Civics
30 Oct 2013: On the congested roads of my city, I see the many SUVs (large four wheeler) with only the driver and one passenger sitting. The passenger occasionally has a look of satisfaction, on having created a peaceful safe ‘bubble’ to insulate him or her from the chaos outside. And perhaps even a trace of pride for being able to afford such luxury.
But what we don’t realise is that the SUV is consuming a scarce public good (road space) actually choking space available for public transport and pedestrians.
In a free nation, of course, everyone is also free to choose their mode of transport. But the social narrative excludes the cost imposed by such individual choices on public goods.
If everyone could afford an SUV, given our current roads, we would be in a constant JAM.
So while we don’t need to abandon our cars and jump into crowded buses, how about smaller cars, car pools and awareness while consuming scarce public goods?
We need to recognise the crisis that our traffic is, and that it is eating into our lives, our free time — time that could be with our loved ones or our hobbies. It is killing us in minutes and hours.
Maybe then, we will realize the urgent need to organize and rally around improving public transportation — an insight that is just a little harder to come when sitting inside the SUV bubble.
**
1 Nov 2013:
How fast will we be able to move towards a world that works for everyone?
That depends on how fast can we grow beyond our existing mental and social constructs — our assumptions about truth, the nature of man, the role of our institutions and more.
We refuse to see that the current issues are a product of our thunking, culture and norms.
For example, we design our systems (at work or in academics) to be highly competitive and then wonder why there is workplace conflict. Then we try to do “team building” to instill a spirit of co-operation (which actually is very natural to us as social animals)
Or, we overstimulate our appetite for consumption through advertising, and then work ourselves like crazy to meet those very needs we have created. Then, we wonder why there is such little work-life balance, so much corruption and climate change and take steps to correct that.
Beneath each of our ‘issues’ lies a misalignment between what we think, say and do. And there exists an artificial system that creates the issue that we then strive to fix. And this is held in place by institutions and beliefs that we refuse to question.
Religion, the nation-state, capitalism — these ideas are so holy to us that we seldom touch them, let alone notice the massive destruction caused by an outdated understanding of these.
It is so much easier to want change on the outside, in the society. It is so much tougher to question our taken-for-granted assumptions about life, about ourselves and about truth.
Till more and more of us do not take that journey, all change will be extremely difficult to come by, very transient and very soon, we will go back to our old unsustainable ways of existence.
**
30 March 2014: On a daily basis, we break too many rules in India — speed limits, signals, garbage et el.
So let us have a national consensus on which laws do we really intend to follow — like are we really going to drive below 60 kmph on the Bandra Worli Sealink?
If not — then let us remove that rule. If yes then let us follow it. Because each time we break these rules we give a message to ourselves and others that we are rule breakers.
Breaking rules then becomes easier for us every subsequent time, and becomes easier for every other person. As a result we become an indisciplined nation of rule breakers.
It is better perhaps to have few rules and really follow them, or to place rules where they belong — serious and strictly applicable / contextual and flexible / irrelevant.
It will bring many of us a lot of peace.
**
19 April 2015: We are surrounded by several “wrongs” that have started to seem “right”…..
Like compulsory attendance in college…..(I had 75%, don’t know what it is now)…..it says lectures are not interesting enough, so we will have to force you to come….
Or elite institutions saying ‘we are going to dispense our sacred knowledge only to the most intelligent students, thereby making them even more intelligent rather than spending energy on the many thousands who really want to get in but don’t score on our standardised tests’
Forceful advertising on front pages of newspapers that don’t give you an explicit option to not be seen….or hoardings that sneak into your view without you having any choice about what you see…..
Deeply devotional religious outpourings that violate laws, disturb peace and permit so many digressions on the pretext of them being mandated by religion itself…..
Or politicians congratulating themselves for installing signals, bus shelters or foot paths — aren’t they supposed to be doing that, anyways?
Like having to work the hours that we do, at jobs we may hate — because someone told us that this was the only way to ‘succeed’, make money and survive…..
