Testing google tables

Data and the economy

Three days ago, as the PM was delivering a speech on the economy, I tweeted this..

They lowered projections to 6.7% in FY18, Mr PM. Follow the right people instead of buffoons & bigots on your TL & you will get right info. https://t.co/6vtLh3cNk5

— Srinivasan Ramani (@vrsrini) October 4, 2017

I stand by what I said. The RBI had only earlier that day revised the growth estimates for FY2018 to 6.7% (down from 7.3%) while the PM simply suggested that there was going to be 7.7% growth in the coming quarters which in my opinion was cherry picking of data and misleading.

Many complained on my timeline saying that I was wrong showing RBI data for the FY while the PM spoke of “coming quarters”, but they missed the larger point on the revision of FY18 numbers even as I insisted that the PM can’t cherry pick an upcoming quarter and that too, Q4. In my responses to some of the tweets, I erroneously mentioned that the coming quarters included Q1 and that Q4 was four quarters away, while I should have said Q2 (whose results are not yet out) and Q4 (results) is three quarters away. I promptly deleted that tweet when I realised the error. But my larger point holds.

The other point I made about the PM following bigoted people on Twitter is well documented by people such as in here.

As others - here, here and here have pointed out, the PM's speech presented a disingenuous argument about the state of the economy. After all, the last six quarters has shown a steady fall in growth numbers, which seems to have precipitated in the last three quarters in particular - a clear sign that the demonetisation decision has severely affected the economy, coupled with the problems that followed the hasty implementation of the GST.

There have been several articles in many outlets - including in The Hindu - that have pointed to the disingenuousness of the response of the government to findings about the quantum of demonetised cash returning to the bank and its implications, the state of the unorganised sector, the crashing of commodity prices due to disruptions in cash flow in the supply chains, the distress to farmers because of these price falls.. Then there are a number of stories about the problems faced by small traders and businessmen due to the GST's hasty implementation and trouble with the GSTN, unhappiness over excess bureaucratic work and so on. Some of this is of course teething troubles, but some of it is also due to the haste in which the implementation was done, which is reflected in the multiple changes suggested and made after its implementation.

The ill-effects of the slowdown of the economy is also reflected in the jobs market- where several reports, economists and even industry captains have suggested that there has been a deleterious effect. Other problems such as under-investment by the private sector and the low level of gross fiscal capital formation have persisted for many months now.

News outlets-including The Hindu - have carried out different views on how to handle this economic slowdown - some have spoken to the need for a fiscal stimulus to address primarily the infrastructure bottlenecks and ; some have suggested caution on the stimulus front and arguing for structural reforms instead; while others have said that the stimulus is still required despite structural weaknesses and disruptions in the supply side as this is the only way to address the lack of job growth.

In order to make an effective intervention, those in government must realise the reality that we are in (and which is a consequence of their own problematic decisions such as demonetisation). Those concerned about the economy must not buy into propaganda, which some in the government and among their supporters have indulged in, to paint a rosy picture when one does not exist.

Our job as journalists is to question the government and to keep it on its toes to mitigate the problems in the economy which are pretty much its own creation.

Personally, I have been part of a team in The Hindu that has come up with 100s of data points and graphics on various issues related to public policy, current affairs, political economy, sports, international issues, and so on.

We have as part of these graphics also pointed out to the mixed bag impact of demonetisation that looks at the aims of the exercise and whether they were at all reached, the declining gross fixed capital formation over the months, the slowdown in GDP growth over time, the gap between the changes in crude oil prices and retail petrol prices over time under the present regime (due to increases in excise duty) among various other charts. All of these are short data nuggets that add to the larger picture of what is to be done normatively by government and some of the steps recently taken such as the Rs 2 cut in excise duty address the issues pointed out.

As someone in the serious business of journalism, I will continue to pursue critical, objective and data driven journalism despite threats and accusations by right-wing trolls and wingnuts.

West Bengal Assembly phases.

Testing Srini 123 Maps

Testing Srini 123 Multiple Maps. From Google.

This is a Test ...

This is a Test..

Test. Test. Test.

Jammu & Kashmir's near polarised verdict, explained in maps.

The assembly elections in Jammu & Kashmir came up with very interesting results. The results could be summarised as having reflected the name of the state - representing Jammu AND Kashmir. In other words, it was as if the different regions of J&K had completely different political choices in mind and in essentially in effect.

I try to show that through three maps here.

The first one is a map of which party won which constituency (click on the individual constituencies to find out the winner/ runner up /and their respective voteshares). Obviously this is a constituency map prepared from Election Commission Data. (Shoutout to Datameet for helping source this from eci.nic.in)

Map 1: Who Won Where?

The second map is simply a map that represents the proportion of people adhering to the dominant religions in the state (saffron represents Hinduism, green represents Islam and mild blue - mostly Buddhism among others), across various tehsils in the state. Data for this map is sourced from Census 2001. (To my knowledge, religion wise breakup of the census 2011 for the state is as yet unavailable online. I assume that the proportions haven't really changed much since 2001 even if the actual numbers have risen as is to be expected).

