Warrier's Collage March 11, 2022

Welcome To Warrier's COLLAGE On Friday, March 11, 2022 Good Morning My friend Shah staying in Dreams Complex Bhandup West, Mumbai celebrated his 95th Birthday on March 9, 2022. Happy Birthday and Ayurarogyasaukhyam to Kakaji 🙏. M G Warrier A Messages/Responses 1) E X Joseph Atlanta US My dear Warrier, thank you so much for having kept my letters. Like you, many other friends families have kept my letters. Every moment of my life I cherish the love that I got from all of you. It is no exaggeration if I tell you that no day goes without thinking about all of you and our great struggles and fight. Hope you are enjoying life in Trivandrum. (We are fine. Messages will be shared from generation to generation. Please see comments below. I remember the days we sold the monthly magazine "Labour World" edited by you at Re1/- per copy. A snapshot of the front cover of October-November 1972 issue (Vol V No 2) of Labour World is attached. 🙏-Warrier) 2) Jyothilakshmi Anil Kumar What a quality of content in your daily Collage! Wishing the collage and it's members "Ayurarogya Soukhyam". "Each gives what he has" is simply amazing !!! Wonderful, you could share the actual letter. This(Letter writing) is a lost culture now. Very sad. Now, rarely we find this much patience and time for communicating with people around us. Drawbacks of technology !! The exchange of letters between you and Josephji is a treasure. (Very true. Even Collage is an attempt to keep the torch of communication burning. Post-retirement, everyday, I have been trying to write 100 to 1000 words. Publishing, posting at my own blog and sharing with contacts are all secondary. 🙏-Warrier) 3) S R Badrinarayanan Responding to R Jayakumar : On remaining connected with contacts as imagined to be the ideal state, fact remains as Warrier precisely explained, it is the individual priorities that decide based ,by and large ,on self centered motives mixed with individual priorities, often rightly. Though poet Bharathi dreamt and sang of building a bridge to Sri Lanka it didn't materialise as there was no such complimentary feeling from Sri Lanka! Humanity continues to be what it was despite variety of scriptures and holy men to guide from darkness to light!! Do not worry JayakumarJi. You are on the right track discharging all your assigned duties to each and every member of your family making them more happy. You are surely ever connected with the contacts who are genuinely concerned. ..... Badri B Policy National Wage Structure : A Must For National Unity* We are a united nation. We have a national government. We have a Constitution for the whole nation. We have a national policy in many fields of our national life- External Affairs, Defence, Planning, Taxation, Development etc. But in the most important field of all-wages- we do not have a national policy. Though twenty-five years have elapsed since the birth of free India, we have not yet evolved a national wage-structure. *Excerpts from October-November 1972 issue of Labour World edited by E X Joseph. Any reader intersted may ask for a copy of full article 🙏-Warrier C Current Affairs 1) Medical professionals coming from abroad : Maya C https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/foreign-medical-graduates-still-a-discriminated-lot/article65204438.ece 2) Remembering Late Dr P K Aravindan Joy of Work* https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/holiday-equated-fun-everyday-him-tribute-prof-pk-his-srinivasan He asked me back what he would miss if he had not taken holiday (or leave). I told him it would be lot of fun going on leave or on a holiday. He told me if fun is equated to being on leave or holiday, everyday has been a holiday or leave for him. *Read the book with this title by Bruce Daisley : https://books.google.co.in/books/about/The_Joy_of_Work.html?id=0BtUDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=1&redir_esc=y D History Sheeter : V Babusenan In 1962, when the Americans planned to conduct a nuclear test in some Pacific Island, Bertrand Russell suggested to Prime Minister Nehru to send an Indian ship there as a mark of protest of a neutral country against such tests. Nehru, though an ardent admirer of the great philosopher, politely declined. If this incident were brought to the notice of shri A. Rama Iyer, our beloved Principal of Sree Narayana College, Kollam where A. K. Ramanujan taught for a brief while, he would have said:"I am an admirer of Nehru, but I don't hesitate to say he made a mistake. He should have put all the fellows who use funny expressions like 'do the needful,' 'kind regards', 'return back', 'revert back', 'prepone', etc in the ship and sent it to that godforsaken island. "He was a reputed scholar in English, but a fierce purist. Outside his office room, one always saw him with a pocket oxford dictionary. He was