And having to take ‘vacations’ — the most obvious symptom that work and life itself are so draining that one needs to take a ‘break’ from them once in a while (instead of being a continued experience of joy and fun)….
And perhaps, like me typing this out here rather than going and engaging in patient conversations (hey, I do that too!)….and feeling all smug and satisfied by likes and shares…..
So funny….so strange….
11 Oct 2015:
On SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals)
S, D and G are next to each other on the keyboard…..but there is an F key in between (A SDFG HJK)
This F for me is the Fundamental Shift that is needed for SDGs to work….
Left to themselves, these look like a collection of dysfunctional systems in crisis….and incrementally improving them doesn’t look like a very good world in 2030….
For example, SDG 1 (No poverty) is not about money, growth or wealth alone…
It will need us to shift from scarcity to abundance, from hoarding to sharing and from consumption to inner nourishing….
It will require us to ‘measure’ very differently (from the archaic GDP-type metrics)….it is an invitation to rethink ‘value’ and forms of wealth (not only economic but social, natural, spiritual and more)
It will need parallel currencies, a well managed commons (like langars), gift economies and co-operatives thriving along side small scale business and very conscious corporations….
Reaching this goal also means valuing relationships, art, leisure, fun and play…..it means honouring ancient wisdom, cultural nuances and already-present capacities….
If the consciousness behind this goal remains that of the ‘old-story’ it will only become a means to perpetuate the existing divides and dysfunction of the system
**
6 June 2016: It is time to make Right to Healthy Food a fundamental right.
Each human being on this planet deserves three healthy, nutritious meals every day — irrespective of anything.
It doesn’t matter if they are productive or not, whether they are criminals or great people or which religion or class they belong to.
The right to eat is the right to live — and as those who are alive at the moment on this planet, we must secure that right for everyone for now and the future.
Quantity of food isn’t a problem — it is our governance, distribution and structures which are. So let us change that — let us set this as a goal and work around this to make it happen.
If we are already spending 1.5 trillion a year as humanity on defending ourselves from each other and another 600 billion to advertise to each other, we can allow some money for food. There are millions on this planet who cannot do this for themselves on a regular basis — mostly because of the structural violence that we unknowingly inflict on them.
When someone knows that they have food for the day, it will let them rest, to really start moving towards what they would want to do. They’d rest a little easier, they’d get a chance at becoming a little more alive, a little more human.
Who should do it? My guess is as good as anyone else’s — the government, the private sector or the social sector (or all of them jumping in together).
So let’s have more meals on wheels, langars, seva cafes, pot-lucks and community kitchens!
P.S : Those among you who are interested in doing something about it, please drop in a message and let’s try and get some mischief started!
**
18 Nov 2016: Has been a privilege to cross paths with Sonam Wangchuk
Lessons?
* His ideation process starts from the community rather than theory
* He invites everyone to find loop holes in ideas BEFORE they are actioned
* He starts from the opposite end of the change cycle — which takes time but is solid change
* He gracefully meets opposition from non-doers (whom he meets inspite of doing such rocking work)
* He harnesses natural energy both in environment and people
* He isn’t scared to try new things
* He is DEEPLY anchored in his local roots
* His ways of communicating their issues is incredible!
SECMOL is a must visit — Apeksha Jayakar Poojary taking Avanti Foundation Young Women Leadership Forum to it was a high point (pun intended) :)
Love!
**
इस वेबसाइट को राजनीति या सामाजिक विषयों से ज़्यादा बच्चों के चित्रों में रूचि है. चलो, यह भी सही है…
Love is in the air….baby pics are in the air……travel pics are in the air….
Cos this site loves those much more than social or political issues :)
Chalo, yeh bhi theek hi hai….
**
14th Jan
Test your socio-economic class:
Swaad Sugandh Ka Raja,
Badshah Banaye Badhiya Khana
Badshaah Masala!!
Badshah Rajwadi Garam Masala
….