Map 2: Composition of Jammu & Kashmir by Religion (Hindu/Muslim/Others)

A eyeball comparison of the two maps shows how polarised the election was. The BJP simply won heavily in all the constituencies that were Hindu majority by a large margin (in the Jammu region), whereas the parties based in the valley won most of the seats with a Muslim majority. The Congress party did quite well in Ladakh and Kargil, where the chunk of "other religions"- Buddhism in particular- were concentrated.

There is of course Kishtwar, Doda (and to some extent Bhaderwah) with most of its Tehsils having a higher proportion of Muslims among the population, which has been won by the BJP.

A more detailed map that shows how each party performed in each constituency (intensity map showing vote percentages of the four main parties across all constituencies) will elaborate how there is a clear regional divide in the political choices in the state. (Use dropdown at the bottom of the map to choose the respective parties)

Map 3: Vote Percentages of Respective Parties across Constituencies

 

Comparing overseas batting records

India's abysmal performance in the recent series against England in that country has been universally panned. While India did manage to win one test and its bowlers performed creditably well (relatively) - running out of luck with dropped catches galore - it was the all round failure of the Indian batsmen that has caught the eye.

But there hasn't much too surprise with the Indian record in England recently. Indian batsmen have traditionally struggled outside the sub-continent as they have to encounter either faster pitches, better seaming and swing conditions or tracks that aren't flat enough. Indian pitches, on the other hand, are relatively more conducive to turn, include a number of flat tracks, and are more difficult for faster bowlers than is the case elsewhere. That is the commonly understood story.

Is there to empirically verify this using nifty data visualisation tools? There is!

We set out to find if Indian batsmen are relatively worse off than the average batsmen elsewhere on overseas tracks.

What we do here is to not just use simple averages to compare batsmen, but to use a measure which is called, "Runs over average batsmen" for our purposes.

It is not enough to simply compare averages of batsmen on overseas pitches as this measure will not compare a player from one era to another. That is because a batsman in a particular era could face better bowlers (or worse) as compared to another. There are also various rule changes/ cricketing conditions (one bouncer per over since the 1990s or no helmets prior to the mid-1970s for examples). It is therefore simply not accurate to term that X with an average of 50 in the 1990s and who has played just 25 innings overseas is better than Y with an average of 40 in the 1970s and who has played 60 innings.

Therefore, what we ought to do is find the average number of runs scored in a particular set of years in which a player played, and then calculate the difference between the total number of runs scored by the batsman and this average. This will be the "overall_value" of the batsman. It is an intuitive idea that is similar to what Australian economist Nicholas Rohde used in his controversial paper to study batting records across times.

To illustrate, take VVS Laxman. He has an overall average of 45.97. His overseas average is 42.64. He has played 225 innings (34 not outs) in his career. How does he compare to someone like Gundappa Viswanath, a similar stylist from the past? During VVS Laxman's career between 1997 and 2012, the average number of runs scored by batsmen was 33.1. In overseas tests, VVS Laxman added a difference of 8.92 (42.02 - 33.1) and therefore contributed 8.92 * 109 (such innings played) = 1040.1 runs as his overall value added as compared to the average batsman of his era. Similarly, Viswanath's overall value added was 312.39 runs over the average player of his era.
We do this exercise for all batsmen who have played test cricket from 1877 to the present. And present the results in a nifty graph as below. (Hover on each cell to see the data. Lighter colours depict a better value and darker a lower value for the batsmen. Click on the countries to view country specific data).

 

What we notice here is that there is not too much of a difference in the overall overseas records of Indian batsmen as compared to the best of the cricketing world. India does have a sizeable number of batsmen having above average "value added" runs in overseas tests as compared to the top team, Australia. Among Indian batsmen though (click on India to view more details for Indian batsmen alone), it is evident that the previous generation of batters- Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and to a lesser extent, V. Sehwag and S. Ganguly, constituted the best ever core India has had since it entered test cricket. Barring Sunil Gavaskar and Mohinder Amarnath in the earlier generation, no other batsman of any other era has a better overseas record than the aforementioned.

The current generation, meanwhile, has a long way to go to live upto the record of the previous one. Barring A. Rahane to some extent, most other Indian batsmen of the current team has been poor on overseas tours relative to the average batsman of this era.

The place of Rangana Herath

Rangana Herath just completed 250 wickets after taking a fantastic 9/127 against Pakistan in an ongoing test (as I write this) played at the SSC, Colombo. 

The event prompted me to check out whether this diminutive, unheralded, unsung and hardworking bowler stood among his tribe of spin bowlers. 

I did a simple data comparison. Extracted the Top 20 spin bowlers (by wickets taken) from Cricinfo's Statsguru, and then calculated a metric - "Bowl Index" (copied from this source). "Bowl Index" basically takes into account both bowling average and strike rate. 

Here's the formula: (runs conceded)^2/(balls bowled * wickets taken)

And then I normalised the formula to account for total innings bowled (Bowl Index * 1000/Total Innings Bowled). 

