CAUVERY ISSUE AND THE NEED TO FORGET MAY-1991

Hello World,

I think I need to share this with you and right now. 

The southern-most state of India is experiencing a whole lot of citizen unrest. People are not happy and the reason is we’re citizens from the southern end of India and apparently the current administration at the center is not very southern-friendly so to speak. I can use any other term and that would be absolutely right, but I’ll just choose to go with ‘not-so-southern-friendly’ for now.

To begin with, apparently there is a river that our state shares along with a few other states in the southern region. And that means you know we get to share the water that flows through the river.

However, thanks to climate change, irregular rainfall, rising population and then the subsequent rise in demand for water. The supply has reduced and then the sharing agreement that used to exist among these states went null and void operationally. It's still live on paper, but that's all it is. The result is that citizens  are not receiving their due volume of water from the dams and those who control the dams, based out of the state from where the river originates get to say ‘NO’ to releasing the water. And from their perspective, the river has very little water to meet their demand and therefore they might not be doing justice to the citizens in their state if they release the water for others. 

The problem is, by denying that share of water as per the agreement a whole lot of rights for the other states which depend on that water are being violated. This issue has been going on for decades now and this has gone from court to court and it still persists.  However, right now the situation is this issue went all up to the Supreme Court, the apex court. There’s no judiciary above this and the Supreme Court gave a ruling that a management board/scheme [there is still a debate on which word was used in the ruling] must be constituted which in essence would be a collaborative administrative board involving members of all the states that have to share the water from this river.

However, this not-so-southern-friendly government at the center just ignored that Supreme Court ruling and there was a deadline which we passed a few days ago and the management board/scheme hasn't been constituted yet. The state that is responsible to release the water is just enjoying the delay and the states who are looking for their right share of water are unhappy to say the least and the people are irritated. A supreme court ruling has been violated by the ruling central government in a democracy and that is being considered ok by everyone involved. The political parties as usual have taken to the roads, they're conducting protests, but that's just Vote Bank politics. 

Apparently the state from where the river originates is looking at elections in the next few weeks and so the political party which runs the government at the center is contesting there and its looking to win. So if it does anything that goes against the interest of that state then they might lose that election so they're just delaying this on purpose without bothering how this delay is impacting the states which depend on that water.

As it turns out many farmers are out of business because the water supply is not there and the rains are not regular. Their crops have failed back to back and some of them are reeling in poverty and some of them are stuck with huge loans. They rely on agriculture and agriculture relies on water. They're not asking for everything, they're just asking for their rightful share, but even that is being denied. by a democratically elected government against the ruling of the supreme court of the democracy. The government at the center is refusing to hear the cry of the people from the south and it's unsettling. Some farmers have committed suicide owing to their back-to-back failures and the subsequent pressures to settle the loans they took to coverup the loss. 

When I look back in time, what I see is the last time when people in the south realised that someone is trying to kill their Ex-Prime Minister, they gave the killers food and shelter. And at that time it wasn’t even in their problem. In fact, it was a problem in a different country; maybe close to us but then it was a problem in a different country. The Ex-Prime Minister authorised a peace-keeping force to help end a civil conflict in a foreign nation and the peace-keeping force took the foreign country’s side as opposed to their originally announced neutral stance and this caused an uprising against the Ex-Prime Minister. However, as for the people of the south here, all they heard was that someone is trying to kill the Ex-Prime Minister when he would be visiting their state and they just gladly helped those who ended up assassinating the guy with a human bomb attack. The irony was that at that time, the problem wasn't even their own. They just identified themselves close those who suffered as a result of the peace-keeping force in a foreign nation and took the side of The Avengers who successfully avenged the death of their people, in the foreign country. But fast forward to now and this time the problem is very much that of the people of the southern state and they are at the receiving end of the problem. 