<complete for bonus points>
….
Badshaah Masala!
—
आपकी सामाजिक — आर्थिक परिस्तिति की एक परिक्षण
स्वाद सुगंध का राजा
बादशाह बनाये बढ़िया खाना
बादशाह मसाला
बादशाह रजवाड़ी गरम मसाला
…
(बोनस अंकों पूरा करें)
..
बादशाह मसाला
**
28 Jan 2017:
MCGM’s elections may just end up creating history — here is why:
Mumbai’s Municipal Corporation is that special body which spends Rs. 35,000 Crore a year that directly impact our life.
That’s about Rs. 60 lakhs spent in the time it took me to write this post.
This MCGM is going for elections (as it does every 5 years) — we (Mumbai) are notorious for our terrible voter turnout.
However, several citizen movements have been working tirelessly to change things.
I am mentioning this also so that you connect to atleast one of these on the occassion of the elections.
My dear friend Ruben Richard Mascarenhas just shared the news of a million voter pledges through missed calls to the Maharashtra State Election Commission — through Operation Black Dot he, Samyak Chakrabarty and many others are directly working with the government and the University to mobilise voting.
Meanwhile over decades now, Praja patiently files thousands of RTIs and makes data about our elected representatives available to us — Milind Mhaske & Co. have been around, not only for citizens but also for councilors who want to reform.
Back here Blue Ribbon Movement does intensive work with youth, and we are closing a fellowship where we worked with 10 communities around the city. Kejal Savla is leading this soulful initiative that was recognized at the World Forum for Democracy / Forum mondial de la Démocratie
Out there also is the demand for a new act to govern MCGM led by Free A Billion, pioneered by Rajesh Jain. The blogs on the site are a must-read for every Mumbaikar.
Then there is Vivek Gilani who springs fresh interviews from councilors on MumbaiVotes — do check out what your councilor promised.
Alongside, there are the elders of this space — AGNI (Action for good Governance and Networking in India) who pioneered citizen action decades ago, led by the inspiring Shyama Kulkarni & others.
On the technology and advocacy front, we also have TogetherVCAN anchored by Ashoka Fellow Indrani Malkani making information available. There’s Public Concern for Governance Trust — PCGT which continues the conversation across elections.
Corporate India pushes the agenda of better governence with Mumbai First ably led by Shishir Joshi while MAD Foundation has painted our railway stations in a million colours
Alongside, hundreds of activists are writing letters, filing RTIs, giving talks and mobilizing citizens!
A very dear friend for example is taking up waste segregation in his society. Moneylife Foundation’s Daily Clinics have been engaging citizens constantly.
This list can go on and on…..
With so much good happening — will things turn around?
Will we reach a 66% voting or some other such landmark?
I don’t know. Seems unlikely — but I’d love to be proven wrong.
What really makes a city great isn’t its administration — it is its active citizens who tirelessly work to make democracy happen. And that gift, Mumbai surely has!
**
10 Feb 2017: Why do we not vote?
Are we too busy wasting time in traffic jams?
Are we ill with the sound and noise pollution?
Are we blind to the link between our experience of life and the choices made by our representatives?
Or are we so lazy that we feel entitled to a ‘good life’ merely by default?
Somewhere, something is amiss. The results of our inaction are for us to see.
The most appropriate punishment for this is that we get to live in a broken down city!
Every five years, that is the choice we seem to be making.
And in those five years, that’s the content of our conversation.
It surprises me that the city with some of India’s most intelligent, enterprising, gifted and famous people struggles with getting its basics correct.
**
24 Mar 2017: Here’s an attempted 3-rule design for change
Rule 1: De-energize the ‘system’ wherever you encounter it
Support any alternative that constructively challenges status quo
Rule 2: Reduce the distance between where a decision is made and whom it affects
Rule 3: Actively deepen connections and trust especially across ‘divides’
24 April 2017: A very special soup
Last weekend, at BuCBuC* we brought a few veggies each from our homes for an ‘emergent meal’
Thus was born a soup that was one of its kind in the city — with ingredients from many homes, without a pre-plan, cooked with love but by people who didn’t know each other, at a place that people had visited first time….
