Manipur: Festival of Dance and Music “Nata Sankirtana”

 

“Nata-Sankirtana” festival was started at the Mandap of Jawaharlal Nehru Manipur Dance Academy (JNMDA), Imphal, from September 30, 2021.

Highlights

• The festival is a three-day festival of Dance and Music.
• It is the annual features of the Academy’s activities.
• Manipur is known for its rich culture and tradition inherited from forefathers and Sports. Thus, to protect and promote the culture and tradition for the future generations government is taking up several activities in the state.
• The government is also monitoring the income generation and employment generation for unemployed youths and taking up several schemes like ‘start up’.

Different sessions of the festival

• Inaugural session of the Nata Sankirtana was attended by artistes from different organizations of Nata Sankirtana, students of JNMDA as well as gurus & other eminent personalities.
• On the first day of festival, students of JNMDA showcased Nata Sankirtana called Sheihou while artiste of Prachaya Nata Sankirtana Samaj, Khurai Thangjam Leikai, Imphal showcased Nata Sankirtana called Sheisin.
• Second day of the festival will mark the performance by artiste of Public Theatre Artiste Association in Phoijing, Nambol. They will perform Nata Sankirtana ( Sheihou). On the other hand, artiste of Indra Kala Bhavan from Moirang will perform Nata Sankirtana (Sheisin).
• Last day of the festival will be marked by performance of artiste from Nata Sangeet Academy & Research Centre, Yaiskul Janmasthan, Imphal. They will perform Nata Sankirtana (Sheihou).

Nata Sankirtana

In classical Ragas, Nata sankirtana is a hymn of lord Krishna that synthesizes seevral indigenous rhythms. Sankirtana follows a strict code in its performance with rhythms pattern and costumes that are determined by specific rules & regulation. Sankirtana is performed to mark important occasions in person’s life such as from birth to death. UNESCO had recognized Manipur Nata Sankirtana in 2013.

Recognising Gandhi the philosopher

 

K.P. Shankaran writes: The politically charged, non-violent and ethical style of philosophy propagated by Gandhi is intended to make one spiritual — a practitioner is encouraged to gravitate and work for the welfare of all other beings.

It is not often that Gandhi is portrayed as a philosopher. To me, Gandhi is as significant as the Buddha of the Nikayas and the Socrates of Plato’s early dialogues. These three men are unique because, like Confucius of China, they can be credited with inventing philosophical ways of life that were led by ethics as opposed to others led by metaphysics. The Buddha’s philosophical way of life, within a few centuries, got morphed into two different “religious” forms of life — Theravada and Mahayana. Socrates’ philosophy, however, did not suffer the same fate. Hellenistic philosophy, like Stoicism, is still capable of inspiring people the way Confucianism does in China. Unfortunately for Gandhi, the understanding that he was a philosopher is only slowly getting recognised. The credit for recognising Gandhi as a philosopher goes to two philosophers belonging to the Analytic tradition of philosophy — Akeel Bilgrami and Richard Sorabjee. The latter is a historian of Greek and Hellenistic philosophy.

My position is, however, slightly different from that of these two Analytic philosophers. Philosophy was initially practised only in three civilisations — Chinese, Greek and Indian. In these civilisations, philosophy functioned as a way of life distinct from other ways of life that were rooted in a belief in supernatural powers. But even the philosophical ways of life practised in those ancient times could be divided into two categories — a metaphysics-led philosophical way of life and an ethics-led philosophical way of life. Barring the philosophies enunciated by the Buddha, Socrates and Confucius all other philosophies propagated metaphysics-led ways of life.

The basic difference between these ways is that in ethics-led philosophy, the attempt is to transform the practitioner from his/her baser state of being to an ethically higher state of existence and in the process making him/her, at least in the case of Socrates and the Buddha, psychologically self-sufficient. The Buddha called such a condition “Nirvana”. Socrates articulated it by saying “a virtuous person cannot be harmed” to indicate the disappearance of selfishness-induced fears in the practitioner.

However, in the metaphysics-led philosophical way of life, instead of a higher ethical state of being, the philosopher tries to achieve a higher state of understanding (insight) as well as a communion with what is taken to be the “ultimate”. In the latter, ethics has only a secondary role to play.