The resulting data is as below: 

A Graphical representation of the above data list is below:

Rangana Herath, thus far, ranks just below Bishen Singh Bedi and Clarrie Grimmet in the all-time list. Not bad at all for the Lankan spin lynch-pin whom no one expected to take over the giant shoes of Muthiah Muralitharan. 

Summary of recent data related pieces written by me.

Over the past year, I have written a number of pieces as part of data journalism. All of the pieces are election-related (but of course it was a major election year in India). Links to the pieces (with short descriptions) that I have written are presented here: 

a) The Aam Aadmi Party's win in the Delhi Elections. (Written for the EPW Web Exclusives). The article tries to use GIS tools to understand the reasons favouring the AAP's win in the Delhi assembly elections. It comes up with interesting insights: Link

b) Articles related to the Lok Sabha elections in the EPW: 

i) Explaining the high turnout in the 2014 elections: Link . This article was written as elections were underway using preliminary voter turnout information released by various Chief Election Officers of different states (and UTs) in India. It seeks to explain the very high turnout in the 2014 elections and identifies variances, unexplored reasons. 

ii) Preliminary statistics from the 2014 election results: Link This article was written post the Lok Sabha elections and provides visualization of results - voteshares, constituency winners and losers, party performance and so on. 

c) A case for proportional representation in Uttar Pradesh: (written for the site, kafila.org in 2012 and basically an analysis of the election results in the state then. The slightly misleading headline is not mine). Link. 

d) Recent pieces in indiatogether.org, written in March-June this year (as part of a Data Journalism fellowship): 

i) On Fragmentation in India's political system over the years (since 1977) and regionalisation: Link. I seek to show the regionalisation emphasis in India since 1977. 

ii) What sways the urban voter? Results of a survey conducted by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) among others. Link. This article uses survey data to highlight urban voter choices across the country. 

iii) The AAP's Performance in Punjab - its salient features. Link. I use polling booth data and other insights to find out whether the AAP's performance in the Punjab LS polls replicated its Delhi victory from last year. I find out that the reasons for the Punjab victory were different from the Delhi victory

iv) Explaining the many reasons for the UPA's defeat. Link. Here I used regression techniques to filter out reasons for the UPA's defeat through analysis of available empircal information. 

v) Voter Turnouts across India and explaining the variance: Link . An extended version of the article written in the EPW on voter turnouts, this time correlating these with survey data on voter preferences. 

e) I curated this election special page using data from all Lok Sabha elections since 1977 and narratives for the EPW:link. Please see bottom of page for election statistics from 1977 onwards. 

f) I managed to scrape data from Election Commission's live results page and run a visualisation on maps using Google Fusion Tables live during three assembly elections for North East states in 2013. Location: http://epw.in/elections

Forthcoming & Pending in late 2014: 

An article on the West Bengal Lok Sabha election results. An indepth look at the results using polling booth level data from both the 2014 LS polls and the 2011 assembly elections. 

A research article on explaining the presence/absence of the "incumbency effect" over the years using disaggregated survey data provided by the CSDS' Lokniti. 

A keen contest in the offing

It's been a while since I have blogged. I wrote a preview of the NBA finals being played out in the USA for an Indian audience. (The first game between the San Antonio Spurs and the Miami Heat has already been completed with the former registering a close win to go up 1-0 in the 7 game series). Here goes -
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To the average sports fan in India, there is not much of a world in sports beyond cricket and to be more accurate, beyond the hugely successful and yet controversial Indian Premium League and Twenty 20 cricket. But to the Indian exposed to watching high quality sporting action on television over the years, the basketball played in the National Basketball Association in the United States must rank among the most spectacular sporting extravaganzas alongside European football, World Cup football and Formula One racing.

To this aficionado, there is no better sport that encapsulates athletic ability, naturally given body strength, dexterity, chess-like strategizing and execution than the basketball played at the NBA. Basketball with its emphasis on skill, strength, speed, team work and brain power is surely among the most evolved sports today and the soon to be played NBA finals (from June 7^th onwards) between the Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs promises to be a reflection of the best of the above mentioned characteristics of the game.

That is because both these teams are such a contrast to each other. The Heat are the powerfully constructed defending champions who comprise the best basketball player of this generation – Lebron James who defies simple characterization by being a scorer, finisher, passer, defender and orchestrator in equally high quality measures and of such a versatile kind that was rarely seen in the past (only erstwhile greats Michael Jordan and Oscar Robertson come close). Lebron James is flanked by a flamboyant shooting guard in Dwyane Wade, a fellow 2003 NBA draftee, who singlehandedly won the Heat its first championship in 2006 and an athletic forward in Chris Bosh, besides sharpshooting role players in Ray Allen, Shane Battier and Mike Miller. The Heat have become an even more formidable team since its victory last year by transitioning into a well oiled machine that combines superlative wing play with high octane defense. The Heat evoke part measures of respect and disdain among the sport watching public in the USA who note that the construction of the squad was made possible through “star collusion” as James, Wade and Bosh came together, during their respective free agencies, promising to dominate the NBA landscape for years to come. Since then, they have reached three consecutive NBA finals, winning one of them last year and as favourites, are poised for another triumph this year.