For me it was a prasaad (holy food) — a meal of the future, a time when communities will freely share, co-create and enjoy the experience of togetherness which this soup embodied….
Delicious in a whole new way… :)
**
23 May 2017: I would add at the end of our republic day parade (or at the front), a whole carvan of ‘ordinary’ people that make up India….
A mix of a pride parade (gay pride, mental health pride, differently abled pride), a huge section of women (so that there is gender balance maybe? given most of the army that marches is men), lots of young people and kids walking just ordinarily….with ice-creams and holding hands (and flags if they want)
Teenagers with gawky walks and tribals and people from every race that makes up India…..
We’ll just give them space to be — to walk in front of the nation that is theirs, as a part of that nation, as its people, in whose name everything else on display (the army, the arms and the government) exist.
Perhaps alongside, we could split the Independence day speech time between the Prime Minister and citizens equally — the citizen section being five totally randomly selected citizens of India, who are free to come and speak their mind to the nation.
And maybe a slot to read a passage from the independence generation and one slot on behalf of the future unborn Indians and maybe one slot for a foreigner who feels a deep connection to India.
If nothing else I will find the whole experience much more “Indian” :)
**
25 July 2017:
Time to reclaim pure. fresh, drinking water.
Not sugary carbonated drinks to quench thirst. Not water from plastic bottles.
But our good old Matkis, that were not only at home but also on cross roads and outside shops, for any thirsty traveller who wanted a drink of fresh water.
Tansa Cola will be delivered to subscribers straight into taps — please filter it before drinking (for now).
Idea Credit : Mama
**
26 July 2017: Once upon a time in a housing society in suburban Mumbai was a group of young boys n girls
Frustrated at the forced attendance of a boring college, knowing that struggle is just round the corner (for jobs or the masters), they wonder and brood and crib and rant.
Then, out of a stroke of inspiration, they get an idea.
They approach the secretary of the society with a request to use the terrace. They share the BMC regulations and how it allows use of that space if the society decides.
The secretary convinces the society and very soon they have a cafe on their terrace.
As a popular hang out, it starts gathering people from other societies — it starts becoming a community space where people enjoy and have fun.
It becomes the cool cafe of the suburbs — you don’t have to travel anymore to get the cool feel….
They do this creatively, with paintings nad music and a distinctive style and seeing the success of the coffee, they decide to move to food
Aunties in the society volunteer to cook delicacies that are served out.
Getting more radical, they register as a co-operative that shares the ‘profits’ with customers nad suppliers — they all have a great time doing this and the coffee shop becomes an adda
Very soon, all over the city is a terrace revolution — small enterprises on terreces that use the unused space, create new jobs, build community and allow everyone to reclaim a little bit of life and food from McDonaldization.
Moral of the story: Whether you’re the young people, the society secretary, the BMC or the aunties or jsut citizens craving for a good coffee shop, heres a new reality that we can birth together.
28 July 2017:
Urinals with ladybug stickers??
Peeing into one of them, I discovered that stickers actually help reduce “urine spillage” by upto 70%.
Invariably, the pee-rs aim at the bug (it works, I admit!)
Compare this approach to putting up “NO MISFIRES” or “…YOU ARE NOT AS ENDOWED AS YOU THINK”
no force at all — it sticks on an existing urinal (no violence against existing design), it doesn’t give any instructions / set rules (no force to the pee-rs)
A deeply fundamental truth (satyagraha) grounded in the intention to reduce labour of the toilet cleaners (antoday) creates a new and playful game that lures me!
No campaigns, no dos-donts, no physical changes except a tiny sticker
All I can say is WOW!
**
20 Aug 2017:
This year, Ganpati celebrations are reaching the next level of “bigger-better-louder”
Does a larger-than-life chabi / moorti / idol of Bappa mean “more” goodness?