In the 20th century, Gandhi reinvented a very original ethics-led philosophical way of life. But Gandhi’s philosophical significance has largely remained unrecognised. The reason, I think, is that once Christianity banned all non-Christian ways of life in Europe in 529CE, philosophy re-emerged in 17th century Europe as a purely theoretical discipline by shedding its life practices. With that, the idea of “philosophical ways of life” became extinct in Europe. This shift from philosophy as a way of life to philosophy as a theoretical discipline is celebrated as the birth of modern Western philosophy. By the end of the 18th century, philosophy had become an academic discipline, with only academics functioning in philosophy departments being treated as philosophers. With colonisation, these European ideas started influencing public discourse in the rest of the world. Viewed against these standards, Gandhi did not qualify as a philosopher. It was, therefore, not surprising that to the people at large, it was only Gandhi’s political dimensions that became visible. The ethical dimension and the associated way of life got subsumed under the category of “religion”. But Gandhi was not religious even though he constantly used the Vaishnava vocabulary. Nevertheless, he was spiritual, if spirituality means reduction of self-centredness. This is clear from his introduction to his translation of the Gita. His shift from “God is Truth” to “Truth is God” in 1929, was also aimed at making ethics the “first principle” of his philosophy. A precursor to this can be seen in his 1907 free translation of William Salter’s “Ethical religion” when he said, “morality should be observed as a religion”.

Gandhi, like the Buddha, was an ethical consequentialist in that the purpose of his ethical way was to reduce self-centredness and to promote a concern for the well-being of all (sarvodaya). Till the end of his life, he constantly tried to get rid of his own self-centred behaviours and thoughts. On numerous occasions he had said that he aspired to “reduce to zero”, that is, totally eliminate selfishness/self-centeredness. For the Buddha, too, the reduction of self-centeredness through the cultivation of virtues like satya, ahimsa, aparigraha, brahmacharya, etc., was crucial for fostering sarvodaya. According to the Buddha’s empirical theses, once the concern for the well-being of all (sarvodaya) is well stabilised, psychological self-sufficiency would ensue and this, in turn, would cause unsatisfactoriness (dukkha) and its concomitant fears to disappear. Gandhi named that state of being as “moksha” instead of “nirvana”.

What makes Gandhi different from the Buddha is that Gandhi, apart from individual moksha, wanted development of freedoms (Gandhi’s constructive programme, if correctly interpreted, aims at the attainment of a set of basic freedoms such as freedom from hunger, thirst, illiteracy, avoidable diseases, etc.) for humanity as a whole. Only through political action, according to Gandhian ethics, can we implement this constructive programme. Therefore, Gandhi’s philosophical way of life is an explicit desire for a socialist society — since an ethics based on the reduction of selfishness can only approve a socialist way of life, for logical reasons. Anything that enhances selfishness, like a capitalist economy, is anathema to Gandhi’s philosophical way of life. As a philosophical practitioner, a Gandhian philosopher can only live in a community based on the fundamental principles of socialism, such as equality and the absence of private property. Even though socialist themes like the idea of a “simple life” were part of all philosophical schools of the Subcontinent, it was only in Gandhi that they achieved an explicit political/ideological dimension — Gandhi’s ashrams were such socialist communes. Gandhi’s constructive programme sought to generate socialist enclaves within a capitalist social set up and he called that swaraj.

The politically charged, non-violent and ethical style of philosophy propagated by Gandhi is intended to make one spiritual — a practitioner is encouraged to gravitate and work for the welfare of all other beings. I hope the philosophical way of life enunciated by Gandhi does become a substitute for religion in a post-religious world.

Source: Indian Express, 1/10/2021

Quote of the Day

 

“I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

“मैं आज जो हूं उसका कारण है वे निर्णय जो मैंने कल किए थे।”
एलेनॉर रूज़वेल्ट

Current Affairs-September 30, 2021

 

INDIA

– Cabinet approves launch of ‘PM POSHAN in Schools’ scheme that will provide hot cooked meal to school children studying in classes 1-8 of government and government-aided schools across the country

ECONOMY & CORPORATE

– Govt. approves capital infusion of ₹4,400 crore to ECGC Ltd. (formerly known as Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India Ltd.) over a period of five years, i.e. from FY 2021-2022 to FY 2025- 2026

– CCEA approves listing of Export Credit Guarantee Corporation Ltd. (ECGC) though Initial Public Offer (IPO)