The San Antonio Spurs, on the other hand, were more organically constructed. The “winningest” franchise in American sport for more than the past 15 years, the Spurs in that period have had a few constants in their squad – the phlegmatic metronome of a “big man”, Tim Duncan for that entire period, the effervescent, exciting and creative savant in Argentine Manu Ginobili and the younger but mature and speedy point guard in Frenchman Tony Parker, who have been coached by long time coach Gregg Popovich. The Spurs evoke mostly respect from opponents and basketball enthusiasts who admire their selfless team play and their executive office’s foresight in constructing the squad through meticulous scouting, focus on player development and staying true to a near idealistic basketball philosophy. No one believed that the Spurs would endure the latter years of their lynchpin Tim Duncan’s nearly one and half decade long career and continue to remain a contender – not since 2007 when they last won their NBA championship. But savvy personnel decisions, perseverance from their veteran players and their “front office” – general manager RC Buford in particular – has brought them back to contention. The fact that the Spurs have been a “small market team” which has managed to construct a winning squad despite keeping their spending low and within “salary cap” limits generally is also noteworthy. In contrast, the Heat pays luxury tax (a punitive tax that is imposed upon teams crossing the salary cap and exceptions) because of huge salaries for their three main players.

On the court, the Spurs rely more on team work, unselfish play, ball movement and complementary play than the Heat, but the latter has also, over the year, stolen some pages from the four time champion’s playbook. The Spurs’ veteran core has been patient in trying to peak at the right time and remain healthy for “money time” – the playoffs. The team has clinically dismantled their playoff opponents – an injury ridden Los Angeles Lakers, a hot shooting, perimeter play dominated Golden State Warriors and a defense first, “big man” play reliant Memphis Grizzlies – by adjusting their strategies duly for their opponents’ strengths and maximizing their own potential to the hilt. The Heat, on the other hand, has used their inherent talent advantage to pummel their opponents but has come off a very difficult Eastern Conference Finals against the Indiana Pacers who stretched them to the maximum 7 games.

On paper, the Heat are superior. Their advantage lies in the fact that Lebron James does not have a viable challenger who could defeat him one-on-one and the Spurs don’t necessarily have an answer despite fielding their own young defensive specialist Kawhi Leonard to slow James down. But the Spurs are the best opposition that the Heat are going to face so far in the post-season and are strong in some areas which are weak-spots for the Heat. The Spurs are a terrific 3 point scoring team, have the patience to keep churning their offense through the shot clock to find the open man and have the tenacity to play help defense as good as the relatively offensively challenged but defensively strong Indiana Pacers. Will the collective strength of a savvy team like the Spurs be enough to overcome the stellar Miami Heat? This writer’s expectation is that the Spurs will come up trumps in six grueling, exciting games but there is no guarantee.

This promises to be a close contest and an exhibition of exquisite basketball skills for sport fans. Indian viewers can watch the games live on Sony Six (mostly telecasted early mornings Indian standard time).  

Largesse to Private Explorers

An audit of production-sharing contracts reveals violations that have hurt the interests of the public.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG)’s draft performance audit report on petroleum/natural gas production-sharing contracts (PSCs) ­– the first of its kind by the audit officer on the petroleum sector – suggests favours by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to private players, especially Reliance Industries (RIL), and has expanded the ­already long list of “scams” associated with this government.

Well before the CAG’s audit, overpricing of natural gas produced by Reliance in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin had shown the UPA government in a poor light. In September 2007, an ­empowered group of ministers had recommended, against the advice of officials, that the sale price of natural gas from the KG basin be set at $4.2 per million British thermal unit (MBTU). This was despite estimates of Reliance’s production costs not ­exceeding $1.43 per MBTU. This very generous decision by the government allowed Reliance to garner super profits from the basin. Now, in 2011, the CAG has come up with more evidence which proves that large private players have violated the PSCs.

To Read More, Click Here.

Local poll results in Lanka - Another push for a political solution

Ahilan Kadirgamar, spokesperson of the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum, suggests that the Tamil National Alliance's victory combined with international pressure after the Channel 4 Documentary and the UN Special Panel Report have brought upon added impetus for the Sri Lankan government to proceed with steps towards a "political solution" in that country. The peoples' mandate in the Northern Province in the local body elections held there in July this year, were clearly a rebuff to the Rajapaksa regime's efforts to limit the discourse to "development".

Media Diversity in India - Antidote to Murdochisation

Editor of The Hoot - a media watchdog website, Sevanti Ninan comments on the differences and similarities between Murdoch's media empire and what exists in India. She is interviewed in the context of the "phone hacking" scandal that has brought media moghul Murdoch in the dock in Britain.

Yingluck's win positive for Thailand

Chanida Bamford from the Focus on The Global South, speaks on the election results in Thailand. The decisive victory for Yingluck Shinawatra's Pheu Thai party is a positive development for Thailand which has suffered autocratic rule in the near past, she says.