I sincerely hope the members of the current central administration don't make it down south, at least not until this problem is resolved or at least for the next 3 months. We don't want to tarnish ourselves with such an accusation one more time. If people could do that in the past, they could very well do it now and they have a much stronger reason and that's the reason for my fear. Back in 1991 those who helped The Avengers from the foreign country, had to do it fairly secretly as not all of it was publicly agreeable in concept. We, just like many other humans, detest crime and violence. However, some of us at that time wanted to support and they did that discreetly. 

This time, based on the honking and angry stares I see during my daily commute to and from my office, I can clearly see that each household will step out and make a public contribution, should such an idea be floated around by any ‘Avengers’ group. 

The fact is out: The current administration doesn't look at all citizens the same way and apparently we from the southern-most state are the step children and our step father doesn't care. 

I sincerely hope this river water issue is resolved. But what I want to happen more importantly is that those from the administration at the center should not make it to our state, at least, not for the next three to four months. We won’t know how people would react and we can never say who would end up doing what. Not all of that would be legally right, should those unforeseen circumstances pan out in an unprecedented fashion, much to the agony of everyone across the nation. And touching base on the history again, the last time people here learned about someone trying to kill the Ex-Prime-Minister, they gave them food and shelter, just because they believed in that idea and logic behind that act of crime. And this time those people who agreed to such a weird logic in the past have a direct problem and they have seen their own dying in poverty in the recent past and they are angry. Not unhappy but plain angry.

So I beg with everyone from the central administration: Please don't come down to south. It’s okay that you don’t care about us and you don't want to care about us. We get that and you're not going to be there forever and someone else is going to replace you soon. Even if you continue, you're not going to be there for ever and we understand that as well. We don't want to insult ourselves by becoming responsible for such crazy things as that happened during May, 1991. 

We would gladly fight our enemies who challenge our territory, who challenge our country, but that is a matter of our sovereignty and we will standup for that even when being treated as 15th-class citizens. However, if something bad happens to our administrators when they visit our state, that’s an insult to us. We are culturally designed to tolerate and treat our adversaries with humanity and respect. We are also culturally groomed to follow the principles of social justice, and above all, we have groomed ourselves to respect the concept of logic and reason. With that as the basis, we don't want to be responsible for accommodating the killing of nasty mosquitoes [one can refer to the Dengue outbreak as well but that will be besides the point].

That would be all. Thank you.

Best regards,

ECONOMIC WAR ON THOSE WHO CRITICIZE: THE 'CASHEW-AL' WAY

Hello World,

While I am preparing my next vomit on Arthashastra, I went through the 2018 Budget documents and I have an observation to share with you. Let’s get started.

We will begin with an exhibit:

The 2018-Budget proposes to reduce the customs duty for the import of cashew nuts by 50%. What used to be 5% is going to become 2.5%. Cashew is high value crop and 50% slash is a significant gain and this is expected to make the import of cashew from international markets into our country much cheaper than what it used to be.

Usually, when two countries agree to help each other economically, they ease the selling of each others’ products and services in their respective territories. Also, when the nation needs a raw material for a specific product which also has to be affordable to the citizens, the administration usually relaxes the import duties and enables the market players to take advantage of the margins.

In an effort to understand the story behind I googled to find who the top producers of cashew nuts are. 

Fun fact: We are one of the top-3 producers!

Here’s a set of screenshots to indicate that:

I started wondering why cashew imports need to be relaxed in a country which is already in the top-3 producers list. The reasons are simple:

If cashew imports are relaxed:

1. The local producers will have to face international competition and might not necessarily win the price war. 
2. The local farming economy will face the brunt given that they are already producing the some of the major quantities, globally.

I wanted to know how big the local cashew farming economy existed and I landed at this:

So, 5 out of 7 states in the Top-6 Cashew Producers List are Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Kerala and Karnataka. The others marked as top producers are West Bengal, Jharkand and Maharashtra.

If I look closely, most of these states have political rhetoric strongly criticising the current central administration and the political party that is running it. In essence, what I see is an economic war being waged against states who are not willing to collaborate with the political party running the central administration right now.