– Government approves continuation of the National Export Insurance Account (NEIA) scheme and infusion of Rs. 1,650 crore Grant-in-Aid over 5 years, i.e. from FY 2021-2022 to FY 2025-2026

– Finance Ministry expands scope of Rs 4.5 lakh crore Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) to support micro, small and medium enterprises

– Padmaja Chunduru appointed MD & CEO of National Securities Depositories (NSDL)

– Defence Acquisition Council headed approves proposals of value Rs.13,165 crores; approvals include Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH), Terminally Guided Munition (TGM) and rocket ammunition

– India’s external debt rose by 2.1% year-on-year to USD 570 billion as of March-end 2021

– UIDAI slashes Aadhaar authentication charge to Rs 3: CEO Saurabh Garg

– RBI announces removal of Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) restrictions on Indian Overseas Bank

– PM chairs 38th PRAGATI Meeting

WORLD

– Right Livelihood Award winners announced; 4 winners include Indian NGO LIFE (Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment)

– Japan: Former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida wins governing party leadership election; set to become the next Prime Minister

– Tunisia: Geologist Najla Bouden appointed first female prime minister

– European Union’s general court annuls EU-Morocco deals over Western Sahara policies

– France, Greece sign defence deal; Athens to buy 3 warships

– International Day of Awareness on Food Loss and Waste Reduction observed on Sept 29

– World Heart Day observed on Sept 29; theme: “Use Heart to Connect”

– World Rabies Day observed on Sept 28

Right Livelihood Award 2021

 Right Livelihood Award 2021 was conferred to Delhi-based environmental organisation “Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE)”. This award is also known as “Sweden’s alternative Nobel Prize”

Highlights

• LIFE has received the award for its “grassroots approach to empower vulnerable communities in protecting their livelihoods and claiming their right for a clean environment.”
• Other awardees include:

1. Cameroonian women rights activist Marthe Wandou,
2. Environmental activist from Russia, Vladimir Slivyak and
3. Indigenous rights defender from Canada, Freda Huson.

About Right Livelihood Award

Right Livelihood Award was established by Ole von Uexkull who happens to be the executive director of Right Livelihood. The award honours and supports people in solving global problems. It comprises of a cash prize of 1 million Swedish crowns and a long-term support that highlights and expands Laureates’ work.

How Awardees are shortlisted?

Awardees are shortlisted by the jury of Stockholm-based Right Livelihood.

Why LIFE received this award?

LIFE received the Award for its innovative legal work of empowering communities to protect their resources following the “environmental democracy in India.” According to Right Livelihood, despite a robust environmental protection law framework in India, access to justice for those planning to protect remaining forests and biodiversity in India is often limited. Thus, to bridge this gap, LIFE was founded.

About LIFE

LIFE was founded in 2005 by lawyers Ritwick Dutta and Rahul. It has been fighting against India’s most significant environmental threats. Some of the examples of environmental threats include construction of a large-scale bauxite mine in the Odisha and hydro-power project in Arunachal Pradesh. LIFE helps in stopping such construction.

Recognising the role of health in India’s social and economic growth

 Focus on a system that responds to the capacity of the State and other stakeholders in the immediate-term, while building on such capacity in the longer term. Better responsiveness to the needs of citizens can drive trust between citizens and the State.

As India begins marking its 75th year of Independence, it is an appropriate time to take stock of the priority we have accorded to our biggest resource — human capital. Today, India has the largest population of young people; an enviable resource that can move India on to a stronger economic path. Research has highlighted the links between building human capital (through nutrition, health, and education) and growth. And yet, data on nutrition, health, and education suggests that the value of this resource has not been recognised.

When we focus on health, there has been progress, but India remains well below peer countries — and where it needs to be — in terms of the well being of citizens. This stems from multiple reasons.

One, it is not clear if national and political incentives to improve health have been clear to leaders. There are two aspects to this. The first is linked to the limited attention to the links between health and human capital, and growth promotion — a case that positions health not merely as a welfare issue, but as an influencer of India’s growth.

The second is the limited attention to the impact of health care on poverty. Health-related expenditures are estimated to push 3.5% of the population below the poverty line; with those already below the poverty line pushed only deeper. Anirudh Krishna’s research across four continents found health-related expenses to be the prime reason for households descending into poverty and that millions of households live “one illness away” from poverty.

