Saturday, August 21, 2010

Success means.......

“Success means never having to wear a suit” is the quote on my favourite T-shirt. I believe in it.

Over the years when I have worn it outside home, the comments from friends, colleagues and strangers have been most noteworthy. At the Goa airport, for instance, a foreigner stared at it for a while, walked up to me and said simply, “I agree completely with that statement. I hope you do as well.”

Read the quote again and do reflect on it. I would be glad to hear your thoughts.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Unintended Consequences

Four years ago, in June 2006, the Government of Tamil Nadu announced that twenty kilos of rice would be available to each family that had a ration card, at a token price of Rs. 2. The Government did it to win votes and the battle against hunger and malnutrition. Lets look at the unintended consequences instead, that are now making themselves apparent.
Listening to Mariappa, my farmer in Javalagiri, is most illuminating. “Sir, “ he says with a mischievous smirk, “there is more money in each home now available for liquor and that is why men support this move to subsidise rice.” And are the full stomachs resulting in more incomes? “No sir, actually farm labour has become far less willing to work. Do you know, Sir, that subsidised rice is the reason for less milk being produced in our area?”
Unable to understand the connection, I look at him in bewilderment. “We don’t get farm labour to take the cows out to graze as we used to (this job is generally done by older farm workers, who are no longer capable of slogging in the field). Since they get their staple at virtually no cost now, and some occasional income, no one’s interested. And milk prices rarely rise, so we all make a loss on cattle. As a result, everyone’s selling off their cows. I see a milk shortage around the corner.”

Lets summarise : More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk.
…and what has cheaper rice done to nutrition?

Most of the villages in Krishnagiri and many other districts of Tamil Nadu have, for centuries, had millets as their staple food. Millets are healthier & wholesome, and have far more fibre, which means that the carbohydrate in them is released slowly, giving the body time to absorb it well. Rice is primarily carb, and white rice has a high glycemic index (in other words, it breaks down quickly during digestion, releasing glucose into the bloodstream, increasing the pressure on the pancreas to do their job). The consequences of shifting a staple diet based on local millets to one based on rice boggles the mind. Since farming is hard work, farmers eat a lot, lot more than you or I do. When most of this food is carb, the net result we will see manisfest in this decade is rural obesity (and obesity-linked diseases) – a most unexpected phenomenon resulting from the best of intentions. Among the younger men in villages – those in their 20s and 30s - there is little love lost for farming and they get far less exercise than their parents, yet they eat the same amount as their parents do, so they are likely to be even worse off.
More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk. More carb. Less health.

In 2009-10, Tamil Nadu doled out 38 lakh tonnes at Rs. 2 per kilo. That’s 38,00,000,000 kilos. With such numbers, can you smell a scam ? If you are wondering just how dhabas and street food in Bangalore is so cheap, you have the answer – the rice is being smuggled in. Stand by and watch the menfolk eat their lunch by the construction site nearest to you – the plate has a dour, nutrition-less mix of salt, loads of rice and rasam, the last-named a euphimism for water coloured with spice (and, at times, the odd piece of non-veg of uncertain origin).

More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk. More carb. Less health. More scam.

And what about the impact on the Earth? Lets just take water as a resource. Rice, unlike most traditional millets, is water intensive; indeed rice and sugarcane are the two most water intensive crops. More water needed means more electricity required to pump it, more wastage, less water to go around.


More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk. More carb. Less health. More scam. Less water.

In September 2008, the Government of Tamil Nadu reduced the price to Re 1. One packet of gutka more per kilo. Twenty packets per month.
More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk. More carb. Less health. More scam. Less water. More gutka.

Now in July 2010, the Central Government has new norms. For the poorest of the poor, under a scheme called Antyodaya Anna Yojna, the quota of rice per card holder has gone upto 35 kg. For Tamil Nadu, it means about 6 lakh tonnes of rice more per year. At less price.

More rice at less price. More liquor. Less milk. More carb. Less health. More scam. Less water. More gutka. Meanwhile, more rice at less price just came in.