I might be wrong but here’s my set of questions:

Why is that cashew is the only agri-produce whose import duty is slashed by 50%? 

How come the crop which comes from select states with a similar political rhetoric can be imported for cheap? 

Is this an economic war against the farmers of the regions where political ideologies don’t necessarily match with that of the current central administration?

While I pondered this, scrolling through the budget document, I came across this:

National program from the central budget aiming at air pollution is something that needs to be lauded with a open heart. Such programs make the place a bit better for future generations. In this case the program directly aims at reducing the loss to the agricultural-economy as a result of air pollution.

However, why do such ambitious programs exclusively cover select states from the country?

This to me means that, the air-pollution-driven death and health hazards faced by citizens from the other states of this country is perfectly ok. 

The priority is just those states which face the MOST POLLUTION. You see, pollution is not bad. MOST POLLUTION is alone bad. Only those who face MOST POLLUTION are superior humans and deserving citizens for a centre-driven program. This is how the best brains work in this country as of now and I cannot imagine of an award that I can recommend the brains who voted these neuro-superior-homo-sapiens who are deeply passionate about protecting just those superior humans who face the MOST POLLUTION in this country.

For some reason, the states who stand to face the economic brunt of cashew imports do not match or even come close to the states included in the air pollution program. 

So some states can have cleaner air and no competition from foreign agri products while others can breathe more monoxides and eat unsold cashews until death. 

The reality might be something very different from the grim picture I paint here. 

The questions are: 

Is it, really?

At What point do we admit the fact as a fact?

Best regards,

HOW ARTHASHASTRA DESTROYED MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES: THE AMATYA IDIOCRACY

Hello World,

Image Source: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/09/my-ministers-a-must-this-month-buhari/

This time we are going to discuss the concept of Amatya: The Minister from the section termed as ‘Amatyapatti’ the analogy for modern day management term being The Manager. You may recall your health insurance situation once if that may be of any comfort. It is all about management and in this case the focus is on how to get your managers as per Arthashastra.

So, one guy says the king can appoint his friends and classmates as ministers. Another idiot says the king has to appoint those whose secrets are known to him and that if these appointed ministers deviate away from the king’s opinion, he can then reveal those secrets and put them in distress. He goes on to blabber the king will also maintain a level of decency, simply because the ministers also would know his secrets. To me this is more of extortion than executive operations. Also the king and the ministers seem like teenagers threatening each other with fail videos of each other. To even consider this as a respectful piece of literature is insult to pretty much every word used in this sentence.

It is almost as if minister positions are jam jars to be filled with favourite flavours. Not one bit of people’s representation and this crap is supposed to display my history from hundreds of years back. Am I the only one observing Culture Coloured Publication Propaganda from the times of multiversal [this time drifting away from universe, kindly hang on] manic depressive monarchy.

Now look at this pic:

The idea thrown at us is that the king needs ministers because one wheel doesn’t turn.

Well, do you have any idea what a UNICYCLE is?????

This is the proof that back when this crap was composed, they did not have a unicycle and this author who is so Thought-Leaderly-Translating the nonsense into trendy-damp-turd with a chill-factor and yo-bro look has no clue this metaphor makes no sense in today’s time.

Again, something flowery and sounding obvious being thrown at us in the name of principle with the back-story that this is from great piece of literature that is old and valuable.

They must have had access to the best weed possible when they conceptualised this idea. Columbian cocaine involves petrol and acids and so can’t be placed in the arthashastra timeline. I am just being contrabandly fair, also herbal, so no chemicals from corporations. I am sure you feel the high-t. I am not sure what colour of elephants they saw flying when they decided they are going to literally manufacture this scripture of venom that can itch a society to divided-death.

Let’s proceed further, shall we?

Have a look at this.

The first part says the king should employ those as ministers whose fathers and grandfathers have served as ministers. This is similar to the noble-blood nonsense that was used to recruit high ranking military officers and officials of the king’s court [even in the west, recall Napolean??]. 