I don’t know
It surely means more traffic jams (which means more minutes of peoples lives wasted away waiting for the processions to move)
Sometimes it means more sound — ill people, office goers, kids with tender ears all having their ear-drums beaten.
It means more plaster of paris in our oceans — more choked fish and sea life, more dirt on the shores and more work for our sweepers.
The cost of the worship itself goes up — money that could have fed, clothed and housed other humans or provided shelter to some animals.
Will a small Bappa made of clay be less potent? I think not!
Can the music be soft acoustic traditional music played by artists and worshippers themselves?
And can this occasion be much more about our devotion to the Goodness that Ganpati represents?
I think so….but all we can do is request…
The heart of this request is to start weeding out the “bigger-better” messages which advertising and popular culture is constantly sending us.
If you hear closely, we are all shouting “MORE-YEAH”.
It is actually “Ganpati Bappa Morya!”
**
21 Sept 2017: A strong country can only happen when the citizen is strong.
Today, we aren’t.
Try resolving a consumer complaint and you will see how easy it is for companies to push back.
Try getting a local problem solved and you will see how long it takes to move the machinery.
Try holding political parties accountable or raise questions outside the main discourse and you will see how little it is heard.
The combination of a strong state-strong corporations-strong religion has left us with only two choices: either align with ‘power’ and feel empowered or experience your powerlessness.
At such a time, more than anything else, it is citizens who must come together (as individuals) and organize into communities and collectives that claim power back.
As consumers (and employees and shareholders) we can influence corporations towards certain products and policies
As citizens we have the power to hold the administration (that runs on our taxes) accountable to higher standards and performance.
And because we didn’t put checks on political parties we are already witnessing expensive politics that looks like a persuasion exercise.
Eventually each of us is a person — an individual, a human being with a desire for happiness, love, peace and freedom.
Let us not buy into any story, however attractive, that makes us (and our fellow citizens) bargain these away.
**
3 Oct 2017: While the responsibility for Elphinstone belongs to us all, can I invite the neo-liberal capitalist machinery to step in and own up their part too?
I was responding to a news item that eventually turned to be a fake perspective — involving stealing and molestation in stampedes. I have re-edited the post — and the point I am making still remains.
Hypersexualized advertising to sell products is a misuse of Eros — the creative impulse that drives us all.
That, combined with an economic system based on scarcity means that basis an 8 second video we conclude that there is groping and stealing going on — and it gets reported.
Me, schooled in the same system and acting like the same media use that event to drive my point (and stand corrected :)
I still wanna ask the system -
The messages that we have internalized and the schooling that you have done to sell your stuff is showing up with these side effects — did you factor this cost in when you were playing with your power and insight?
And to every advertising professional and every banker-economist I want to ask — is this a world we want to continue co-creating? Where is the line between creative invitations and evoking desires?
I am happy to be shown my own complicity in what happened — in fact I must own it at this moment.
In my brahamanical ideating I haven’t stepped enough into the grass root work that is needed to set things right. I am also creating a story like many others that “I-AM-DOING-MY-PART”.
I am doing a much ‘larger’ part by the virtue of being in the social space but that must be measured against the immense privilege that I have (IIM degree and all).
Against that background the story melts and I see how my refusal to show up and do the dirty work of engaging with the system, my playing it safe has cost us this.
I am in deep introspection and reflecting on the deep sadness of this — but I invite you the Neo-Liberal capital machinery (and friends involved in running it) to join in too
Want to close with acknowledging the limits of language (where I call you the MACHINERY and ourselves an ECOSYSTEM etc) — we’re in this together, and the way out is also and only together.
**
3 Oct 2017: Nature is showing you the middle finger again and again
In Mumbai with the flooding, in Delhi with the smog, in Vegas with the shootings.
It’s reminding humans of our childish attempts — and inviting us into a surrender.
There will be a time when we as nature’s ‘newest’ organ will be able to ambitiously transcend its limitations — but I feel that will be only after we fully live our role as trustees of all of life.
