Tag Archives: India

মোদী, ভারত, এবং বর্তমান সভ্যতা-সংকট

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ফেসবুকে আমার ছেলেবেলার এবং আজীবনের বন্ধুদের অন্যতম স্যমন্তকের একটি মোদী-বিচার লেখা পড়ে মনে হল যে আমার হয়তো উচিত নিজের বক্তব্যটা পেশ করা, যদিও আমি অন্য লোকের উঠোনে গিয়ে নিজের মন্তব্য জাহির করাটা একেবারেই পছন্দ করিনা।

কিন্তু বিষয়টা আমার কাছে খুবই সাম্প্রতিক ও গুরুত্বপূর্ণ। তাই তাতে আমার বক্তব্য রাখতে এবং অন্যের ঘাড়ে চেপে না চেঁচানোর সিদ্ধান্ত থেকে না সরতে গিয়ে, একটা ব্লগ লিখে ফেললুম বাংলাতে – ঔ উভয় সংকটের মুশকিল আসানের সন্ধানে।

স্যমন্তকের ফেসবুক পাতার শিরোনাম চিত্র

স্যমন্তক,

আমি সাধারণতঃ অন্য লোকের উঠোনে উচ্চারিত নিজস্ব বক্তব্যের ওপর খবরদারী করতে বা সমালেচনা করতে আসিনা। তবে এইবার তোর উক্তিটা চোখের সামনে এল এবং বিষয়টা গুরুত্বপূর্ণ মনে হল বলে ভাবলাম Facebook’এ আমার ব্যবহারে একটা ব্যতিক্রম হয়তো আনতে পারি এবং মনে করছি তুই অখুশি হবিনা। তাত্পর্যপূর্ণ বিষয়ে মতানৈক্য থাকতেই পারে, যদি তা সসম্ভ্রমে পেশ করা যায়।

স্যমন্তককে আমি আনন্দ পাঠশালা থেকে চিনি এবং একই ক্লাসে একই বছর ইস্কুল পাশ করেছি।

নরেন্দ্র মোদি আগামী নির্বাচন জিতবে কি জিতবে না জানি না – সন্দেহ করি জিতবে, কিন্তু জেতার অন্যতম মূল কারণ নিজগুনের চেয়ে বেশি হবে বিশ্বাসযোগ্য বিকল্পের অভাব।

মোদীর লোকপ্রীয়তার অন্যতম কারণ ছিল ভারতবাসীদের অনেকেরই ইংরেজদের দাক্ষিণ্যে পাওয়া ভণ্ড-ধর্মনিরপেক্ষতার নামে মুসলমান-পোষণ ও হিন্দু-বিভাগ নীতির ধারাবাহিক সম্প্রসারণের ওপর অরূচি। তাই, দেশের একটি বৃহত গোষ্ঠীর অনেকদিনের জমানো ক্ষোভকে স্বীকৃতি দিয়ে ভাজপা দল ক্ষমতায় এসেছিল। ছোটবেলায় বিজ্ঞান পাঠে শিখেছিলাম – প্রকৃতি শূন্য সহ্য করেনা, তাই শূন্যস্থানকে ভর্তি করে দেয় পূর্ণতা রক্ষা করতে। জনতার বৃহদাংশ হিন্দুদের বঞ্চিত থাকার অনুভূতিটা একরকম রাজনৈতিক শূন্যতা – যা রাজনৈতিক ক্ষেত্রে পুরণ করার সময় এসেছিল এবং ভাজপা তা বুঝতে পারে এবং তাকে ভর করে এক রাজনৈতিক আন্দোলন শুরু করে, যার আধুনিক ফল হল নরেন্দ্র মোদীর কত লোকেদের উত্থান। তবে ক্ষমতায় আসা, আর ক্ষমতায় টিকে থাকা – দুটো দুরকম সমস্যা – এবং সমাধানও সবসময় একই পরিকল্পনা থেকে আসে না।

স্যমন্তক বলেছে ছোটখাটো ছাপোষাদের ঘুষ ও চুরিচামারির রাস্তা বন্ধ হয়েছে। আগের মনমোহন সরকারও একটু একটু করে সেই রাস্তা বন্ধ করার পথে নেমেছিল – মোদী সরকার সেই রাস্তাকে আরও প্রশস্ত করেছে। এক ঝলকে দেখলে তাতে লোকেদের খুশি হবারই কথা, এবং মোদী সরকার তাকে সবার দৃষ্টিগোচরও করেছে নানা প্রকার ঢাক পিটিয়ে। আরও নানা যায়গায় সরকার দেশকে স্বাবলম্বী করার নামে নানা রকম উদ্যোগও নিয়েছে – মানছি।

কিন্তু, দূর থেকে নিরপেক্ষভাবে বিচার করলে মনে হয় যে – ছোটখাটো লোকেদের চুরি চামারি, দুর্নীতি এবং আমলাতন্ত্র থামিয়ে মোদী সরকার বৃহত কর্পোরেশন এবং ধনকুবেরদের রাষ্ট্র লুঠ করার পথ খুলে দিয়েছে এবং রাষ্ট্রকে দেশী বিদেশী অতিধনী গোষ্ঠীশাসনের অধীনে আনার জন্য কাজ করে যাচ্ছে। চুরি এখনও হচ্ছে এবং মনে হয় আগের চেয়ে আরও ভয়াবহ রুপ নিচ্ছে সেই দূরাচার – এবং তাতে লাভবান হবে মিচকে চোরেরা বা সাধারণ প্রজারা নয়, অন্য এক শ্রেনীর অতিক্ষমতাশীল প্রভুদের দল, যাদের পকেটে সব রাজনীতিবিদরা থাকে এবং মনে হচ্ছে মোদীর জন্যেও এক বিশেষ পকেট তৈরি ছিল শুরু থেকেই।

