We ought not to expect more of it when embodied in the judgment of the Courts”. Nor can we forget that “… the great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course and pass the judges by” (The Nature Of The Judicial Process, 1921). Scholars supporting limited judicial review have argued that courts are at best ‘platonic guardians’ of democracy and that “it is entirely incompatible with democracy for courts to define their mission as one of correcting elected officials who have strayed too far either from what the judges think is right or from what they claim they know (and the legislators do not) that the people really think is right” (John Hart Ely, On Constitutional Ground, 1996).

The ongoing debate concerning the limits of judicial review in a parliamentary democracy is anchored in profound philosophical issues concerning the nature of representative democracy and the inalienable fundamental human freedoms that need to be insulated against the “impulses of transient majorities”. In the light of our own experience of the political and judicial processes, it is legitimate to ask:

• Can the original justification for the court’s anti-majoritarian role be used to equate constitutional supremacy and judicial independence with “judicial supremacy”?

• How do we resolve disagreements over “constitutional-interpretative judgments” in the framework of a functioning democracy, given the disclaimer of judicial infallibility by the court itself?

• Assuming a decline in credibility of the political executive, can the judiciary act as “co-governor” of the nation?

• Where do we locate the “equilibrium between the Scylla of insensitive detachment suggesting indifference and the Charybdis of unwarranted intrusion” to fix the frontiers of judicial power in a constitutional democracy without being on the wrong side of the “democratic faith”?

As we reflect on these questions, it seems self-evident that in the articulation of constitutional principles, Pascal’s spirit of “self-search and self-reproach” reflected in recent judgments of the Supreme Court will best subserve to strengthen the institutions of India’s liberal democracy and sustain over time the otherwise wide ambit of judicial review, so that the judiciary remains “a light unto the nations” without being a “sheriff unto the nations” (José A. Cabranes, 2015).

For the moment, we must accept that the weight of the court’s authority and acceptance of the extensive reach of its judicial imprimatur is best explained in terms of popular trust in its moral and intellectual integrity rather than in a stretched philosophy of constitutionalism. The decline of Parliament as the highest forum of our democracy, the perceived insensitivity on the part of the bureaucracy to the pressing priorities of the people at large, a general distrust of executive power and loss of faith, generally speaking, in the moral and ideological integrity of the political class collectively account for an expanded remit of judicial review.

Ashwani Kumar is a Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court and former Union Law Minister

Keywords: Supreme Court collegium, appointment of judges, Judiciary-Centre, judges, constitution

Source: The Hindu, 16-11-2016

God's Gift to Milton

K S RAM





Most of us hop between two agendas: one that God has set for us, and another that we've set for ourselves. It is one thing to disbelieve in God and to assume complete charge of your life. It is quite another to believe in God, to be keen to do your best in His service. It requires strength of character and vision to overcome adversities and find the divine grace that lies beyond. This kind is rare. John Milton, the English poet, is an example of this kind.Milton was highly talented.He had enormous faith in God.And he had a noble ambition to create a great epic. Even as he was exploring possible subjects, Milton became blind. He did not know how he should respond to this sudden misfortune.He documented the mental conflict and its resolution in a sonnet, On His Blindness.
The question that tormented him was, now that he had been rendered blind, was he still required to vindicate the talent he was born with? In his cryptic style, the question Milton asks in the sonnet is, “Does God exact day labour, light denied?“ Milton considers the issue from a regal perspective.God is the Supreme King. We are all His servants. The servant standing in attention at the door is serving God as well as the prime minister or the general. Hence Milton's great realisation, “They also serve who simply stand and wait.“
The fact that Milton could successfully write his immortal epic Paradise Lost despite his handicap confirms that with God's grace, the challenged can cross mountains, the mute sing and the blind see.