So this is where the great calamity of dynastic-politics got standardised. It makes sense now. The kings have established their dynasties as rulers and so the rest of the king’s joker-team decided to establish there own version of DYNASTIC-SLAVERY-THAT-PAYS-WELL and guess what they used as a tool: PUBLISHING. All they had to do was write ‘scriptures’ in their own Klingon and propagate the theory of dynastic ministerhood among the citizens and most importantly the kings.

‘…though offended will never desert him’ indicates how intricate was the conceptualisation of the DYNASTIC-SLAVERY-THAT-PAYS-WELL.

The next part is a gem of an example for ancient hypocrisy crystallised for the current and future. 

‘….such faithfulness is seen even among dumb animals: cow for example…’

WOW, just WOW……the GO-mother is a dumb animal but hey, it is faithful. Guess what uses GO-mother as example for dumb animals: ARTHASHASTRA. 

This is a case of a well fed goat getting into a pot and making a biriyani of itself. How considerate? or should I say, How Confederate? The all-important ever-comprehensive representative-of-cultural-history ‘principles of management’ has documented its belief in the existence of ‘dumb’ animals and used the all-holy-no-nonsense-not-to-be-butchered GO-mother COW as an example. 

How can a holy animal, considered a representative of the eternal-whoever-that-is can be dumb and why would Arthashastra have it that way? 

We need to be a bit fair and unlike arthshastra, a bit more nice. Let’s give it an escape. The translation of the Arthshastra has the mention of dumb animals and uses COW as an example.

This means the dumbass idiot [apologies for insulting all idiots who were, are and going to be] who authored this translation of Arthashastra had no clue what he was translating. The follow-up to that is: who on earth would even have the objective translating such nonsense and using it for spewing management principle satire that all readers will never recognise? Let me tell you who: The one who read Peter Drucker and wanted to become a local Peter Drucker assuming he is going to motivate a new South-East-Asian Toyota-level manufacturing business. 

Again, someone in the present/recent-past has had access to really good contraband and this time we can account cocaine as well as a possibility. Fairness is important you see, even if it were to be contraband. The shastras might take that as blasphemy and who knows they might spring out a new scripture so dumb that animals such as humans in the year 7018 might believe the 5000-year-old revenge-crap-literature is actually the work of ancient followers of a lord of the non-existent who had the capacity to stop breathing for 500 years and sing songs to get hurricanes and to add a bit of holy flavour, were able to split the ocean so the GO-mother can go on a pilgrimage that it must within its life. Boy! My brain is burning! [or is it ‘If you smelllllllll what the rock, in the temple, is cooking?’  sports entertainment is always fun when used in any context, even IPL, just my thought]

Have a look at one more exhibit [hope I am allowed to say this]:

‘…he shall employ as ministers such as are born of high family…’ indicates the institutionalised format of racism in the name of ‘nobility by birth’ and this was used as a statement defining the philosophy of getting ministers for administration. The statement ends with a cracker of a phrase ‘…ministerial appointments shall purely depend on qualifications.’ 

So, someone burped out the idea of born-of-high-family as a qualification-for-ministerial-appointment and the greatest-scholar-who-had-access-to-the-best-weed included that in the most misogynistic nonsense mankind has ever composed: Arthshastra. The world now has so many brain damaged intellectuals who believe the modern management principles come from or resemble what this misogynistic nonsense covers in great detail, not to miss out, in systematic ‘cerebral-haemorrhage’ style.

So the ‘Amatya’ part says get your friends, or those whom you can control through extortion or those who are born of high family. How intellectual, fair, sincere, correct, humane and representative of the culture of this part of the world. Absolutely DEMO(LISH)CRATIC, isn't it?  

The rest of the world better take good example of this or else the wrath of the holy one shall rain hurricanes and blow earthquakes or worse, appoint Trump as the president. Try being a believer now. Please remember, you need to be a good Amatya: The Minister/Manager....to the dot [may be the holy one as well]. 

Best regards,