নানা দেশী এবং আন্তর্জাতিক কারণে ভারতীয় এবং পৃথিবীর জনগন আজ এক নজিরহীন মহাসংকটের সামনে দাঁড়িয়ে – সব দেশের সব রাজণৈতিক দলই এই মানবতালুণ্ঠনে অংশীদার ও ঠিকাদার  মনে হয় – তফাতটা খালি কে কিরকম লিপস্টিক লাগাচ্ছে এবং কিরকম পাউডার মাখছে গালে – ততটুকুই।

আমার নিজস্ব মতে দোষটা জনতার। রাজা হল জনতার প্রতিফলন। জনতা যদি দূরদৃষ্টিহীন, স্বার্থপর, কাপুরুষ বা মেরুদণ্ডহীন, ভীরু হয়, তবে তাদের প্রাপ্য মুখোশপরা সরকারই তারা পাবে।

এতে সবচেয়ে শিক্ষণীয় পাঠ হল – স্বাধীনতা, ন্যায় ও সুবিচার আকাশ থেকে পড়ে না – তাকে অর্জন করতে হয় – তার জন্য মাথার ঘাম ফেলতে হয়, এমনকি রক্তও দিতে হয়।

দুঃখের বিষয় – সুভাসবাবুও জনরক্তস্বল্পতায় কাবু হলেন এবং রবীন্দ্রনাথের বর্ণিত হালের কাছের মাঝি  ঔ ভীরু জনতার অবহেলায় আজ সুদূরে বিলীন।

বেশি বলে ফেলেছি মনে করলে নিজগুনে মাফ করে দিস বাবুয়া।

সবাই ভাল থাকবেন।

India and the covid vaccine

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Personally, I do not believe in vaccine science in general, and vaccines against viruses in particular, which includes vaccines against coronavirus. I also do not believe coronavirus is as dangerous as it is made out to be. I suspect most government leaders know that there is a controversy regarding it, but for reasons I have not yet managed to fathom properly, are going along with the narrative.

Consequently, I am not at all planning to get myself vaccinated, unless I am forced. If forced I shall consider it as a form of slavery where I do not any more have freedom over even my own body and soul. My immediate family has the same view, and I am kind of happy to note that they independently reached that decision without any discussion with me.

Meanwhile, India is in a peculiar place. Nationalism and pride mades many in India feel good that India has become the largest covid vaccine producer on earth, and that its vaccines are being sought by many countries around the world.

My understanding is that India produces and sells many kinds of covid vaccines, such as :

  1. Vaccines that are wholly home grown, of which there are two brands. I am told these are among the most economical of all available vaccines anywhere in the world. That needs to be confirmed by third party verification.

  2. Vaccines that are designed by others carrying other brand names, but are mass produced in India on behalf of the original brands, This is similar to iPhones being considered an US design but produced in China. India merely produces the vaccine at a fixed price to the patent holder, while the original patent holder then sells it according to whatever deal it makes with the end user countries.

  3. Some Big Pharma jointly researched and produced some vaccines using Indian technicians and pharmaceutical infrastructure, with an arrangement where the final product may be sold independently by both the overseas partner as well as by the Indian partner, sometimes under different brand names.

I am told that about 50% of the worlds covid vaccines are being produced in India alone.

A number of western nations have praised India for being the pharmacy of the world to battle covid19. Most Indians, like most people elsewhere, like being praised by outsiders. So social media is often filled with the proud Indians.

While I like the fact that Indian pharmaceutical capacity is almost matchless, I have mixed feelings about the vaccine issue and the covid vaccine story.

Here is a map I got from an Indian journalist Tanmay Shanker’s post on a local social media platform – Koo, about countries that are getting vaccines from India. You will note that in North America, Canada and Mexico are highlighted while USA is not.

I am a bit puzzled at the exclusion of Russia from this map. I have heard that the Russian Sputnic vaccine has been tested and approved by India, for local sale. Not only that, I read that India had agreed to produce this vaccine for Russia and send it back to Russia for their use, since Russia is unable to produce the numbers they need quickly enough. So, the absence of Russia from this map is a bit puzzling, for me.

Countries that received vaccines from India

Lastly, if I understand Bill Gates, this is only the beginning of the age of vaccines. There are likely to be unending streams of vaccines and other devices down the line, as more and more deadly diseases are planned to turn up as our nemesis that require unending streams of medication. I will not be surprised if India becomes one of the primary beneficiaries of the vaccine avalanche to rain down on the planet, while Bill Gates remains major share holder of almost all vaccine manufacturing plants inside and outside of India.

A new kind of Orwellian world awaits us. I wonder if anybody is actually discussing these issues.

Originally posted on MeWe, and later on this blog.

Folate-glyphosate-liver conundrum

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The story started with the possible link between spina-bifida and glyphosate from the point of view of India.

I am visiting India right now. I have also been invited to speak at different venues about dangers of using glyphosate. There are pockets of India with high use of glyphosate, and there are reports of high occurrence of certain disease and birth defects. I have not gotten access to much reports and statistics and I get the impression that there is much room for data collection and analysis on this front.

However, I did come across the issue of spina-bifida, the broken-spine birth defect and its effects in Missions province of Argentina and also in India. In Argentina, they are using roundup ready tobacco. Women that were spraying glyphosate on those tobacco plants, were giving birth to many of the seriously deformed babies with damaged spinal column or damaged brain etc. Glyphosate was suspected to be the cause. Following that, and getting further information from scientists like Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff, and also from the internet, I learned that deficiency of folate/ folic acid has links to this birth defect. Also, India apparently has the worlds highest rate (per thousand births) of spina bifida in the world, and four times higher than the world average.