Decolonising knowledge systems

A conference on “Decolonising Our Universities” held in June in Penang, Malaysia, offered interesting perspectives on the need for and ways to foster epistemologies and pedagogies that are devoid of Eurocentric and colonial bias and prejudice.

In a conference held in Penang, Malaysia from 27 to 29 June 2011 and titled “Decolonising Our Universities”, scholars and academicians from the erstwhile “colonised world” gathered to discuss ways of “decolonising our universities” from influences of Eurocentrism that pervaded academics. The presentations were not merely academic but very activist, with the clarion call for some form of Renaissance or resisting Eurocentric hegemony or both dominating proceedings. At the end of it all, the message was well taken. At least in the social sciences, which predominated the discourse on academics, there was a strong case for decolonisation: for theorisations that were not limited to the European cultural milieu, for breaking away from European thought, its categories, concepts and from the myth that they were originators of modern civilisation, and for the re-establishment of the non-Europeans as “knowing subjects” and not “passive objects” perceived through the agency of Europeans.

The basis for that discourse was laid out in a keynote by the Indian ambassador to Bhutan and popular writer, Pavan Varma who lamented the effects of colonisation on the Indian mind, which for him, still persisted today. The derision shown for Indian culture by the colonial masters had been “internalised by the ruled”, the colonisers created an education system that suited their interests, and importantly Indian languages lost their salience during colonial rule. Political scientist and social psychoanalyst Ashis Nandy as a discussant added that colonialism of the British variety was an upgrade over the “earlier form of colonialism” associated with the Spanish and the Portuguese. The British colonialists’ enterprise involved a “seepage of the values of the Enlightenment” but was equally and even more dangerous to the natives of the colonised lands, particularly India. The rampant nature of colonisation increased with the entry of the East India Company and was imbued with the values of utilitarianism represented by the likes of Mill and Bentham, justifying colonialism on the need for “progress”, enforcing natives to “climb the inclined plane of history to achieve what the Europeans had already achieved”. Another discussant, politician Mani Shankar Aiyar did not agree – colonialism, warts and all had also an element of interactivity – which was utilised by Indian nationalists and natives for their own progress. So much so that today in the age of globalisation, Indians have raised themselves to be developed. In Aiyar’s view, a “balanced” review of the advent of colonialism suggests that the consequences were not so much an entrenchment of the culture of the colonised to the detriment of that of the ruled, but the utilisation of the interactions with the colonisers to chart a “new synthesis” by the ruled themselves. Essentially, the process of decolonisation was concomitant with the process of exchange of ideas and values from the outside world.

Eurocentrist Sociology

The keynote session, albeit debating colonisation in its generics did set an important note that was explored in specifics in other sessions, especially by Malaysian sociologist Syed Farid Alatas who spoke on “Teaching Social Theory as an Alternative Discourse” to Eurocentrist sociology. Alatas argued that the countering of Eurocentrist sociology in the South was possible only through a thorough study of it using the specificities of the local. In other words, a correction of the European bias in social theory was impossible without critical engagement with western thinkers such as Marx, Weber and Durkheim in that canon. Alatas invoked the works of Filipino thinker and activist, Jose Rizal to make this point. He also argued as to how, while universalisation of sociology was an imperative, it could only be done by providing space to various civilisational voices apart from the usual European ones. In other words, recognition of social science work in the South in the form of local knowledge systems and publications in various languages were due in order to achieve a “universal sociology”.

And that certainly was lacking in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) World Social Science Report 2010. Darryl Macer, regional advisor for the Social and Human Sciences in Asia and Pacific unit of UNESCO, in his paper, “Decolonising Social Sciences across the World”, clearly found that the “perceived knowledge gap” between the global North and the South according to the report was a consequence of unaccounted factors (in the report) such as

lack of recognition for academic research not conducted in European languages; low recognition of non-European authors and institutions; differences in fundamental paradigms of thought and concepts of what is social science; and the need for greater South-South collaboration and exchange programmes.

Besides the above, there were other reasons for the “knowledge gap” – expressed among others in the wide gap in number of research publications between those in the North and the South. Some had to do, according to other presenters, with the lack of adequate funding for social science research and of enough autonomy for research institutions, for example in south Asia. But there was also the larger problem of a Eurocentric view of social sciences, something that needed correction. The conference decided to send a note to UNESCO asking for addressing this problem, besides suggesting remedies to the factors contributing to the “knowledge divide”.

