WEEKEND LIGHTER: MAY DAY SPECIAL ISSUE
WEEKEND LIGHTER: MAY DAY 2016
(May 7/8, 2016, No. 19/2016)*
Weekend
Lighter is posted every Saturday @mgwarrier.blogspot.in
*Issued
on May 2, 2016. Next issue of WL will be posted on May 15, 2016 from
Thiruvananthapuram.
I
Opening remarks: May Day celebrations
MAY
DAY*
Ø May Day or Labour Day
- celebrated in around 80 countries to mark the labour movement and worker’s
rights - has its origins in the 1886 Haymarket Massacre in Chicago.
Ø This Day has its
origins in the labour union movement, specifically the eight-hour day movement,
which advocated eight hours for work, eight hours for recreation, and eight
hours for rest.
Ø India’s very first
Labour Day was celebrated on May 1, 1923 in Chennai, on Marina Beach.
Ø The red flag – now
a symbol of the left movement - was used for the first time in India during
this event too. A resolution was also passed that the government should declare
May Day as a holiday.
Ø The event was
organised by the Labour Kisan Party of Hindustan and Malayapuram Singaravelu
Chettiar, who became one of the founders of the Communist Party of India.
Ø » Today in
India, organisations and trade unions arrange pageants, children enter contests
so they can understand the importance of fairness for workers, and political
leaders make speeches.
*Source: The Hindu, May 2, 2015
II
RECENT RESPONSES
Focus on primary sector
Apropos
Mythili Bhusnurmath’s excellent article “Cart Before the Horse?” (Economic
Times, May 2, 2016), one wishes policy makers patiently reads the article to
the end, where the quote from Dr Manmohan Singh in which the need for focus on
primary sector is beautifully woven in the economist’s language: “Economic
policy should address hunger, literacy, employment, infrastructure and growth
in that order”.
Post
LPG (liberalisation-Privatisation-Globalisation) India is measuring growth and
celebrating achievements in terms of private sector profits, height of towers
built, growth in sectors like IT, banking and transport and possible inflow of
FDI. All these will shine in contrast, till things get better outside. RBI
Governor was criticised for saying this in a different way. But, let us
concede, if we neglect primary sector, sustainable growth and development are
impossible.
One
need not worry too much about the per capita wealth of Indian as compared to
his friends elsewhere. Luckily, unlike in countries like China, unaccounted
wealth of India must be a decent multiple of the country’s GDP.
M G WARRIER,
Mumbai
Rajan’s communication skills
This
refers to Manasi Phadke’s piece “Guv gaffe” (the Hindu Business Line, Tweakonomics, May 2). I believe, India has
immensely benefited from the communication skills of Dr Raghuram Rajan ever since
he returned to India in 2013. Whether he is making a speech in an international
forum or interacting with students in an educational institution somewhere in
Kerala, Dr Rajan talks with the ease of a professor addressing his students in
a classroom. This gives him a prominent position among the trio comprising
himself, Prime Minister Modi and Arvind Kejriwal who together woke up the giant
in India during the current decade.
While
Kejriwal combined the civil services discipline and the ability to look at
things in right perspective to create awareness about the mess in which the
greed of the rich and the powerful had landed this country and Modi reinforced
the capacity of the country to stand up and talk in international community on
India’s terms, Dr Rajan takes care of ensuring that the Indian financial sector
takes regular health checks to ensure sustainable economic growth. His catch
phrases ‘A pig doesn’t become beautiful by applying lipstick’, ‘Make for
India’, ‘Don’t fixit, if it isn’t broken’, reference to ‘traffic signal’
approach to monetary policy management by central banks and so on to the
present reference to the ‘one eyed’ king have much deeper messages which the
audience do appreciate and ponder over for long. These are used by Rajan the teacher
(which role was appreciated by Prime Minister Modi when he attended a function
at RBI during April 2015). As regards the ‘one-eyed man’ comment, which has now
got a second ‘life’ after Chidambaram found a friend in Dr Rajan, one can only
invite readers to download(from rbi.org.in) and read Dr Rajan’s NIBM
Convocation Address, 2016 in which RBI Governor has devoted some time to
explain the context and content of that quote and how it was received by a
section of critiques who were not very familiar with such sayings.
M G Warrier,
Mumbai
III
Leisure
Life after Death
Life is one big journey and you’re a traveller. It’s better to live
and travel well, than thinking about the future and losing your peace of mind.
Living the fullest in the present is the best way to enjoy life, rather than
living in the past or the future.
E X Joseph, via email on May 1, 2016
After
reading “Fear of Death” (WL, No 18/2016), my friend Bala mentioned in his
response : ‘How do you explain suicides?’ The day I received that mail from
Bala, I had read @AllBankingSolutions.com a tragic news about a bank official’s
suicide, leaving a note that he was being harassed by his bosses as he was not
able to recover some loans which had turned NPAs. Farmers, workers, women,
students and now bank officials.
I
have the experience of waiting outside hospitals to give company to my
relatives/friends who were to receive back bodies after post-mortem. Such
occasions, more than when we go for funerals or condolence visits, make us
think about value of life. Life hangs on a thin, invisible thread. Someone,
with or without a ‘plan’ plays with that thread. We have no control over that
someone or the thread. Here, the quote above becomes relevant.
I
have been able to, so far, convince me that death is a visitor for whom one
doesn’t have to make elaborate preparations to receive. As someone said, no one
has left this planet ‘alive’. Death is the only companion who is with me
throughout my life.
During
1960’s, myself and one or two of my friends occasionally used to spend week-end
evenings at and around Kovalam sea beach near Trivandrum. Somewhere on the
beach, where some star hotels stand now, there was a ‘wedge’ which took us down
to a whirlpool (in Malayalam a ‘chuzhi’).
Sitting near the fury of the chuzhi,
one day we discussed suicide. My suggestion was, once one decides to commit
suicide, one should consume poison and hang from the branch of the tree above
the chuzhi making sure that no one
will interrupt! Of course, today such plans are irrelevant. One need to take food
served at the ‘right’ celebrations, or be at the right spot at celebrations
when the tragedy strikes or simply sleep inside the ‘right’ building in a city
anywhere in the world. Next day’s paper will report the event, if one is lucky
to be identified!
I
reject all stories of punarjanma , carrying forward theory
of punya
and papa , reward, punishment and retribution by someone later.
They all can console some of us temporarily, though.
***************
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