Before that, we’re spoilt brats that need to be disciplined and mama Gaia is doing precisely that.
**
23 Oct 2017: Singapore decides to ban car registrations from Feb 2018. I
In a democracy like India it is a little more complex — for example, doing this in Mumbai would mean
a. Agreeing that roads are shared public space
b. All vehicles occupy it temporarily to move
c. All spaces taken up for parking are only unused ‘car-time’ i.e. cars that COULD have been used (surplus)
d. While public transport occupies least per person space, the car with ONE TRAVELLER (the driver+one rich guy OR the single driver large car) IN PEAK HOURS is STEALING a scarce public resource
<<Here is a good time to pause and have circles till a vocal majority reaches this conclusion and agrees to move to ONE car per home>>
If we get to this point we can
1. Discourage owning more than one car (and use taxis / uber / ola / autos instead)
2. Encourage them in turn to not say NO (the dreaded NO that ricshaws pop up at the most inappropriate time)
3. Atleast TRIPLE our current investment in buses while introducing newer variants of public transports (Matadors, Pilots etc)
4. DeZoning areas around railway stations to WALK ONLY (and for disabled and elderly, golf carts etc to drop them to the nearest ric-bus-taxi space)
5. Creating a BIKE SHARE program particularly around railway stations which link parking lots to the station through cycles that can be picked at those one/two spots and dropped at the station (and vice versa in the evening)
A good station to test this out would be an ‘innocent’ western line station like Naigaon first and then move on both sides.
There are hundreds of better suggestions than this — but we need a clear document / plan thats simple to understand + act on and one that we all can stand behind.
P.s : As a last step, a 10 minute “Traffic Satyagraha” daily by each of us where you choose to walk / honour signals / guide traffic / support Blue Ribbon for 10 mins a day, accumulated to an hour per week TILL the issue gets resolved
P.P.s: Mumbai isn’t even the best place to start this, in fact it must start from a Tier 2.5 kinda town (anywhere excluding the Metros)
Here’s the source — hopefully honest cos its Bloomberg.
**
4 Dec 2021: More vibrant than the social entrepreneurship movement is the political entrepreneurship movement.
Political entrepreneurs wisely step in where Venture Capitalists have spoilt the habits of consumers (in a bid to acquire them) and in the process, caused a distrubance in the ecosystem
Case in point in Mumbai are the Vada Pav stalls that spring around malls but also Cab services — I saw a new one being advertised only in Marathi, taking a dig at the established players saying we won’t let you down.
It made a clear reference to the slogan of a political party assuring that “We will make it happen”.
**
29 Aug 2018:
Raids on activists are not OK. Enough has been said about that and I hope you understand the issue and register your protest.
However, beneath this is the system we are stuck in — and we must understand it if we are to change something more fundamental.
Police arrests are directed by the state, which in turn is run by political parties. For parties, the source of funding is corporations. It is corporations who benefit from mining and land grabs (which is one of the primary reasons why our fellow citizens turn into violent Naxalites-Maoists)
The real issue though is that we are all plugged into corporations — as consumers, employees and shareholders. It is almost as if the corporations do the ‘dirty work’ of aggregating our greed and violence and executing it on our behalf.
While we’re busy working, consuming and profiting, we’re signed away much of our power to the establishment. Once in a while we register the misuse of this power and it surprises us.
And then, we go back to watching Netflix.
This isn’t freedom — we are slaves of this system. We are all collectively creating a world that no one wants.
Protesting comes first and is central but till we don’t understand how we are perpetuating this cycle, we will never have a choice to truly disrupt it.
1 Sept 2018: As elections approach, we will see a lot of voter mobilization initiatives. Not voting isn’t an option in a democracy…it is like brushing your teeth, it is said.
But we don’t see that we are voting every single day. We are voting with our money for one. Where do we choose to put our money, what do we buy, which brands we endorse and which local initiatives we support…this is voting with our rupees.
