A Note

Hi!

Since yesterday I have been reading and trying to comment at blogs…I have not been able to do at some of my regular reads, while at some others I could do without a hitch. I am not sure why; but thinking of it, I wouldn’t like to continue so- commenting at some and not doing at others.

So, until the time I am able comment at every blog that I read, I will not be commenting at any place. I shall continue to read and appreciate your works regularly.Hope you understand.

Happy Blogging and if, I could say, please do promote fellow bloggers,
They are possibly here with dreams….Help them realise theirs, as you realise yours!

best wishes,
devika

International Women’s Day – A thought

It is only a year less to mark the centenary of the observance of the Day after the Copenhagen Conference of 1910 decided March 8, 1910 as International Women’s Day.

Issues like unfair work and wage considerations, women's oppression and inequality, and democratic representation had spurred women to become more vocal and active in campaigning for change in the period between 1908 and 1911. At the Copenhagen Conference, Clara Zetkin, leader of the 'Women's Office' for the Social Democratic Party in Germany, tabled the idea of an International Women's Day. She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day - a Women's Day - to press for their demands.

Over the years women around the world have seen their lives improving on economic, social and political fronts. However, today, as global nations slide into an unprecedented economic crisis, women, especially those in India who found a new fortune in export-linked industries like textiles, leather, the financial sector, real-estate and others, which were booming over the past decade -- face the same problems that moved women about a century ago!

Many reports say that as companies struggle to hold themselves in some form or other, employees, particularly women are being increasingly asked to accept retrenchment, lay offs, pay cuts which will no doubt worsen the quality of their already difficult lives. And, on this Women’s Day, the voices of women who are much more organised as a workforce will be heard in many rallies across the world.

Yet as one ponders for solution – could the present day issues be isolated as a woman’s issue? Don’t they present and call for deeper socio-political implications and economic ramifications…Thinking of it do women take an active role in democratic process or raise their voice in peace versus war process?

Today, if matters stand thus, and if the world leaders are sincerely trying to find solutions for more troubling problems, do women really need a separate voice?

Or, is it turning out to be a yearly ritual?

Now, the afternoon news says that housewives could also form legally-bound organisation – They sure will claim it as an achievement, but I fear its going to be a nuisance!

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Photo courtesy: as per original copyright at: http://www.theage.com.au/news/sushi-das/raising-the-volume-on-what-men-think-about-feminism/2005/12/21/1135032082534.html

"CLIMATE OF CHANGE"

"CLIMATE OF CHANGE"

The title is that of Paul Krugman’s column in ‘The Hindu’ today; courtesy The New York Times Service.

It’s Krugman’s – the New York Times columnist and Princeton economics professor who was reluctant to accept the Nobel Prize for his inability to predict the depth of the ongoing financial crisis; yet one of the firsts to use the “D” word, D standing for depression—analysis of the President Barack Obama’s first budget.

While the budget allocations and measures including that for Health reform is definitely beneficial to the American community, what interested me was his statement on America’s policy towards the Climate Change – 'After years of denial and delay by its predecessor, the Obama administration is signalling that it's ready to take on climate change,' he writes, noting that the budget projects USD645bn in revenues from the sale of emission allowances.

The Bush administration definitely was playing double standards in climate change issues, and it is heartening to note that finally the US administration is becoming responsive and responsible in addressing the issue. (However, it remains a fact that the issue of climate change could not be addressed effectively by a monetary allocation alone, and has been well discussed and debated by many researchers).

On the economic front, Krugman’s hope is only conditional-'.. if Obama gets us out of Iraq (without bogging us down in an equally expensive Afghan quagmire) and manages to engineer a solid economic recovery - two big ifs, to be sure - getting the deficit down to around $500 billion by 2013 shouldn't be at all difficult.'

While the economic consequences seem complex to me, and the policy ambiguities surrounding Obama's proposals for troop withdrawal from Iraq and his plans for Afghanistan, and Pakistan, seem inherently problematic, Krugman’s ending note is definitely positive:

‘But I don't blame Obama for leaving some big questions unanswered in this budget. There's only so much long-run thinking the political system can handle in the midst of a severe crisis; he has probably taken on all he can, for now. And this budget looks very, very good.’

There are a few analysts whose words could be taken for granted for their candidness, and conscientiousness. They are definitely more, but Amartya Sen and Paul Krugman top my list.

And, lastly, if there is a ‘Climate of Change’ in the US, its waves would definitely reach the rest of the nations…

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Here's a link to Krugman's Column published online: http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/27/opinion/edkrugman.php

Photo courtesy: as per original copyright at:

http://www.cemacolorado.com/news.shtml

On a Break

Hi!

I am not well and on a break from blogging.

I am disabling comments for such time, and I may not be able to visit others. Hope to be back in a few days.

Happy Blogging…

Wishes,
devika

GREEN REVOLUTION

Indira Gandhi started
Green Revolution

and

made India a proud nation
Self-sufficient in food

A step
Even time Salutes

An advertisement in the The Hindu said today. India’s Green Revolution refers to the farming improvement measures during the period from 1967 to 1978, which helped in achieving food sufficiency.