Political incentives could also be a factor of “credit”, and in India’s federal system, a lack of clarity in “credit” from the improved health care services may further diffuse political incentives. Reforming the health care system may also be viewed as too long-term an agenda, and, therefore, not conducive to immediate political gains. Additionally, the pathways at different governance and administrative levels are often not evident, constraining political interest from relevant leaders. Two, the absence of health as an electoral demand dilutes its political salience. Data from multiple CSDS Lokniti polls has highlighted that health figures low among voter priorities. The middle-class has exited from the use of public services, and increasingly, the poor are moving in the same direction.

It is, therefore, not surprising that the health sector has one of the lowest public investments at 1.3% of the Gross Domestic Product, with a disproportionate use of private services, and 64% of health care expenditure being out of pocket at the point of service.

However, leaders have sought political legitimacy through attention to targeted sectors and the initiation of reforms. Regime shifts in several countries such as Turkey, Indonesia, and Brazil saw leaders prioritising health to establish credibility with the voter base and reaping electoral benefits. Well implemented reforms fuelled citizen expectations, leading to demand, and creating the space for further reform. India has not witnessed too many examples of this.

State capacity is a central variable in the cycle of well-implemented reforms, tangible benefits, a social compact between the government and its citizens, and electoral gains. The absence of this confidence in capacity will likely lead to a clientelist model of delivering services, rather than a systems approach.

What is the path that India should take? One, focus on a system that responds to the capacity of the State and other stakeholders in the immediate-term, while building on such capacity in the longer-term. Better responsiveness to the needs of citizens can drive trust between citizens and the State. And do this while highlighting the role of health in a nation’s journey, and building citizens’ understanding of the primacy of health and its impact on their economic status.

A lot more needs to be done to identify paths to reform, through a combination of public and private provisions, with the State as a regulator. This can offer a coherent response to constraints and political benefits at the national, state and sub-state levels.

Sandhya Venkateswaran is member, Lancet Citizens Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System and Centre for Social and Economic Progress.

Source: Hindustan Times, 29/09/21

Challenges like climate change call for farm research to take centre stage, just like during the Green Revolution

Agriculture and climate change are too important to be left only to generalist bureaucrats, economists and activists.

Indian agriculture’s major challenge in the initial decades after Independence was to increase crop production and yields at any cost. Today, it’s about boosting farm incomes, while simultaneously ensuring production that is cost-competitive, resource-use efficient and climate-smart. The release of a new herbicide-tolerant rice variety by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) that can be directly sown, instead of requiring transplantation, is therefore welcome. Farmers transplant and grow paddy in flooded fields mainly to control weeds, which cannot emerge under water that acts as a natural herbicide. The IARI variety contains a mutated gene making the paddy plant “tolerant” to Imazethapyr, a herbicide effective against a wide range of weeds. This chemical when now sprayed will kill only the weeds, while the paddy can be cultivated without any nursery preparation, transplanting, puddling and flooding. Farmers would save about 30 per cent water, Rs 3,000-per-acre labour costs and 10-15 days’ time from direct seeding, compared to conventional transplantation.

The IARI variety — there’s a need for many more of these — highlights the importance of investing in public agricultural research. The first challenge that India confronted, of feeding its population and achieving a modicum of grain self-sufficiency, couldn’t have been met without the high-yielding semi-dwarf varieties bred during the 1960s and 1970s. The same goes for today’s challenges, especially from climate change. Average temperatures are rising, winters are getting shorter and the number of rainy days is falling even with overall “normal” monsoons. Growing crops and rearing animals under such circumstances — of extreme hot and cold or prolonged dry weather and intense downpours — is becoming increasingly tough, with farmers also facing problems of depleting water-tables, soaring energy costs and emergence of new pests and diseases. Coping with these stresses requires new breeding approaches (including gene modification and editing) and low-input, high-output agriculture technologies.

All this also means putting farm research on centre stage just like during the Green Revolution. Agriculture and climate change are too important to be left only to generalist bureaucrats, economists and activists. Research, unlike subsidies and welfare schemes, may not yield political dividends or pay in the short run. But the returns from farm research — IARI varieties alone account for over 95 per cent of India’s Rs 32,000-crore annual basmati rice exports and nearly half of its total wheat area — are more sustainable.

Source: Indian Express, 30-09-2021