There seemed to be a number of birth defects related to pregnant women being exposed to various toxins, of which glyphosate is one. The defects ranged from babies without a brain or having a deformed brain, to man-formed or broken spine. Some of these defects were identified under an umbrella term – Neural Tube Defect, or NTD. India had a high prevalence of that.

I was further advised by grassroots workers that the farming community needed to see these images of deformed babies, to fully grasp the potential harm that newborns can have, if adult women of childbearing age are engaged in handling toxic material. This is one way to make folks realise the overall dangers involved with agro-toxins.

Folate deficiency is reported to be at the root of some of these birth defects, such as spina-bifida or broken-spine disease. The story of folate itself appears to hide as much truth as it tells. The 1990s is when glyphosate started seriously entering human food through GMO. Later its presence increased through non-GMO desiccated seed crops. Along with the presence of glyphosate, birth defects such as spina-bifida started rising. scientists discovered a possible link between folate deficiency, especially during the first month of pregnancy, and spina-bifida. There is virtually no cure for this defect.

Fortification of seed crops with folic acid (a folate substitute) was made mandatory for suppliers of main cereals in the US back in the 1990s, the same time when glyphosate started entering human food in every increasing amount. Apparently, folic acid (vitamin B9) is not exactly the same thing as folate.

Stephanie Seneff told me that, when she was researching folate for her lecture, she noted that the gut microbes processed dietary folate into methyl tetrahydrofolate, but the same microbiome did not know what to do with the folic acid that was being added as fortification of wheat.

However, according to some scientists that perhaps influenced the US Government into proposing folic acid fortification, noted a reduction in spina-bifida birth defects with folic acid fortification of food. It is believed that liver gets over-taxed by demands to convert folic acid into methyl tetrahydrofolate, because our gut bacteria are unable to handle folic acid. Therefore, although some methyl tetrahydrofolate was eventually being produced by the body, which in turn reduced the rate of spina-bifida, our liver got overworked, and as a direct result of that our liver was then unable to engage in both methylation capacity and antioxidant capacity. In other words, folic acid helped solve one problem but created a few more in turn.

The lesson here is – removing glyphosate would have been the best solution, allowing our gut bacteria to do their job, than fortification of food with man made alternatives. Having said that, I am advised by Stephanie Seneff that, should one be incapable to reducing glyphosate from food, and must take supplements, methyl folate was better than folic acid.

There is another way glyphosate puts a spanner into the wheels. Its presence in folate producing plants that we eat, in itself interferes with the plant’s ability to do its work properly. This in turn reduces the plant’s production folate. As a result, glyphosate-laced plants ends up with more of the potential natural folate being bio-unavailable for us.

It is my opinion that the only thing good about glyphosate is that it makes money for some toxic corporations. It has no other positive. It should not be present on planet earth. Let them make a profit by supplying it to Jupiter.

To meet with a demand to have some of this material in local languages and not just English, I translated a few. Here is an example.

This will be another chapter in my book – Lonely Road.

Incidentally, I found methyl tetrahydrofolate is available in India, in 800 microgram tablets, about $8 (₹ 500) for 180 tablets. I am thinking of trying them out, but am waiting feedback from experts. The thing is – I am neither female, nor pregnant, nor in childbearing age. So, how much folate am I usually in need of ?

Releasing glufosinate tolerant crop is a braindead thing to do

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There are three recently published scientific papers that seem to indicate that glufosinate can trigger microcephaly.

Microcephaly is a serious birth defect where a baby is born with an impaired brain and a smaller head than normal. The cause for this birth defect can include pregnant mother being subjected to acute starvation, or more commonly, exposure to toxins.

There has been various hot debates around the world on the reason this defect. The birth defect has been noticeable where pregnant women may have been exposed to agro-chemicals such as glyphosate in regions such as Argentina or the Yakima valley in USA. Zika virus has been blamed for some of the cases of microcephaly. However, scientists believe the real culprit to be NALED insecticide often used to kill mosquitoes, to be the cause at least in the Yakima valley and possibly also in Brazil. NALED, like Glyphosate, is also an organophosphate. However, glyphosate has remained under focus in many other regions including in the US due to the sheer volume of it being used and the plethora of diseases it is suspected to be connected to, including brain disorder, it being an amino acid analogue of glycine and easily able to cross the blood brain barrier.

In Argentina, Roundup-Ready soy is being replaced reportedly by another GM seed variety that is tolerant to glufosinate, because glyphosate had become a controversial and hated herbicide, and was also starting to fail due to extensive resistance among the weeds.

While discussing this with US scientist Stephanie Seneff, she pointed out three recent science papers that seem to also link glufosinate with microcephaly. These three papers are as follows:

The first paper, from 2010, involving research in Florida and Texas, in the US, finds a conserved glutamate to be critical in the construction of an enzyme called Asparagine Synthetase.

The second paper from 2013 involving an international group from Canada, Israel and the US, points to encephalopathy resulting from a deficiency in this same asparagine sythetase enzyme, which is essential for the development and function of the brain.

The third – from a French group, published in 2016 indicates that female rats exposed to glufosinate at a critical stage of pregnancy lead to neurogenesis or impaired brain in the babies.

Now, Stephanie pointed out, as had Anthony Samsel to me before, that just as glyphosate is an amino acid analogue of glycine, glufosinate is an amino acid analogue of glutamate. Both glycine and glutamate are among the 20 canonical amino acids that are used as basic building blocks of life, for protein construction of all living biology on planet earth.

So, while getting rid of glyphosate is an absolute must, replacing it with glufosinate is the very worst alternative imaginable.

This is not only of vital importance to Argentina and everybody else going for glufosinate based herbicides, but also for India, where genetically engineered mustard has been under focus for a while.