I have always been a Communist by ideology; but discussions with my father have given me good insight into the good deeds of the Indian National Congress. And, Indira Gandhi – the Prime Minister of India of my teenage years -- remains a powerful influence in me for her untiring commitment to the Nation.

I do not yet know why the advertisement was released by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting today. But it gives me a very positive push to move on. Hope it gives the same to you too. :)

More about Indian Green Revolution can be read at: http://www.indiaonestop.com/Greenrevolution.htm

Photo Source: http://www.genocidebangladesh.org/?page_id=4

Socio-politics of Blog-world from the Archives

The Potential of Archives

It’s been quite a while that I read newspapers, or listened to news in detail. Just a rush through the head lines, an occasional flipping through the television channels. The socio-political world almost ceased to exist to me for quite a good while. Yet, the world moved on, myself included…

Even as my work, my pass-times and blogs keep me busy all through the day, I sense the silence within me becoming loud. So loud in certain afternoons and midnights that I lose myself among the ghosts – ghosts from an unsure past, those from a certainly plain future.

Poetry helps me in gaining myself back. But, nothing seems to push me on, drive me into the world I came from. And the new world of my dreams almost seems an impossibility.

It all seems so changed—No news seems worthy of reading, none the less worthy of recording. A kind of complacency fills me…Yet I know, the masters remain to be learned…Masters in arts, poetics, sociology, history, politics, geography, and anthropology remain to be explored….The thought has been in me for quite a while.

A fellow traveller from Trivandrum to Delhi in 1999– Mr. Bhaskaran Nair who introduced himself as the Dean of Department of Sanskrit, Panjabi University, Patiala – had told me during the journey: ‘Devika, if you want to learn about the development of human culture and civilization, begin from the oldest data in the archives, never go in the reverse…the perspective will be lost.’

Sometime in September/October, the thought occurred to me again. Having launched myself in a new world – with its own socio-political and cultural systems at work – I had to learn the systems there…when the potential of the archives caught me unawares.

I began looking at Blogville culture and its socio-politics from the archives of some of the most interesting bloggers. My thoughts on them take some form of poetry, may be I am reading poetry more these days, …am I still in the process of gaining myself back!?

Learning from Archives

Looking to learn the
Social sciences,

The history and culture

of mankind

And to predict what

Future has in store?

Let’s search the archives
It teaches not just about
Man, but about the land,
The beasts and birds as well
Extinct and extant...

Archives form the
Basis of learning
The ways of the world…
A year of archived figures
Is as good to learn as
From a life spent in full

Archives --
It shows not just
The ages and places
That passed us past in
History and geography
But is resourceful in
Economics and
Politics, administration
And its ruthless systems,
Civics and
Civilisations at par…

And then the endless ways
That humanity shifted base
To survive the deeds
And misdeeds of nature
And of man’s own folly

Archives --
They hold lessons
That may scare you
If the mind’s eye lost its
Vision, if emotions
Lost its simplicity
If words lost its power
And the freshness

And, with the layers
And boundaries
So clear and distinctly
Carved as in a web
Life, and the future
Of mankind seems
Absolutely predictable
From the archives

Yet, Not So
For Nature and
For a Man,
Whose life past
Is archived -
But for the
Unpredictability of
Time and tide
That would wait for
No Man….

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Photos: As per original copyrights at:
http://ials.sas.ac.uk/library/archives/archive.htm
http://blogs.uoguelph.ca/ClosureofService.html

I GET BACK

I GET BACK

I had come to speak for you
Yet, in some trite respite
I turned my eyes inward
Missing sight of the
Lightning streaks that cut
Through your grey eyes;
Your ruffled hair, and your
Parched lips that sought a
Paltry meal --Absolve my
Insatiable senses of its
Ominous indulgence…

In some feisty mission
Into the deep woods, I went
Searching my bemused soul
Singing a dismal song in
Some strange gushy voice
I lost myself in the forest-
Misty, and enchanted
My weary voice muted
In some icy ratty chatter

A seasonal release – when at

Last the rains washed me off
Of my innate yearnings
I come back worn out
You, betrayed and hopeless

Went off with those men,
To kill their enemies, blowing
Up your angst and paucity
On the spot – on the road
Me, a discreet onlooker
Seeking your raison d'être

Now, as they talk of you
Me, a quiet listener…

Yet again, I seek you
In your comrades
On the roads, in those
Deprived homes,
On their camps
I see you, your dismay
In them who hold
Your fire, the remnants of
Your raging angst,
In their wistful eyes

I now seek the rage
That burnt in your eyes
To fill my words as I seek
To draw them to a new world,
A world of equal share in
Pain and joy…

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Written in response to a post at: Bomber at 13! @ http://acharyadeepak-humanobserver.blogspot.com/

Photo: Copyright as per original at:http://patdollard.com/