by the meltingpot: About that SPARK

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Indeed, what is at work in the recent return of realism is the revenge of geography in the most old-fashioned sense. In the 18th and 19th centuries, before the arrival of political science as an academic specialty, geography was an honored, if not always formalized, discipline in which politics, culture, and economics were often conceived of in reference to the relief map. Thus, in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, mountains and the men who grow out of them were the first order of reality; ideas, however uplifting, were only the second.
And yet, to embrace geography is not to accept it as an implacable force against which humankind is powerless. Rather, it serves to qualify human freedom and choice with a modest acceptance of fate. This is all the more important today, because rather than eliminating the relevance of geography, globalization is reinforcing it. Mass communications and economic integration are weakening many states, exposing a Hobbesian world of small, fractious regions. Within them, local, ethnic, and religious sources of identity are reasserting themselves, and because they are anchored to specific terrains, they are best explained by reference to geography. Like the faults that determine earthquakes, the political future will be defined by conflict and instability with a similar geographic logic. The upheaval spawned by the ongoing economic crisis is increasing the relevance of geography even further, by weakening social orders and other creations of humankind, leaving the natural frontiers of the globe as the only restraint.
So we, too, need to return to the map, and particularly to what I call the “shatter zones” of Eurasia. We need to reclaim those thinkers who knew the landscape best. And we need to update their theories for the revenge of geography in our time.
Here is the link for the whole write up.

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My view is that relations between countries in the coming decades are most likely to reflect their cultural commitments, their cultural ties and antagonism with other countries rather than other factors. Quite obviously, power will continue to play a central role in global politics, as it always does. But usually there is something else behind conflicts. In the 18th century in Europe, the issues to a large extent involved questions of monarchy versus the emerging republican movements, first in America and then in France. In the 19th century, it involved states identifying themselves through nationalism. In the 20th century, ideology came to the fore, largely, but not exclusively, as a result of the Russian Revolution. We had fascism, communism and liberal democracy competing with each other. Well, that’s pretty much over. Liberal democracy has come to be accepted, in theory at least, around the world, if not always in practice. So the question really is what will be the central focus of global politics in the coming decades? My argument remains that cultural identities, antagonisms and affiliations will not only play a role, but play a major role in relations between states. The full interview is here.

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Every citizen in the City of Richardson will be able to access 756 Kbps of internet connectivity for free, from anywhere in the city. They will be able to access the internet from their homes, schools, restaurants and parks using standard wi-fi connections which are now installed on almost every notebook computer. That is almost as fast as many so-called high speed broadband connections that one pays dearly for today, and several times faster than the various hotspots at your local coffee shops. And I should note that the tax-payers of the City of Richardson are not paying one penny for this, and in fact are going to see additional revenues as a benefit. ... At the beginning of this letter, I suggested that this would be one of the fastest worldwide rollouts of a technology ever seen. It was just 20 years ago that the first cellular systems were being built. The rollout for mesh wireless systems is going to make that look slow. There are several reasons I make this assertion. But they all center on the facts that installing mesh systems will be cheaper and easier than any previous system and the economics in both the developed and especially the developing world will be so radically compelling. Throw in the fact the any astute politician will want to be at the front of this parade (They will all want to say, "I was the man who helped bring free internet to everyone!") and the groundwork is laid for rapid deployment. In Richardson and elsewhere, MeshLinx is offering the basic infrastructure for free. This avoids all the time consuming, political budget battles in the cities. When a service is offered for free, much of the mandated competitive process is eliminated. Next is the low cost of installation of the system. As noted above, Richardson is a city of roughly 100,000 people living in 27.4 square miles. It will "only" cost about $2,000,000 today to lay the wireless blanket I mentioned above. It will cost a great deal less in the future, as MeshLinx is building the pods at a pace of 100 a month today. The maximum output of the US pilot assembly line is 500 a month. When the demand exceeds this (and it will in a very short time) discussions have been held to move volume production to China. Of course, the world will need tens of millions of pods. The cost for a pod will be a fraction of today's cost, with that installation number for a city like Richardson soon being half (or less) the cost of today. What does that $1 or 2 million get you? The infrastructure to be an internet connection, telephone, security, entertainment provider and a whole lot more company. As noted, it will get cheaper as the number of pods being made each month rises, thus lowering their costs dramatically. This technology does have scale. The cost of physically putting up a pod is not a large part of the equation, as you simply need to run a power line, attach a few bolts to a mount on the side of a building or light pole and then off to the next point. Think about the 40,000 homes and businesses in Richardson. If and (hopefully) over time when 10% decide to pay $50 a month for 10-20 Mbps high speed internet access you could see a revenue of $2.5 million a year just from internet access. Now add in all the other income possibilities (phone, entertainment, security and don't forget advertising revenue on the free service!). Think about your town or country. What would service like this be worth? If you are a small city that does not have high speed connections available, how many businesses that could bring jobs do not come your way because they need reliable communications for their work and their employees? If you are in a developing country, where internet access is difficult and expensive, it will open whole new vistas. Couple that with the various programs which want to give cheap laptops to kids in poor countries, and you could see significant social progress in a generation. Here is the link.