never tired of telling us : " Look here, young men and ladies, whenever you come across a new word in English, always consult the dictionary for its true meaning. Don't guess and make fools of yourselves. This was the advice I got from Rt. Hon. V. S. Srinivasa Sastry who handled English much better than the English themselves. "Despite my great regard for him, I seldom followed this advice and actually came to grief. When I happened to read the expression 'history sheeter' first in the Hindu, I did not suspect for a moment that it was an Indianism. (Later I came to know that it was Pakistanism too) It was the time when readers were much upset by the news that clandestine efforts were being made to manipulate ancient Indian history. The intention was to show that Aryans were here in lndia during the Mohenjo-daro-Harappan civilization. For that purpose, using modern techniques, some historians changed a few Mohenjo -daro bulls into horses(History says that horses came to India with the Aryans) I knew the English word'sheeter' meant either a man or a machine cutting paper into needed sizes and, as was my wont,surmised, without bothering either to read the Hindu news under the caption 'History Sheeter Caught' or to refer to a dictionary, that such a mischievous historian(he must be a sheeter as he needed a lot of foolscap sheets to alter history.) was at last caught red handed. It is only very recently I came to know the meaning and the origin of this queer expression : 'history sheeter.' We owe it to the Indian Penal Code. Every police station must keep a record(sheet) of habitual offenders which has to be closely watched for the sake of law and order. If one commits, say twenty or thirty crimes, one becomes a history sheeter in the parlance of criminal offence. Okay, let the police use that expression. We know that they use many expressions which civilised societies eschew. But, it is highly regrettable that our print media associate the noble word 'history' to habitual offenders. It is said that only the press in India and Pakistan use this nasty expression. The English, on the contrary, use'rowdy sheeter'. Is it not an appropriate expression? E Spirituality/Faith charan singh (@CharanSingh60) Tweeted: Unity in Diversity - 186 अरधि कउ अरधिआ सरधि कउ सरधिआ सलल कउ सललि समानि आइआ बदति जैदेउ जैदेव कउ रमिआ ब्रहमु निरबाणु लिव लीणु पाइआ I worship & Trust, worthy Almighty, merging like water in water Meditate & merge in formless Creator Jaidev, Rag Maru, 1106, SGGS https://twitter.com/CharanSingh60/status/1501657537577615361?s=20&t=JXm9lsTG2p9GQmk-Q0_MEA F Collage Politics : Looking back AAP sends out a louder message* M G Warrier The dramatic resignation of the Environment and Food and Supplies Minister Asim Ahmed Khan from the Arvind Kejriwal AAP ministry on October 9 and the more dramatic way in which the resignation was brought to the notice of public and media reminds one of the 1962 resignation of Defence Minister V K Krishna Menon from central cabinet then headed by Jawaharlal Nehru and Menon's explanation published in the media. I am not drawing any comparison between the individuals concerned or the circumstances leading to Menon's resignation and developments in Delhi on October 9. But there is a parallel between the approaches of Nehru and Kejriwal to corruption charges. Let us leave the developments to further evolve, especially as an enquiry is on. When we analyse the political developments in India since the emergence of Aam Aadmi Party as a political force, lot of literature has been generated in the media an otherwise, about the broom and its impact on the political landscape of India. It is time to use the seive simultaneously with the broom. The message sent out by AAP from Delhi is being deciphered by different people in different ways. Naturally, the responses have been diverse. In the initial days from Rahul Gandhi who said ‘Congress has to learn a lot from AAP’(perhaps this one insight weaved some substance into his speech at AICC during the third week of January 2014!) which observation has been taken seriously by many political parties, to N R Narayana Murthy who said ‘What Arvind(Kejriwal) has done is that he has redefined what is possible’, did get adversely commented by their friends and adversaries alike. The Indian Aam Aadmi has asserted his right to make his voice heard, thanks to the opportunity provided by AAP and its previous incarnation India Against Corruption(IAC), both of which grew under the leadership of Arvind Kejriwal. The success of BJP-led alliance in 2014 Elections can be attributed to the taking charge of the responsibility of governance by every Indian citizen, irrespective of their economic status (Famously referred to as “WE THE PEOPLE” in the preamble of the Constitution of India) to organise, wherever they are, and force the legislature, executive and the judiciary