Indictment of Eurocentrism

Ashis Nandy’s point about justifications of colonialism by the colonisers using the logic of Enlightenment values such as “progress” and “revolution” were alluded to and expanded upon in an interesting paper, titled, “History ‘Outside’ the West” by Vinay Lal. In his analytics of history and historiography as viewed by the British thinkers such as James Mill – whose works “exercised an incalculable influence” on the British civil servants – Lal argues as to how Europe’s own history was to serve as template for “all history”. The categories of “ancient, medieval and modern” that explained the European past were “assumed to be the ‘natural’ categories through which one might interpret any history”. Ashis Nandy’s expressed view on “progress” played itself out in the idea of “temporal linearity” being the informing principle of all contemporary history and “perforce condemn[ed] the people outside Europe to live someone else’s history, with consequences that have been seen across all domains of life”. Lal, echoing Alatas argued as to how in the discourse of “world history”, “the colonised and now underdeveloped subjects had no place, except, of course, as the objects of the wise discourse of knowing subjects”. World history, as much as social theory, was yet another form of colonising knowledge and the need therefore was for a history of many worlds – “our worlds”. Vinay Lal’s exposition was certainly an indictment of Eurocentric bias in historicising in the west, but it is to be stated that present-day study of history in countries such as India is not necessarily imbued with such biases.

Decolonising as a theme was extended to the field of psychotherapy, as presentations by African scholars, Augustine Nwoye and Akmalofe Adebayo, argued for an indigenous African psychotherapy challenging Eurocentric world views – both for pedagogy and practice, respectively. Nwoye in his paper, “An Outline and Rationale for the Inclusion of African Psychotherapy as an Undergraduate Course in an African University”, specifically outlined a course for African psychotherapy for undergraduate study. Adebayo propounded his idea of “Nchetaka” as a “radical and indigenous” African “academic praxis of psychology”, devoid of Eurocentric biases, in his paper titled, “A Recovering African Psychologist’s Narratives of Resistance and the Quest for Our Own Story”. The emphasis for Adebayo was to adopt a social constructivist approach that was biased towards indigenous methodologies such as “story telling” for psychotherapy. Adebayo’s paper was an interesting case of decolonising a field of humanities in praxis.

Mathematician C K Raju, in a presentation, titled “Decolonising Math and Science Education”, argued that colonisation as a process extended to the natural sciences as well. Raju, basing his presentation in favour of the traditional Indian notion of pramana – empirical proof in mathematics as opposed to the philosophy of “formalism”, argued that there existed a religious – Christian – bias in “formal” mathematics, and it was necessary to unlearn this form of mathematics that dominated curricula across the world. The validity of the argument was beyond the ken of this writer, but perhaps Raju could have tempered his views which included ad hominem attacks on scientists such as Albert Einstein. Raju’s presentation was also based on his copious works on the origins of calculus in India, the analysis of “infinite series in India” and others. His salient point was that mathematics and natural sciences had to be “de-theologised”, and that, an alternate history and philosophy of mathematics had to be worked out and taught in universities.

Emphasis on decolonisation was an imperative even in legal education in the South, as Malaysian law professor Shad Saleem Faruqi pointed out in his presentation titled, “Western Intellectual Imperialism in Malaysian Legal Education”. He argued that university curricula in the South were devoid of awareness of Asian and African contribution to knowledge on “evaluation of right and wrong, of justice and fairness, of poverty and development”, etc. Indigenisation of law syllabi was necessary, albeit not to the exclusion of western knowledge paradigms, but to resist the hegemony of western ideas, which had fallen short in elobarating human rights, public law, environmentalism and in the building of a just world. This point was illustrated in detail by South African professor, Shadrack Gutto, who argued how Eurocentrism was manifest in the postcolonial continuities in African legal systems, which militated against the interests of the African people even today.

Other presenters also built upon on the theme of Eurocentrism preventing the ability of people of the South from constructing their own systems of knowledge drawing from their rich histories. Molefi Asante argued for an Africocentric creation of knowledge and education systems, drawing upon the need to preserve the best of African ancestral traditions and working for a renaissance of the glorious African past of the Egyptian (Kemet), Nubian civilisations among others. He evocatively denounced the Eurocentric idea that the Enlightenment was an “age of reason” considering that Africa was most at risk during this period of colonisation. His paper was titled, “The Philosophical Bases for an African University – Designing Afrocentric Curricula for African Universities”. Discussants however cautioned that the need for yet another “centricism” – Afrocentrism – would defeat the purpose, as the idea was to counter the hegemony of Eurocentricism and work towards an inclusive “universalism”.

Islamisation of Social Sciences?

Presentations on the need for the Islamisation of social sciences were problematic. Directly applying theological beliefs to “social science” must surely be counterproductive, but that was not the theme of presentations from some west Asian scholars who strongly argued for the rootedness of social science within Islamic tenets.

The last session featured the attempts at creating repositories of knowledge and institutions that were stripped of Eurocentric influences, biases and epistemology. Environmentalist Claude Alvares presented a paper on “Alternatives to University Pedagogy”, which were refreshing and interesting to hear about. This paper argued for the “deprofessionalisation of the university system”, making learning more interesting and to combine experience settings and collegiality to go with learning. But would it require this to completely do away with the “university system” as it exists today, as Alvares – perhaps facetiously – argued?

A presentation on the “Swaraj University” by its founder Manish Jain exemplified one such model of alternate institution that Alvares had in mind. Innovative teaching methods, curricula and learning from experience marked the goals of this university, which is attempting to do away with the formalistic and “ritualistic” forms of established university teaching. In this reporter’s opinion, the effort is laudable, but the system surely cannot be “scaled up” for all forms of learning and teaching.

