Air India is a frustrating airline to fly, work for, read about or own. Ask me. As a flyer, I flew quite a bit on its planes, I have a friend who works for it and as a tax payer, I own a bit of it. Over the years, as the losses have grown, my shareholding has only increased as more money is sunk into digging a bigger hole. Now, airlines never make money. Richard Branson was once asked just how one could become a millionaire. “First become a billionaire, he said, “and then set up an airline!” Imagine a truly pathetic, poorly maintained airline service operating in an intensely competitive market, with a high fixed cost structure, amidst a global recession and the only thought that should hit you is “ Please, please shut this down, pay the salaries for a year to all, ground the planes and sell them at about $ 100 a kilo.”
Well, the Government is doing exactly the opposite: pumping Rs. 4000 crores into it, buying up all the new planes they can find, launching new, thoroughly unprofitable services to destinations that are well serviced by existing bleeding carriers. The Minister for Aviation is a businessman – his family owns one of India’s largest beedi brands, and he should know the rudiments of profitability. Just what could happen if Air India is not bailed out? The Aircraft unions will go on strike and a couple of airports will be besieged by staff who aren’t employable elsewhere, yet that is a small price to pay for the perpetuation of a myth. Keeping Air India alive is not compassionate capitalism (on which subject I hope to dwell, in a later note) – it is rank stupidity. So why is this asininity on display? The answer: because it is our money – yours and mine, and others, who have no accountability to us, are managing it.
Just imagine what we could do with a fraction of this money: how many trees we could plant, maintain and protect, how many villages we could install water purifiers in, how many lakes we could desilt, how many forest guards we could employ to protect our oxygen and water sources, how many energy saving bulbs we could distribute at a subsidised price. The lesson: in human development, common sense, not money, has been in short supply. Will the Government have the courage to do the right thing ?
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
The Selfish Gene - a twist in our tail ?
In 2007, Felix Warneken and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology found compelling evidence that chimps behave altruistically in a very human way. They help out unrelated strangers without expectation of reward, and even go to great lengths to do so. Most humans, the vast majority of them, do not.
Just why are humans so selfish ? If a community or a nation is selfish this can be explained by getting a couple of anthropologists or historians, as well as psychologists into a huddle and thereby, a coherent conclusion, if a Corporation is selfish, it can be explained away by saying that so-and-so owns 83% of it and he is selfish, so, well, the Corporation is selfish. But all (or substantially all) of humanity ?
While we are forced to conclude that the streak of selfishness exists amongst humans at a gene level (else it simply couldn't be this universal), what strikes me as remarkable is that the animal life that comes closest to humans are utterly selfless amongst their own. Three examples of gregarious species with big brains (and bigger hearts) are chimps, elephants and dolphins. Its astonishing that we have evolved (allegedly) from them, and have left the quality of selflessness behind. I read a true story the other day, of a man who would have drowned in the Atlantic Ocean, but for a couple of dolphins who actually took him on their backs close to shore. Would the human ever do this service to a predator ?
And take the chimp. We - you and I - are 97% chimpanzee. We inherited some of its bad qualities, male chauvinism being a resplendent example, and ignored its selfless nature. My question is, just how did selfishness find its way into the other 3% of our gene pool ?
Just why are humans so selfish ? If a community or a nation is selfish this can be explained by getting a couple of anthropologists or historians, as well as psychologists into a huddle and thereby, a coherent conclusion, if a Corporation is selfish, it can be explained away by saying that so-and-so owns 83% of it and he is selfish, so, well, the Corporation is selfish. But all (or substantially all) of humanity ?
While we are forced to conclude that the streak of selfishness exists amongst humans at a gene level (else it simply couldn't be this universal), what strikes me as remarkable is that the animal life that comes closest to humans are utterly selfless amongst their own. Three examples of gregarious species with big brains (and bigger hearts) are chimps, elephants and dolphins. Its astonishing that we have evolved (allegedly) from them, and have left the quality of selflessness behind. I read a true story the other day, of a man who would have drowned in the Atlantic Ocean, but for a couple of dolphins who actually took him on their backs close to shore. Would the human ever do this service to a predator ?
And take the chimp. We - you and I - are 97% chimpanzee. We inherited some of its bad qualities, male chauvinism being a resplendent example, and ignored its selfless nature. My question is, just how did selfishness find its way into the other 3% of our gene pool ?
Monday, June 8, 2009
Calling names
My parents' generation had a rather peculiar proclivity - that of appending professions to one's name. It was a habit that one grew up with to distinguish the million Nairs, Menons, Raghavans and Georges who circled Planet Earth. My earliest such memory is of the Honourable Pipelines Kutty, whose chief occupation, as you may possibly conjecture, was to maintain pipelines carrying crude oil in Upper Assam, where we lived. And then there was Naga Nair, a gentleman so named because of his misfortune, about fifty years ago, in being coerced to marry a Naga bride and thence spend his productive, waking moments to bringing her into the mainstream - but that's a story for another day.