at all levels to uphold the spirit of the Constitution and bring back ethics and morality to governance. Prime Minister Modi is, in fact struggling to live to their expectations. Here, the refusal of several political parties(Right, Left and Centre) which are shirking their responsibility to participate in governance (parties in Opposition have a proactive role to play, they seem to have a feeling that their main role is to ‘oppose any move by government’). Time is running out. Remember what Kejriwal said in an interview during the early days of AAP. He observed: “I am aware that the status quoist parties will derail us because we have challenged the basic premise of their existence. But we are a party which is here to change the politics of all other parties. Very soon you will see how the other parties will be forced to follow our agenda.” On December 23, 2013, an article in the print media asked: “Can Kejriwal’s team deliver the moon to Dehiites?” This writer’s honest and direct answer was ‘No, not possible in the given situation’. Answering the possible ‘supplementary', ‘then, why AAP should form a government in Delhi?’ he had commented: ‘Because, with 30 per cent votes polled, if 30 per cent promises in the (AAP) Manifesto are fulfilled, still the entire Delhi population will be better off than during the previous regimes. Changes do not come that fast. If AAP has succeeded in making the outgoing CM to demand implementation of AAP Manifesto and promises support for efforts in that direction, one feels, AAP has won half the battle'. Coming to details, Congress, of all political parties has lost its moral right to question delays in honouring commitments as the last 65 years did not see India through enforcement of important Directive Principles of State Policy enshrined in the Constitution. It would be a useful and interesting document, if some scholars go back to the Congress/UPA Manifestos from the first General Election to the last one and prepare a chart recording promises kept and 'action in progress’. In October 2012, in the context of an interesting interview given to Economic Times by Arvind Kejriwal, this writer had commented thus: “His diagnosis is spot on. This country's problems, from day one, post-independence, can be sourced to centralization of power and resources. It does not start or end with government or governance. Power and money are consciously centralised in India, right from central government to the smallest political party fighting elections. Perhaps Gandhiji knew this when he pleaded for the dismantling of Congress, as he was sadly becoming aware that his dream of‘Gramaswaraj' was not being shared by majority of congressmen. Success of any India-specific solution for improving major Human Development Indicators will depend on a decentralised approach.” The kind of‘THE BUCK STOPS HERE' model of leadership may not be sustainable for democracies like India. Still, leadership is what will ensure survival of nations. Walter Bagehot, the nineteenth century British journalist and businessman, who wrote extensively about government, economics and literature had this to say about leadership : “By the structure of the world we often want, at the sudden occurrence of a grave tempest, to change the helmsman-to replace the pilot of the calm by the pilot of the storm.” If this optimism is to be sustained, coming back to the issue of handling corruption, along with AAP and BJP, Aam Aadmi will have to learn to use the sieve with skill to segregate corn and chaff from the abundance of information and misinformation being dished out to him through word of mouth, print and electronic media and other conduits of propaganda. Research-oriented approach from the regulators, and to some extent from the legislators, towards the reforms of financial markets and ensuring financial stability and financial inclusion which has been part of the reform agenda has helped diagnose the ills of the financial sector and definitely expedited getting right prescriptions for restoring and maintaining the health of the economy. The political leadership and the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs could think of promoting a similar R & D approach for the political system to take care of the diagnostic needs of the executive and legislative machinery which is waiting for an overhaul of processes and procedures including those relating to selection, training and placement of suitable individuals for manning various positions. There are schools, colleges, institutes and even universities grooming candidates for different careers and providing opportunities to take up serious study/research in the area of specialization in which they have an aptitude. Time and resources permitting, one can reach an acceptable level of professionalism by undergoing courses of one's choice before taking up any career, except