I personally was astonished and horrified to learn that this GM mustard was tolerant to glufosinate. I found that to be far more dangerous and objectionable, than whatever gene altering of mustard might do to the consumer. However, the best I know, the debate in India remained focused on the theory of genetic alternation and its legal, social, economic and political implications. Glufosinate, far as I recall, remained under the radar, much like glyphosate has remained under the radar in India until local papers and MPs started picking up my warning that India was likely being mass poisoned with glyphosate from imported pulses, and the matter reached both the Indian Parliament as well as pulse growers association in Canada.

Just a minder – one more time:

  • There are 20 amino acids that form all the proteins of all the living world.
  • Glycine is the most common of them all.
  • Glyphosate mimics glycine and thus gets inside our proteins, turning them rogue.
  • Glyphosate is suspected to cause a plethora of diseases through multiple mechanisms that affect living cellular biology. This includes cancer, autoimmune disease and brain disorder.
  • Glutamate is another of the 20 amino acid building blocks of life.
  • Glufosinate mimics glutamate.
  • Glufosinate will very likely also lead to encephalopathy or partially formed brains in newborns, as the three papers mentioned here indicate.

For India – GM mustard is glufosinate tolerant – a braindead way of developing new food strains.
For Argentina – replacing Roundup ready soybean with glufosinate tolerant soybean represents a catastrophic failure of safety concerns.

My thanks go to Stephanie Seneff for bringing this to my attention while discussing glufosinate resistance. I am forever grateful to Samsel, Seneff, Huber and Hoy for keeping my eyes open on this issue.

The image at right on Microcephaly and the figure for India, found through google search, puzzles me. How many cases are found in India. It says less than 1 million. But one million is a lot. Is it less than 10,00 or 1,000?

If I take annual birth rate to be around 20 million one million cases of microcephaly would mean an extreme high rate of one in twenty or 5% !

I would really love to get my hands on the real figures for India, and also the trend. Is the occurrence of microcephaly rising year to year ? If so, how much?

By the way, the red arrow in the image above is my addition.

If you google Microcephaly in India, the search result starts to show up a whole list of links relating to zica virus. There are regions where the zica virus has reportedly been present since the 1940s and yet there is no microcephaly. On the other end, there are cases of microcephaly where no zica virus has been found. But reports that link microcephaly with exposure to glufosinate is given right here, below, though in real life, the direct link has not yet been established. Potentially, glufosinate can lead to microcephaly since it is a neurotoxin. The insecticide NALED (Formula: C4H7Br2Cl2O7P), often used for mosquito control, has been almost always present where microcephaly has been noted, with the exception of Argentina. The warning is even present on the package of NALED – not to let it get into drinking water. In other words, it can harm any animal eating or drinking it.

What is going on with google search ?

The three papers can be read or downloaded here:
1) A Conserved Glutamate Controls the Commitment to Acyl- adenylate Formation in Asparagine Synthetase
2) Deficiency of asparagine synthetase causes congenital microcephaly and a progressive form of encephalopathy
3) Perinatal Exposure to Glufosinate Ammonium Herbicide Impairs Neurogenesis and Neuroblast Migration through Cytoskeleton Destabilization

4) Separately – Watanabe 1997 comes to the same conclusion on glufosinate. Although glufosinate was not considered to be teratogenic, mutagenic nor carcinogenic, this study found that it indeed was teratogenic in mice and rats in whole embryo culture, and that it specifically induces apoptosis in the neuroepithelium of developing embryos

Don Huber sent a note:

Tony,
Keep up the good work!  Also remember that all of these chemicals are
mineral chelators and that minerals are the enzyme cofactors for all of
these processes cited.
Thanks for sharing.
Don
Don M. Huber
Professor Emeritus, Purdue University


Anthony Samsel explaines : Glufosinate cannot be used in place of Glyphosate on genetically engineered crops unless they have been specifically engineered to be resistant to this herbicide. The encoding of the Phosphinothricin acetyltransferase (PAT) gene imparts glufosinate resistance.

Dual herbicide (Glufosinate and Glyphosate) resistant genetically engineered crops, which include some varieties of corn etc have both the PAT gene and a glyphosate tolerant gene.  I have 50 varieties of these GE corn hybrids in my seed refrigerator for experimental purposes which also includes these GLyphsoate/glufosinate  dual herbicide resistant varieties. 
 
The Glyphosate resistance genes include:
 
  1. The cp4 epsps gene.
  2. The cp4 epsps (aroA:CP4) gene is the gene which produces an over abundance of 5-enolpyruvyl-3-phosphoshikimic acid impart resistance 
  3. The Glyphosate oxidoreductase gene (GOX)  
  4. The gat4621 gene which uses the glyphosate N-acetyltransferase enzyme to catalyze the inactivation of glyphsaote herbicide.  It essentially converts glyphosate to the N-acetyl form rendering it non-toxic to the plants.
  5. There is also the mepsps gene which is a modified 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-ohosphate synthase (EPSPS) enzyme which imparts Glyphosate resistance.
Glufosinate is an analog of Glutamic acid one of our 20 proteinogenic amino acids.  Its principal metabolite found in urine and feces is 3-[hydroxy(methyl)phosphinoyl]propionic acid.  Glutamate has been used in reference to Glutamic acid.  I like to use Glutamic acid.  Glufosinate is an analog of Glutamic acid.  You can see the difference between Glutamic acid (the anion) and Glutamate below.  Glutamic acid in H2O ionizes attaching a hydrogen atom (glutamate form).  Glufosinate, an analog of glutamic acid, has an amine group in place of an oxygen molecule.
It is possible that glufosinate can also cause microcephaly.  Glufosinate is a neurotoxin.  Glufoiosinate was found to have teratogenic effects in mice (Watanabe, 1997) as apoptosis (cell death) in the neuroepithelium of developing embryos.