All in all, the conference on “decolonising our universities” offered insightful perspectives on the need and ways to foster epistemologies and pedagogies that are devoid of Eurocentric and colonial bias and prejudice. Having said that the dangers of this turning out to be a form of “nativism” and even perhaps intolerance of any form of western knowledge are inherent. There was in some of the papers and discussions an element of over-celebration of the native and recourse to the un-scientific.

Mani Shankar Aiyar’s invocation of Gandhi (Young India, 1 June 1921, p 170) is well worth mentioning here as the South endeavours to strip its universities of Eurocentrism –

I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.

Indignats - Harbinger of a New Politics in Spain?

Prominent Italian Journalist and Leftist political activist Marco Berlinguer is interviewed on Skype on the Indignats movement in Spain.

Special Interest driven UPA resembles a sinking ship

A rudder-less United Progressive Alliance has convinced no one that it is acquiring some kind of anchor by shuffling its crew on a burning deck.

That certainly seems to be the most common reaction to the "ministerial reshuffle" enacted mid-term by UPA captains- prime minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. UPA-sympathetic voices were happy that certain names that were no longer possible to be defended for their steering of various ministries have been finally asked to disembark.

Dayanidhi Maran - who was formally accused by the CBI for delaying licences for the Aircel group until it was bought off by a Malaysian firm which in turn allegedly repaid his favour in investing in the Sun Group's digital TV plans - has walked the plank and is out of the cabinet. Maran clearly worked for the interests of his family flagship Sun TV rather than that of the people who he was supposed to represent. Another person who was dropped was Murli Deora, whose petroleum ministry came under the CAG's scanner for the flawed manner in which its production sharing contract with Reliance for the exploration of gas in the KG basin was being implemented . Deora has however ensured that his son has taken a place in the list of ministers.

Siddharth Varadarajan in his normative piece about the UPA a couple of days ago, wrote that it needed the "mother of all reshuffles" to take it out of the morass that the government finds itself in. Even if many of his points were well taken, it was just "well-wishing" and many of the changes he had asked for (and to be fair, did not anticipate) never happened.

What is unsaid about how ministerial berths have been provided in the UPA is that they have got little to do with the merit of the person or his/her position on various policies. With the UPA in particular, the key to ministerial allocation generally is the ability to act for special interests. The stench of corruption and malfeasance that has pervaded the UPA has much to do with the fact that special interests - corporate mostly - have controlled policy making in the government. That is not going to change by the addition/subtraction of a few crew members in the UPA mother ship.

Consider the top four positions in the government - finance, defense, external affairs and home. Except for the defense ministry helmed by the "unimpeachably honest" AK Antony, the rest of the ministries cannot say that they had the best interests of their country's citizens in mind in the manner they implemented policy decisions. The finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has steadfastly refused to take on the most pressing problem in the country - inflation and has presented budget after corporate friendly budget. Mukherjee also has a finger in every policy pie, heading a slew of EGoMs, including the one that decided to hand over natural gas pricing on a platter to Reliance enabling them to garner a massive super profit. The home minister P.Chidambaram has been a disaster in handling issues that require high political awareness and sensitivity. His handling of the Maoist challenge, the Telangana issue, the Kashmir imbroglio last year suggest that his imperious ways of functioning have yielded little dividends in solving intractable problems of this nature.

The allies of the Congress are no better, in fact quite abject as in the case of the Trinamul Congress. Before the ascension of Dinesh Trivedi to the railways ministry of the cabinet, the senior-most minister at the helm was Mukul Roy of the same party. His predecessor, leader and current West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was pathetic in her handling of the ministry presiding over numerous railway accidents and mishaps. With her attentions fixated at Writers' Buildings, she had little concern about passenger safety, train punctuality, and in her term, the Railways regressed as an institution. If she had shown the nadir of sensitivity blaming passengers for their own deaths because of a stampede in the New Delhi Railway Station last year, her junior party member and minister of state Mukul Roy emulated her by refusing to visit the site of accident in Fatehpur in Uttar Pradesh a couple of days ago. There is little confidence that Mamata Banerjee's successor, Dinesh Trivedi would be any better for the institution that still employs the largest number of workers in the country. If anything, one can expect a further movement towards greater privatisation and commercialisation of the institution to the detriment of the interests of the employees and passengers.

The DMK, of which much has been written and talked about, has always treated ministerial berths as avenues for crony capitalism, rent seeking and furthering ill gotten wealth for the first family of the party and their cohorts. The currently longest ruling political party at the centre - the DMK offers the worst example of caring little for concerns of malfeasance - notice the utter lack of compunction or remorse from the likes of DMK patriarch M.Karunanidhi, A.Raja, Dayanidhi Maran, Kanimozhi and the rest of the DMK "glitterati". The DMK still holds ministries where rent seeking is a lucrative exercise. And they have not been reshuffled in this latest cosmetic exercise enacted by the UPA.