politics. Time is opportune for India to think of establishing schools of politics, starting from graduation, across the country, to take care of the educational needs of people taking up politics as a career whether in political organizations or in legislative bodies or government. Political education This decade is finding politicians in India running for life (sometimes literally!) facing severe charges on moral, legal, ethical and financial grounds. What has gone wrong? It may be argued that the deterioration in the quality of political leadership has been a gradual process and no one noticed the decay till it reached the present terminal stage. This writer has always held the view that our country has an inherent strength to come out of any such catastrophes. Historically, our political leadership owes its roots to freedom movement. Till recently, all political parties in India had a sprinkling of honest and patriotic individuals who had benefited from the guidance of leaders like Gandhi, Nehru, Sirdar Patel, Vinoba Bhave and several others. Many of them had no formal university education or exposure to the kind of information deluge now available to political workers. But they knew what was good for the village, taluka or district they were working. Now, political parties are trying to make up for this class which is becoming extinct, by recruiting businessmen, lawyers and individuals who have graduated from or spent some time around the premises of, Harvard, Cambridge, Delhi School of Economics or such other campuses. This article looks at the need to provide political education to individuals across political parties an age-groups. There are schools, colleges, institutes and even universities grooming candidates for different careers and providing opportunities to take up serious study/research in the area of specialization in which they have an aptitude. Time and resources permitting, one can reach an acceptable level of professionalism by undergoing courses of one's choice before taking up any career, except one in politics. For a political career, with the exception of some small leftist parties, which have few career openings, major entry point considerations include family background, net-worth, public speaking skills and last but not least, organizational capabilities (read fund-raising or mob-mobilization skills depending on circumstances). Literacy or knowledge of the subject matter they are expected to handle seldom get the priority they deserve in political recruitment. Time is opportune for India to think of establishing schools of politics at all levels, starting from graduation, across the country, to take care of the educational needs of people taking up politics as a career whether in political organizations or in legislative bodies or government. Industrial houses which are magnanimous in giving donations to universities and business schools and government which fund research and development efforts of IITs and IIMs will not find it difficult to find resources for financing this initiative. To ensure that the benefits of political education reach the target group, a reverse reservation system through committed campus recruitment of cadre by political parties and transparent remuneration arrangement for full time political work will have to be thought of. A corollary would be a smooth exit route and rehabilitation scheme for the sick, aged, disabled, illiterate and tainted lot of politicians holding various positions in political parties, governments and legislatures. They should be paid pension to maintain the lifestyle they are entitled and they should be retained as resource persons to support and mentor the new generation entering politics and government. All these, naturally will take time to materialize. In the interregnum, schools, colleges, professional institutions like IIMs and Law Colleges should hold short-term orientation programs both in-house and postal (with contact programs of convenient durations). The target group may include sitting legislators, office bearers and activists of political parties and youngsters intending to take politics as a career. *** *Note : I have used an unedited version of my article “Needed AAP-style school of politics” published in The Global ANALYST, February 2014 and another article on “Finishing School for Politicians” posted @moneylife.in long back as source material for this article. 🙏-Warrier G Food Habits https://www.stylecraze.com/articles/slogans-on-healthy-food/ Like : “Your diet is a bank account. Good food choices are good investments.” – Bethenny Frankel (Bethenny Frankel is an American television personality, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author. She starred in the Bravo television series The Real Housewives of New York City, having starred in eight of its thirteen seasons since its 2008 premiere.)