Monday, October 16, 2006

About that SPARK

As I planned some days back, I sat down through the most of the evening and produced the following write up trying to understand the likelihood of ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ providing the spark for emancipation of the oppressed people throughout India.

Whatever its weaknesses, Indian National Congress is the embodiment of the very basic national characteristics of India, like secularism, unity in diversity, non-violence etc. Now, this party is becoming irrelevant in what we call the heartland of Indian nation, namely, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar , Madhya pradesh etc. It is not the case of it being suffering a periodical setback in this area. It is widely reported, and generally accepted as a present day fact, that it is already becoming irrelevant in these parts of India.

But the most revealing part is that the party itself has no clue as to what went wrong with itself in this part of the country. They have not been able to find a theoretical underpinning to explain away the reason why it’s being irrelevant there. The best it could do is to field a young MP of Gandhi-Nehru lineage in the political arena down there, in the hope that he would come up with a magic wand by himself.

To my mind, it indicates the continuing revolt against those who are steering the caste system. I also believe that it has been simmering under the surface since many centuries back and so, it would try to rise to the surface. What it lacks is a robust leadership who can channelize those simmering energies to strike at the weakest link in the system and break though it.

But a pertinent question arises here. If it has been simmering for several centuries now, would it have any plausible reason to be able to find that leadership any time now?

How is that the political situation there fails to throw up a robust leadership for so many centuries now?

Now, let’s look at our own National Highway no 39. The army troopers posted along it do not prevent Naga insurgents from collecting taxes from the vehicles plying on it. In mast cases, the insurgents have been openly collecting their taxes from their own checkpoints, which are just near the army’s outpost. Some even are operating from the very outpost of the armymen.

I’m not pointing an accusing finger to Naga insurgents. It is the same in the case of Meitei insurgents ‘extorting’ money in Imphal valley. Security forces are aware that the ‘extortion’ is there but they let it continue.

There may be a hidden agenda behind such policy of the security forces but we can proceed without even trying to explain that. The important issue here is that they are letting some agencies break the law without impunity under their respective jurisdictions. As an organized security agency of the Indian state they are doing not anything to uphold the rule of law.

In ordinary situations, it should be construed as a pure dereliction of duty. And, in the absence of disciplinary actions for this dereliction of duty, there must be some ‘side effects’ on the troopers themselves. I’ll repeat—in ordinary situation, there is absolute possibility of the troopers themselves infected with the virus of corruption and insubordination. If this situation is let to continue for some times, there may even be possibility of the troopers challenging the civilian authority and of attempting to take control by coup.

But this is not happening in India. That’s why I called it not ‘ordinary’.

The Indian army has a doctrine of accepting insurgency upto a certain level, which is being pre-calibrated by it so that the insurgents would not attempt to break through the established civil administration. We can well imagine what would become of Naga insurgency (for that matter, any insurgency, be it Meitei,Assamese or Tripuri) if they are let to simmer ( meaning, letting them collect their taxes freely or letting them move around in full military fatigues with assault rifles etc) but forcefully kept just beneath the breaking out point, using occasional peace talks and, if necessary, occasional military operations, for another 50 year. In India’s heartland this policy has been continuing for centuries now and we all can see what its effects are.

Looking from this perspective, two questions arise:

>> Would this doctrine of acceptance of limited rebellion effectively curb the emergence of a capable leadership?

>> Even in the case the leadership actually does come up, would it able to present an alternative social order to the caste system?

These are really difficult question to answer. But for our purpose, we can proceed even without attempting to answer them.

It’s because the doctrine of acceptance of limited rebellion have already done enough damages to the Indian polity, even if it, so far, manages to withstand the stark corrupting effects on the security personnel. With the security personnel looking the other way, enough laws of the land has been broken on the daily basis that the confidence of the citizens in the strength of such laws is severely put under test.

But, more importantly, mini rebellions across the breadth of the country has been kept simmering for such a long time now that basic founding principles of the Indian nation is severely undermined. See how Indian National Congress, which, by the way, happens to be the depository of those principles, has already become irrelevant there. This has been not only happening in the periphery like Manipur but in the very heartland of Indian nation, where the majority of the people populate and from where the majority of the seats to the parliament are elected.

If such basic principles are undermined by the majority people living in the heartland of the Indian nation, which, by definition, should serve as the centripetal force of the Indian nation, then any number of scenarios can evolve out of it.

For example, vast majority of these mass of people in the heartland have not yet afford the proverbial two square meals a day, have no proper roofs over their heads, no medical facilities, no electricity, no roads—the list is simple endless. In the situation where the basic founding principles of the Indian nation are being undermined on the daily basis, they, under some forceful leadership, may demand that the pouring in of money to NE States and other backward stats as current account subsidy be stopped so that they may utilize them for their foods, roofs, medicines, electricity, roads etc.

Then, the proverbial spark may well come from one of the states which suck in such current account subsidies, like Manipur, where there is open revolt against the injustice by a young lady, known as ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’.

by the meltingpot

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