The abstract of the Watanabe/Sano paper is copied here:

Herbicides containing glufosinate ammonium are widely used in many countries including Japan. Many Japanese cases of accidental and suicidal poisoning by glufosinate have been reported since 1989. We report a case of a 64- year old man who ingested glufosinate in an attempted suicide. The patient suffered mental disturbances and hematological changes together with gastrointestinal effects shortly after ingesting the poison, and later developed generalized convulsions, impaired respiration and circulatory failure. During recovery he exhibited loss of short-term memory (retrograde and anterograde amnesia). Neurotoxicity is a characteristic of glufosinate poisoning, although the mechanism is not clear. From the analysis of clinical symptoms of previously published cases, glufosinate toxicity appears to arise both from the active ingredient and the surfactant in the formulation.

The glufosinate containing herbicide brand used in the above case was reported to be BASTA, the same product the GM mustard developed for release in India is reportedly resistant to.

Cheers and have a great day all.

Tony Mitra

Wozniak, Glyphosate and Indian cultural slavery

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I have been jotting down ideas in a loosely arranged new book, called “Lonely Road” or “My Lonely Road of Glyphosate activism.

Why do I write it ? It is my personal feeling that, for an activist concerned with glyphosate, or destruction of biodiversity and ecology, or a planet facing mass extinction and perhaps human civilization facing a systemic collapse – writing a book is an useless pursuit.

This of course is my personal opinion. Book writing is for book writers, for them to earn a living and for people to have something to read.

Don’t get me wrong. There is a need for books, for a thousand different reasons.

But, in my view, in my personal experience of an anti-Glyphosate activist, writing a book about it is an useless pursuit, if the goal of the writer is to trigger a chain of events that might help put a stop to the reckless use of glyphosate on planet earth.

But then why am I writing this book. contradicting my own beliefs?

Well, one of the reason is a selfish one – a human’s desire to leave something behind when he/she kicks the bucket. Another reason may be that some humans are instinctively record keepers and like to leave behind a footnote to future generations, a statement that someone else had walked this path before. Also, it can be just that some folks believe they ave a flair of writing, or that they have a story worth telling.

Some of those reasons may apply to me – but there is also another. It is a constructive way to pass idle time.

I do not watch TV, and have started avoiding mainstream newspapers and magazines, mainly because I am not only fed up with them, but suspect I might become brain damaged if I spent too much time watching or reading them. While internet provides a sort of alternative pathway to news, it is also heavily controlled and also as full of rubbish as any other platform designed for public consumption.

I don’t go to watch much movies. I don’t do drugs, and don’t drink. I do not frequent pubs and bars. I find idle yapping with folks to be boring to the point of being intolerable.

I like conversation and exchange of ideas with folks that share similar interests or are able to talk on global issues with some depth and not superficially. Unfortunately, such people are very hard to find. As a result, I am often speaking with such folks over the phone, across great physical distances.

I am rather opinionated and do not suffer fools well.

All these are my psychological baggage and that results in me having certain amount of quiet time for introspection.

And right now, I am in India. Have been here for a number of months and likely to be here for a bit more, for personal reasons. And, I have less ways to use my time constructively. Yes, I am doing some bird-watching. Yes, I have visited interesting places and met interesting people.

But, not being in my own environment back in Canada, I have more idle time with myself.

As a result, I took up filling out some of the chapters of my book here.

Question – why do I have a chapter on Steve Wozniak in a book about Glyphosate activism ? Is Wozniak a known critic or supporter of Glyphosate ?

Frankly, I do not know. However, I do believe there is a link between recent comment made by Wozniak in Delhi, India, which has been twisted around some by the media, and the reason why Glyphosate, and toxic technologies from the west, manages to get strongholds in countries such as India.

And I intend to write a chapter on this.

I read a few articles on what Wozniak said. Apparently he mentioned that Indians, the upwardly mobile Indians that migrate to the US, are usually academic types (book pushers) that get MBAs, get fat jobs and might drive a Mercedes. However, they lack creativity. The papers seem to say that Wozniak commented to the effect that this lack of creativity is the reason India does not get companies like Apple, Google or Facebook.

I am not sure if Wozniak meant exactly that, but feel pretty confident that he said what he did as a positive criticism of the Indian system, mostly education system, that encourages copybookism (a term I just coined) as against independent thinking, which is why the upper half Indians following this system end up being successful techno-coolies designed to be well paid cogs in the US style corporate machinery, like a new age incarnation of the century old character played by Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times. This is why Yuppy Indians are unlikely to be pathfinders of new horizons.

If Wozniak actually meant all this, then I disagree with him, again in a constructive way, and I think this has great relevance to why and how technologies such as chemical farming and glyphosate get a purchase in countries like India.

First – Indians are no more nor less creative than Americans. In fact there is no good way to even define an American, since most so called creative people in the US came from somewhere else, or their parents of grandparents did. But what essentially set the US apart from other countries, and especially apart from India, is that the system in the US encouraged creativity and brilliance, as well as encourage hard working coopybookists (another term I coined just now).

India, on the other hand, has a system where corporations grease their way through the Government which legislates and legitimizes business tycoons to get a stranglehold on certain sectors of business, often to the great detriment of the environment and the people, and shuts all doors to independent thinking, rational thinking, and creative thinking.

In short, it is not so much the people of India, but the system that Indians have rigged for themselves after independence, that promotes cronyism, corruption and hegemony and suppresses creativity, independent thinking, or rational thinking.

Of course, I am perhaps being a bit more harsh on India than I should be, but then, perhaps the readers will forgive me, since I come from years of frustrating glyphosate activism.

But hang on – things are not all that hunky dory for USA either, and this is another area that Wozniak is either unaware of, or is unwilling to touch. The vaunted US system is virtually bankrupt and on the point of collapse.