The one minister who ruffled the feathers (relatively) of the widespread special interests with the UPA was former environment minister Jairam Ramesh. Exhibiting some spine in taking on vested interests who had always had it easy in circumventing and even formulating environmental norms and rules for their own benefits, Ramesh had earned the respect of grassroots organisers and people who had been affected by displacement and environmental degradation in various parts of the country. His "activist" presence - a derogatory reference to his methods of consulting stakeholders and environmental groups while deciding upon clearances - miffed no less than the "ace reformer" prime minister Manmohan Singh. And it is no wonder that he has been promptly removed from the post and shifted to rural development. One hopes (against hope) that his successor would show the same gumption to take on special interests - especially large real estate groups, mining companies and other assorted conglomerates willing to partake into the yields of primitive accumulation - but the peremptory shift does not yield confidence.

A few demotions and new sinecures for other ministers have not been received well by them. Mumbai based legislator Gurudas Kamat formally handed over his resignation unwilling to take on the important water resources and sanitation affairs ministry, apparently miffed at its "low profile". But that is no surprise. It is not the "low profile", but the low or practically little "rent seeking ability" in the ministry that miffs the likes of Kamat and company.

The continuation of a minister who has been expressly questioned for continuation in power by no less than the Supreme Court - Vilasrao Deshmukh also adds substance to the "special interests" theory vis-a-vis the UPA. Deshmukh, who was ludicrously in the helm of "rural development" despite having been indicted by the Supreme Court for having protected a private moneylender against accusations of torture and ill-treatment of villagers, has been shunted out to the science and technology ministry. He continues his naked quest for rent-seeking by this time trying to win the post for the presidency of the Mumbai Cricket Association with full support of the ace real estate businessman masquerading as a politician - Sharad Pawar. And that leads us to Sharad Pawar, who continues to wreak havoc on the agrarian sector in the country through sheer negligence as agriculture minister. Pawar has himself wanted to concentrate on the "very important" matters related to cricket in the role of the ICC president that he holds, but the prime minister continues to thrust the unwilling businessman onto the country.

No less than the cleaning of the Augean stables could have brought about a sea-change in the attitudes and functioning of the UPA government. But the essence of the actions by those at the helm has been to resist, deflect and parry widespread allegations of misgovernance, corruption, and malfeasance. That explains the continued presence of Kapil Sibal in the telecommunications ministry. Sibal in his role has done precisely what the corporate sector would have wanted him to do vis-a-vis the 2G scam - limit the damage to blaming a select set of individuals, deflect criticisms of widespread loss to the public exchequer by simply denying that there is a loss and parry attempts at forcing crony corporates which made the most out of the flawed 2G allocation process to pay the requisite costs of spectrum or cancel their licences. It is too bad that the Supreme Court has not bought into Sibal's methods and logic and have doggedly taken on the job of bringing the matter to justice. That Sibal's methods have alienated no less than the government's own solicitor general is testament to the extent of the role that special interests are playing themselves out in the matter.

All in all, there is no recognition by the government that it is policy that is skewed towards special interests that has generated the morass in the first place. And that is deliberate for the UPA is itself run by special interests.

Scope for Expansion

India is poised to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation with the SCO setting new criteria for expansion.

A mong the various groupings that have been jostling to act as a counterweight to the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in the global arena, the relatively young Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) hopes to emerge as a viable bloc. The SCO – which currently includes China, Russia and the four central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – is seen variously as an alliance to counter the expansion of NATO into Asia, as a grouping keen to coordinate national actions on terrorism, and as a forum to promote trade and economic ties in the region. Russia in particular sees SCO as a platform that could potentially build a security alliance to thwart attempts by NATO and the US to expand in eastern Europe and central Asia, respectively.

To read more of the EPW Editorial, click here.

"Indian Media - Politically Free, Prisoners of Profit" - P.Sainath

Eminent commentator and rural affairs editor of The Hindu newspaper, P.Sainath speaks to Newsclick on media discourse and other issues related to the "Fourth Estate".

Modifying the Terms of Compensation

The Uttar Pradesh government makes compensation for land acquisition more generous, but is that enough?

Intense protests by farmers agitating in the Greater Noida region of Gautam Budh Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh (up) against acquisition of lush agricultural land for the “Yamuna Expressway” project finally compelled the Bahujan Samaj Party government last month to announce a new land acquisition policy. The ruling government’s hand was also forced by the support to the agitations from various opposition parties, whose representatives landed in droves to “lead” the protests. In an attempt to mollify anger about unfair compensation rates currently in place, the new policy sees the government playing a less prominent role and more generous terms of compensation for farmers whose lands are acquired, but the policy is not based on any holistic framework on land use and acquisition.

An EPW Editorial. Read more here.

'Japanese resilience tested by the triple disaster' - Brij Tankha

The triple disaster - the March 11th earthquake and tsunami followed by the nuclear accident in Fukushima has tested the famed resilience of the Japanese people. Professor at the department of East Asian studies at Delhi University, Brij Tankha comments on the reactions to the triple disaster by the Japanese government and society.