We also vote with our time presence and energy. Since we have limited amounts of these, there is very little left to contribute to the collective. The hope is that specialist social workers will do the work of making things better while we attend to personal challenges.
Your vote is also the facebook like or share, the whatsapp forward, the online petition you signed (or did not), the ideas you choose to spread and speak about.
If we only look at voting as a thrice in 5 years process (or 4 times if you voted for your mlc graduate constituency in maharashtra #beingnerdy), you are expecting some miracle to happen. It won’t and as history has shown, it doesn’t. Life does not change much.
The forces around us are too strong to allow any real transformation or leap to happen. For that, we will need to make this system and it’s violence visible. We will need to disrupt it as often as we can. We will need to experiment with fresh alternatives and gather critical mass.
No political establishment, corporation or ngo can do this by themselves. Maybe communities of radical individuals from across all these spaces can.
There is so much to do that a million ideas need to bloom. But I wonder sometimes if trying to be in a problem solving mode blinds us to what’s really going on and how captive we are. What if more of us started moving into a space of inquiry and experimentation rather than the familiar space of targeting problems and solving them?
In this wondering, I won’t forget to vote. You don’t forget too!
**
5 Dec 2018:
The three responsibilities
Every generation has three responsibilities — one to the past, one to itself and one to the future generations.
As Indians, to our earlier generations we are responsible for honouring the timeless values of our culture. These are values that have made our culture so resilient. At the same time we’re responsible for not repeating mistakes that we’ve made.
To our present generation we’re responsible for refreshing the idea of India in a way that it represents our dreams and aspirations, our realities. We have to do it through dialogue and reflection and articulate it collectively.
And to the future generations we are trustees who have to set a foundation on which they can challenge our ideas and feel free to reinvent them rather than be burdened about them.
If from the past we don’t take cultural wisdom of inclusion, commitment to truth and harmony, honouring dharma (natural law) and the world as a family, then we’ll be foolish. But if we carry forward the unhealthy aspects of our culture (which would include discrimination and treason) we’ll not have learnt.
In the present if we get too absorbed with living our own lives for our own progress we won’t do the ‘work’ that is to be done by every generation. We’ll have to make time to ask important questions about the idea of India, what is our consensus as a nation and where do we want to head from here. It is a worthwhile project that more and more of us will have to take up.
And for the future generations, they will be walking into a very difficult world — with global warming and rising inequalities, the emergence of AI and maybe shrinking of jobs even…..how do we safeguard them and set them up to reorganize themselves in this complex world? What do we need to tell them and what rules of dissent and questioning need to be in place?
Thinking and reflecting on these lines is a job that each of us has to do individually and then collectively….I am excited to see what answers shall emerge :)
**
18 Dec 2018:
Make civics compulsory
From nursery all the way to graduation, irrespective of board or stream, civics and community living have to be made compulsory.
The weightage in terms of marks and time has to be atleast as much as Math or Science (whichever higher).
Clearly we need and use civics much more than other subjects. It is the key to a better life for not only us but those around us. There is no reason why subjects like moral science, democracy and civil resistance must be kept in some far corner of the curriculum.
The civics has to be 70% local, 20% national and 10% global (while being grounded in the global citizen identity). It has to be taught 70% in practical settings, 20% through projects and 10% as in class instruction
If we can make this one change, over he next 2 decades we will see a very different fabric in our Nation.
**
4 Jan 2021: If we have to consider a Universal Basic Income in 30–50 years from now, the experiments with it must start now.
There are several variants of UBI being tried out around the world. It is a good time to start piloting them already, in anticipation of a future where the most vulnerable might need protection and support.
Any idea takes its own time to take roots and get widespread support. A government with a 5 year mandate taking drastic steps seems very abrupt and violent.
To build a true consensus on some longer term ideas, we (as citizens) can start a dialogue.
And this can be a way to birth many other ideas that have a long gestation period, beyond what corporations or governments can foresee.