One could also argue if Facebook, Google and Apple are actually helping or harming the planet – but that would really drag this chapter into an endless road. I shall leave it for others to ponder.

US does not any more have a system that is just or which rewards rational thinking. It is a system that has given rise to the One World Order, a system that is busy devouring the planet. And its political establishment is corrupt to the core, borrowing a term from Shiv Chopra’s book.

But back to India. The upwardly mobile, english educated Indian population, both in India and outside, have largely become cultural slaves of the US system. They are hypnotized, like a deer caught in the headlights. They are unable to think straight or think outside of the American bubble.

And this cultural slavery is working in favour of glyphosate, in favour of Monsanto and in favour of industrial, chemical agriculture as much as many other items that only promote US hegemony and destruction of the biodiverse sustainable ecology of the planet, all in the name of phoney and fraudulent idea of “development” and “progress”.

And that is the link, in my mind, between whatever Wozniak might have said, and my take on why India appears to be almost blindly allowing their people to be poisoned in order to make profit for agro-corporations.

Anyhow, this is just part of one chapter of my book – in the making.

You can perhaps guess, this book is not designed to be popular either in India, or in the US.

But then, that is me.

Demonetization – another set of views received from India.

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Prime Minister Modi

I asked three persons in India to give their view of what is going on.. and the response has been varied. One person is a mom and pop kind of businessman in a small town. The other is a media person. The third is a young educated entrepreneur engaged in organic type chemical free farming in rural are and also working with a some local farmers trying to wean them away from chemicals and patented seeds, in a small way.

One of them thought the ruling party did it to win a local election in a populous state, which is now due, among other things. Although a harassment, and likely to cause a sort of recession temporarily in the economy, he did not think this was going to greatly hurt India.. just another example of the rich and powerful politicians doing stupid things.

The newspaper guy thought this is pushed mostly by a foreign investor-banking cabal trying to get their hands on all the small wealth belonging to rural india, etc. In this, he was perhaps pushing the general view from news media, criticizing Modi for some hidden agenda.

But the third person had a different view, and appeared to be have enough details observed, to present a non-mainstream opinion about it all. This is the view that impressed me most, because of the details her had observed, or heard from folks.

Apparently, a large swath of the commercial media is against Modi’s demonetization. However, just like the mainstream media in the west misread ground sentiment about Trump, especially in rural USA, apparently the media is misreading ground sentiment in rural India and even in urban India, about the demonetization effort.

Yes, there are long lines of folks trying to change their money. However, there has not been a single riot in protest, in a country where riots happen at the drop of a hat, and are kept out of media as far as possible. Here, some of the media has been caught on cell phone camera urging folks to show their disappointment in more forceful manner, and asking why they are not angry and protesting it etc – and in almost all cases, the people in the line have shooed these media people away.

In other words, much of the media, not all, are carrying their own agenda. Therefore a similarity with the western neoliberal Hillary-Obama-Warmongering support while pretending to be pro-poor pro-immigrant etc – is interesting.

The main reason people are generally supporting it, is their hope/belief that this will take away that part of the black money in circulation, which promotes and supports the never-ending cycle of corruption through bribery in their daily life. Partially educated common men believe, and perhaps with justification, that this babugiri (bureaucratic corruption) and demand for bribe at every walk of life is the main reason India has not been able to shake off its shackle of poverty and misery in three generation of independence.

This is why a policeman, who pays several lakh or even crore rupee to get a job as a policeman, by borrowing it, a bribe that ended up in the big boss or even the local politician’s pocket, has to be utterly corrupt as a policeman to be able to pay back in his working life. This is just one example of how bribery is affecting every aspect of society. It is this reason why majority of folks facing harassment due cash crunch right now, are still supporting it.

Some small store-wallah are lamenting that their business this month will suffer at least a 20% slow down, and yet are supporting the idea for the hope that bribery will reduce if not be eradicated.

Most of these folks know that taking out some of the black money from the heartland is just one step – many many more need to be taken to eradicate this problem – and it remains to be seen if Modi is up to it, or is in bed with the mega industrialists and avoids going after them for theft of national assets, where proof is available, or where proof is being hidden due to the very corruption we are talking about.

Some of the folks most affected by this sudden demonetization, apart from the hassle the common man faces now to get their old currency deposited and / or converted are:

  • Politicians in general
  • Underground money transfer (hawala) dealers
  • Real estate mafia
  • Dealer of counterfeit currency
  • Terrorist organizations that use this fake money
  • Illegal betting on sports
  • Privatized schools/colleges that demand huge bribes to admit students
  • Fake charity funds and Ponzi schemes.
  • Rich agricultural land owners
  • Film Industry

Common man on the street largely believe, whether true or not, that Modi did not discuss this plan even within his own party of elected MPs, and that is how many of his own party folks are caught wrong footed. He is “believed” to have kept this close to his heart, with a handful of people.

Most of them believe that the media should stop witch hunting Modi on this issue and wait to see what happens, and do some more in depth investigation, especially trying to judge the feelings of the people in the heartland instead of using their own beliefs and passing them as news.

There is apparently a new kind of money laundering going on – the rich are giving 50,000 to each poor villager, to go to bank and deposit, which would escape taxation. Then, when things have settled down, they can keep 10,000 and return the remaining 40K to the rich guy. Officials are finding it nearly impossible to curtail this kind of laundering, but are keeping a tab, where possible.

Also, there are some corners of India which is near tax free due to be backward regions etc etc. North East India has some such pockets, where people can deposit large sumps of money at the bank and convert them in due course to smaller denominations or new currency notes without tax department wanting to apply tax on it. As a result, some charter planes from rich corners of India have been caught, carrying plane load of cash to these regions, for laundering. The travel records of these planes seem to reveal that there already have been dozens of such delivery flights already concluded.