I first thought that this profession-as-name habit was limited to the North East, but was mistaken. As we moved to Bangalore, there was Pesticide Radhakrishnan and Mysodet Gopinath (in the business of selling fertilizer), Vaporub Unni and Woodways Jacob (running a furniture store), Homeopathy Menon, Commander Nair and Planting Mathews. I once, at my loudest voice, bought my Dad's attention with "Dad, there's Pesticide Radhakrishnan Uncle" much to my father's amusement and my mum's embarrassment, who later admonished me. Having an inadequate appreciation of things, I then asked her if I should address this gentleman as "Pesticide Uncle" instead, upon which my mother decided that, she would let sleeping dogs - and ignorant sons - lie.
Yet, there was no better name that one given to a Mr. George Mathew, a Chartered Accountant, long since dead now. No one was really sure of his full name. Syrian Christians tend to have various combinations of George, Mathew, Abraham and Thomas, so it was agreed by all who knew him well that the best name for him would be one that incorporated them all - hence, GMAT was a born again name for the Rt Hon Mr. Mathew. He never got to know of it though, absorbed as he was, in his brief lifetime on the Planet, with racehorses and a ready wager.
This habit of profession-as-name has significantly changed, alas. Today, men with not uncommon names are known by a prefix as well: their wives' names. Hence, you have a name such as Radha Ravi, the first being the name of the wife of the latter, whose profession will always remain a mystery to the bystander in a gossip drenched conversation.
Life, as a result of this important, hiterto unheralded sociological transformation, has become just a bit more uninteresting.
This absence of spice has only been partly addressed by my dear friend Doc Verghese, the prefix for whose name is necessitated by the indisputable truth that he is Verghese Samuel, the son of Samuel Verghese.
I first thought that this profession-as-name habit was limited to the North East, but was mistaken. As we moved to Bangalore, there was Pesticide Radhakrishnan and Mysodet Gopinath (in the business of selling fertilizer), Vaporub Unni and Woodways Jacob (running a furniture store), Homeopathy Menon, Commander Nair and Planting Mathews. I once, at my loudest voice, bought my Dad's attention with "Dad, there's Pesticide Radhakrishnan Uncle" much to my father's amusement and my mum's embarrassment, who later admonished me. Having an inadequate appreciation of things, I then asked her if I should address this gentleman as "Pesticide Uncle" instead, upon which my mother decided that, she would let sleeping dogs - and ignorant sons - lie.
Yet, there was no better name that one given to a Mr. George Mathew, a Chartered Accountant, long since dead now. No one was really sure of his full name. Syrian Christians tend to have various combinations of George, Mathew, Abraham and Thomas, so it was agreed by all who knew him well that the best name for him would be one that incorporated them all - hence, GMAT was a born again name for the Rt Hon Mr. Mathew. He never got to know of it though, absorbed as he was, in his brief lifetime on the Planet, with racehorses and a ready wager.
This habit of profession-as-name has significantly changed, alas. Today, men with not uncommon names are known by a prefix as well: their wives' names. Hence, you have a name such as Radha Ravi, the first being the name of the wife of the latter, whose profession will always remain a mystery to the bystander in a gossip drenched conversation.
Life, as a result of this important, hiterto unheralded sociological transformation, has become just a bit more uninteresting.
This absence of spice has only been partly addressed by my dear friend Doc Verghese, the prefix for whose name is necessitated by the indisputable truth that he is Verghese Samuel, the son of Samuel Verghese.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Milking the Tender Cow
Quite unexpectedly, I came across a tender notice of The Erode District Cooperative Milk Producers Union. Now, this is exactly what a jobless fellow like me would read - its not racy, has little feminity about it and is normally on the second last page of the least read business newspaper.
I read it with morbid curiosity - it was a tender for the supply of a number of items that go into the production of mineral mixture that is fed to the cow. The materials were as follows:
1. Dicalcium phosphate
2. Sodium thio Sulphate
3. Magnesium Oxide
4. Calcite Powder
5. Ferrous Sulphate (anhydrous, whatever this means)
6. Copper Sulphate
7. Manganese Sulphate
8. Cobalt Sulphate
9. Zinc Sulphate
10. Potassium Iodide
11. Trivalent Chromium Chelate
I wonder just how much of this a cow gets every day in her diet. I wonder, further, just how much of this I get everyday in my diet.
Thankfully, I have never been a big fan of milk, despite being reading, on many occasions, of the shortage of Vitamin B12 in a vegan's diet. Maybe my tastebuds found the trivalent chromium chelate a tad sour......
I read it with morbid curiosity - it was a tender for the supply of a number of items that go into the production of mineral mixture that is fed to the cow. The materials were as follows:
1. Dicalcium phosphate
2. Sodium thio Sulphate
3. Magnesium Oxide
4. Calcite Powder
5. Ferrous Sulphate (anhydrous, whatever this means)
6. Copper Sulphate
7. Manganese Sulphate
8. Cobalt Sulphate
9. Zinc Sulphate
10. Potassium Iodide
11. Trivalent Chromium Chelate
I wonder just how much of this a cow gets every day in her diet. I wonder, further, just how much of this I get everyday in my diet.
Thankfully, I have never been a big fan of milk, despite being reading, on many occasions, of the shortage of Vitamin B12 in a vegan's diet. Maybe my tastebuds found the trivalent chromium chelate a tad sour......
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