So there is a lot going on that is not reported in the media.

Lastly, the long lines apparently are coming to an end.

This is what I so far learned, apart from what the general media comes out with.

Now, appreciate discussion on it. I would not like being hounded out and my own character being questioned by Facebook liberals for daring to present another view of this critical issue.

Modi may not be pure as driven snow – but there are some in India that are not comparing him with Hitler, but instead comparing him with Lee Kuan Yew’s thirty year battle to clean up corruption from Singapore society, even if his methods were heavy handed.

I’d wait for a bit to see how the chips fall, and if this is indeed an anti-people anti-poor policy to help big banks profit out of little guys earnings, or if it is an effort to restrict runaway corruption in daily life by unscrupulous middle men, or if this is a mixed bag.

India’s greedy social climbing brainy youths

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Debal Deb (https://www.facebook.com/debaldeb01) is a fantastic character. I can say that, although I never me the man. I came to know of him through Madhusree Mukherjee, who herself is no pushover.

I have been trying to find an opportunity to interview him on the phone for a podcast, but he is a busy man, and I am a working man and we are half a world apart in our clocks. So we have not managed it yet.

Meanwhile, I come to know of his posts as I befriended him in Facebook. One of the reasons I have not quit Facebook completely, is that people like Debal are not around, as far as I know, on google + or other places.

Anyhow, I find I share many of his views about the root of some of the social evils of our time, and share some of his frustration about the general apathy of India’s upwardly mobile youth. Living abroad for so long, I have also come to be frustrated by the same apathy that afflicts the earlier generation of expatriate Indians that have succeeded in finding a cozier niche for themselves in the west. At a professional level, they are all mostly successful and able to compete with the rest. But on the level of humanism, their apathy has been made glaringly clear to me in the past few years. I too was part of the scene myself. But, like all thinking people, we are apt to evolve with time, and be influenced occasionally by chance encounters that force us to peek outside of our comfort bubble.

I was influenced by a chance encounter with the daughter of a dead cousin brother. The cousin was from India. The wife was American. The daughter lived in a permaculture commune in California. She, her mother, and her baby came to spend a few days with us in Vancouver. That triggered a cascade of events. She linked me up with other Indians that were trying to do something meaningful in their spare time in helping out India through more sustainable projects as well as participating in many events that related not just to India, but to all people everywhere. She had a personality that was so different from the run of the mill Yuppy that it was like a breath of fresh air going through my house and my life. Anyhow, that link she provided helped me connect with a wider world of people. And so the story goes.

Now, back to Debal Deb – He wrote something that I found very apt and worth sharing, within Facebook. It attracted some good feedback, which resulted in more observations from people within my Facebook circle of friends. Debal Deb, in his busy life, managed to notice some of these points, and came back to respond.

The thread became important enough, in my mind, to deserve a more permanent spot.

I am going to copy it here, as a special blog post – including comments from others. I shall inform them of this decision within that thread itself.

—————————–

I wish our bloated Indian greedy youth, drunk with their corporate jobs, satisfied with their high salaries and perks, stop once to think about what their employer does to the farmers and the natural world, and consider doing something like this! That would be genuine patriotic act – more than watching Amir Khan on “Mangal Pandey” and “Lagaan”.
—————————
Worth sharing.

Chirajyoti Deb, Chaitali Mitra and Nabanita Banerjee like this.

Ravi Dwivedi shared Debal Deb‘s status update.

Basu Tapas Very true indeed, they do not have the intelligence or far visions…

Sandeep Shukla One question: those Europeans who declined job offers from Dow etc..why did they. Even interview with those companies? The companies can’t be offering jobs unless they applied! Does that mean that they would have taken these job had better alternatives not come up?

Priyadarshi Datta It is not that. Sure money is great and making it is even better. Balance comes with old money. The next generation and so will the next. Hope it is not too late by then. Dwarakanath made money, son Debendranath spent it grandson, Rabindranath was the product of old money. So with the grandons of Rockefella. Hemendranath Datta lost it in one generation and the rest was struggle.

Tony Mitra

You have your unique way of looking at the world, Priyadarshi.
I might opine that the old money of Dwarkanath, or rather, of the early generations of the “Thakur” clan of Jorasanko area, were “new money” of the time when the British were establishing a permanent base in Bengal.
I would also suspect that this new money came at the expense of the poor Indians – in short, the new rich Indian class emerged as collaborators of the British, helping them establish a stronger foothold on the subcontinent.
Along with all that, came education and eventually, a sense of social justice. Thence, the generation of Dwarkanath Tagore, having been born into affluence and not having to spend all waking hours in a struggle to feed his family, those who were born in progressive families and with the right questioning mind could engage in issues of social relevance, and a sense of Bengali-ness – expanded as a part of Indian-ness, came up. Folks got engaged in raising awareness of the fact that they were not independent, and the British were, ultimately, unfair to the average Indian so that an Englishman on average to enjoy a higher lifestyle. It took a while to filter all this in, and eventually different people of the next generation addressed it in different ways – Meghnad Saha, or Surya Sen, or Gandhi, Tagore, or Aurobindo, Annie Bessant, Charles Andrews, or Subhash Bose – each of them addressed it in his own way, and not all of them were born Indians.
But, if you go further back – those that were rich and powerful even before the British arrived, themselves were collaborators of the ruling Mughal emperor, and were in turn selling the country for the benefit of the ruler, thus enriching himself in commission. The main difference might be that under the Mughal rule, a social mass consciousness of Indian-ness did not arise, perhaps because the Mughals were not filtering money out of India to enrich a foreign nation, which the British did. Or perhaps the reason was something else.Anyhow, Rabindranath Tagore was partly the genes and intellect he inherited, partly the influence he was under as a growing child in Jorasanko under intense nationalistic flavor of thetime and efforts at nation and society building efforts. Also, his world view was influenced by the extensive personal exchanges he had in his tours across the world in all continents, and his personal contact with the famous folks of the time, from writers and intellectuals, to politicians, religious heads, scientists and social reformers.
Rabindranath Tagore was influenced by many many factors.Todays upwardly mobile social climbers that came out of good colleges and, for example, work for exploitative corporations – are just a new version of the old “collaborator” class.The difference is – these kids grew up mostly in todays middle class families. These families, at least in India, got into the middle class slot only in the last two generations, more or less.
Goes to show – our middle class is probably an uncaring, selfish and blind class that helps nurture selfish individuals that will collaborate with institutions that hurt his nation – and yet live to brag about it.This topic is way too complex – but its good to air out views and think about it. I feel thankful that, just like lotus grows in filthy ponds, the earlier affluent generations did create Gandhi and Tagore and the rest of the reformers, same as this generation has created the Vandana Shiva, the Ravi Kuchimanchi and so many others, including Debal Deb.Whoops – long post.
Cheers.
Subin Das

Tonu, do you think you are going to influence present generation with your talks? If done; they are just going to turn around and say,” What about you all?” How and why did you do what you have done to achieve your goals? Now that all of you have settled to a comfortable life style with lots to spare, why ask us to sacrifice and rally for a cause which does not harm their means and ways to glory? Isn’t it we who should take some blame for such deplorable state which our younger generation have come to? Actually; it’s high time that we look back and think seriously what damages we have done to them, by our own activities.
Tony Mitra Subin.. I fault it not just to ourselves – but at our Bengali middle class mentality that started about a century ago.
Tony Mitra

A century ago, this was not perhaps a hot topic, but today, with awareness rising, there is not enough excuse for ignoring these issues. As to my generation – they are the biggest disappointment. There is one thing to say about the younger generation though – the older generation is going to die. The younger one will be left holding the basket. So, they will not have the luxury that their forefathers had, of kicking the can down the line. The shit is going to be falling on them.
Debal Deb

Tonu, you have very precisely painted the broad difference between the early middle class youth and today’s middle class. A significant section of the early middle-class youth was socially conscious, introspective, and participated, even took a lead role in, social reforms. In contrast, today’s “educated” and “enlightened” middle class don’t give a dam for the development refugees/ farmers’ suicides/ dowry deaths/ global warming/ industrial crimes … as long as their comfort level is not affected, and are only interested in new models of cell phones with 12 functions, of SUVs, of AC fittings in the flat, … and yes, skin creams to look fairer and fairer!
In response to Subin Das’s very apt point: Bribes and corruption were all the time – from the age of Mahabharata. But do we remember anyone of our generation who considered taking or giving bribes to ethically neutral? Those who gave or received bribes wanted to conceal the fact, in shame. Today, it’s a fact of life. I (and surely all of us) have seen many young men pressuring their parents to gather money in order to pay “facilitation money” to ensure his employment in a govt. job, and then preparing for “recovering” that money (and more) from the “clients” of the office, soon after getting the placement. “Kickbacks” and “facilitation money” are simple steps to one’s career building, and nobody cares to waste time in compunction or guilt. [Bribing is not confined to money alone, and may include renting out one’s girl friend, too, to please “the boss”.] In our generation people hated to marry their daughters to a policeman. Today matrimonial columns advertise “extra income” over salaries of the suitor.
In 2001, I was in California when 9/11 happened. I witnessed how thousands of American youth organised public seminars, rallies, demonstrations, street lectures, street shows etc. to denounce the Iraq war and accused the US govt for waging unjust wars in different parts of the world. University campuses at Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and Davis became hot with students’ protests, and many professors participated too. In 2009, I witnessed, in Berkeley and other campuses of UC, massive student protests against privatisation of education and fee hike. The govt had to back out. In both these years, there was hardly any noticeable protest on those (and other) issues from the youth in India – especially eastern India. Rather, a majority of the middle-class youth accepted the moral superiority of the US to attack Iraq. Coke and Monsanto, to them are angel saviours of Indian uncivilsation.
One of my good friend, Saptarshi Biswas once served in Monsanto Co., (left some 4 years back), but never cared to know about the company’s crimes in India and other countries. He immersed himself rather in poetry (which I am not belittling, of course) thoughout his tenure with the company. He represents a highly intelligent young man, well versed in literature and information technology, but why did he not feel interested to know the company’s deeds, while the anti-Monsanto movement was simmering all over the world, and posted regularly on the Net? That’s Zeitgeist.
Debal Deb

‎@Sandeep Shukla: The individuals I cited – all are very well accomplished biotechnologists. Three of them were offered job by Syngenta and Monsanto Co. Two more, from Italy, were interviewed and offered jobs, but when they discovered the company’s profile, relinquished the offer (with no “better alternatives” in sight). I also cited a technologist from USA who got placement at Strategic Defence Intiative (SDI) = “Star War” project, but quit soon after she leafrned the objective of the project.
I understand quitting job for Indians always implies shifting for a better opportunity – unrelated to ethics or ideals. When I myself did the same in 1996, most people believed (some still do) that I got a better job in terms of higher emoluments & perks. This is the mindset I was referring to, in contrast with the youth in the West, who stormed in Genoa, Seattle and Cancun; who rose against Monsanto in Germany and France; who demanded closure of all nuke plants in France and Italy; who gathered in Barcelona to demand economic DeGrowth; who have abandoned techno-urban comforts and built sustainable communities in US west coast, Italy, Spain, Greece, Mexico… And I am a first-hand witness to all these movements led primarily by the youth. As a concerned Indian citizen, I always wonder: When will WE ever learn?
——
Tony Mitra ‎Debal Deb – reading posts like this makes my day.