Behind the Breaking news.

The prominence of media in the pseudo-democratic society like India is not under-rated, with most number of newspapers and news channels in several languages frantic on a pursuit to let the people know of the latest hot news. Media, being the fourth estate of a nation, has played its part for keeping up that little bit of democracy it could. At the same time it is challenged by the upper hand of the politics waging secret war against the true journalism. One of the great things that happened in the recent years must be the Rights to Information act rolled out by UPA I. Though now they are realizing the sting of its bite, and is working towards restricting its range, it brought the public closer to the wynds of journalism. Interestingly Journalism is getting crony, while the new age whistle blowers and RTE activists try to fill that gap, often leading into their persecution and even assassination, as we witnessed in last few years. 

I happened to read a fabulous book called 'Breaking the big story: Great moments in Indian Journalism' where nine journalists accounts their moments of adventure, fear, joy and despair while bringing some of the news that shook the pillars of this country. Many of them have been forgotten by the public even when the aftershocks of the buried lies continue to the rock the belligerents’ bases even today. Ever after the advent of 24x7 channels, the public have been mislead to believe that Prannoy Roy, Barkha dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai  and many other figures scurrying over the already reported news with their verbal circus constitute the fraternity of Journalists. And the public seldom delve beyond those smokescreens to get to know the actual reporters and the effort and pain they have put to bring the scams, scandals, truths and lies through grass root level reporting. This book doesn't simply stagnate at the stories as such, but also reveals the adventurous and dangerous culture of journalism.

The book is edited by the eminent media analyst and statesman B.G.Verghese. He gives the introduction to the book passing through the prominance of media in the democratic society like India and how the democracy itself got strengthened and at the same time challenged by the secret war between the true journalism and politics. As he emphasised the need to report a news from all the sides as opposed to the one-sided reporting which he believes is caused by the 24 hour news broadcast trend that is depriving the journalists the liberty to report the right news. While he pointed out the relevence of Rights to Information act passed by the UPA govt as landmark in terms of making the system transparent for the public and at the same time, ironically though, he was emphasizing on certain restrictions in RTE. He treats it diplomatically by appreciating the impact of RTE and at the same time mildly raising the apprehensions of information leak. I couldn't agree with that part though, as any legislation brought towards restrictions in RTE would end up eating the whole thing up, unless judiciary intervenes, which will be an unnecessarily laborious task in India.

The stories covered are - Bhopal MIC tragedy by Raajkumar Keswani, The starvation deaths of Kashipur by Sampad Mahapatra, the Nelli massacre by Sanjoy Hazarika, Tamil genocide in SL by Anita Pratap, the post militant political Kashmir by Muzamil Jaleel, match-fixing scandal in Cricket by Pradeep Magazine, Bofors scandal by Chitra Subramaniam, Tehelka sting operation by Tarun Tejpal and finally on the Gujarat communal violence by Teesta Setalvad. The authors of each chapters tells it from the beginning of their involvement, how they got the tip, ravelled each piece of jigsaw, brought the story into public, were accepted by public, hunted and harassed down by the wielders of power and their lives impacted by these work.

Book starts with the account of Raajkumar keswani, a small time reporter from Bhopal who had been reporting about the potential danger of the union carbide plant in the village ever since it was installed. Even before the final disaster, he accounts, there had been small leakages and minor industrial disasters that had claimed the lives of many workers. Despite of the safety and standards audit showing dismal performance by the company, the government never bothered to investigate the news reports he published. Until the disaster struck, none of the news papers, except Indian express in a single occasion, bothered to throw some light on it. I wonder how many such news reports are getting overlooked or purposefully downplayed in this country, waiting for the tragedy to happen. Jaitapur Nuclear plant, Mullaperiyar dam, how many more? The massacre at Nelli was no different. The illegal immigration from Bangladesh, and gross social unrest that were perpetually downplayed by the government and equally ignored by national media ultimately culminated in a gruesome massacre of Bangladeshi immigrants in Nelli village in Assam.

Chitra Subramaniam's and Anita Pratap's accounts had many similarities; they are the 2 women who brought much trouble to Rajiv Gandhi. One in the form of Bofors scandal whiles the other on the Tamil massacre and about subsequent involvements of IPKF into this trouble.  She being one of the few journalists who had been into the war front news correspondence early in the times of print and radio journalism, tells about her rub-off with the defence and intelligence officials despite whose hurdles she was able to bring eye-witness accounts of civil war in Srilanka, which in fact boosted the morale of the Army. When the passion of journalism creeps into the blood it eclipses everything, even the family, says Chitra subramanian. But as all the fights against a powerful system are destined, both of them had to finally quit although she pursued it even after The Hindu took the story off its shelf following political pressure. And after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, to their dismay, the investigation went into total oblivion.

In a civil society which is not transparent yet, I personally believe that, the people in power should never be given any benefit of doubt. Looking the balance of power, there is hardly any place in this country where we can say that, here people are in power and not politicians. In such a place, a good journalist would be the one who is a thorn in the velvet cushion of the powerful. The big news is big only because it shakes the establishments of power. Such a government having sold itself off to the private parties tries to play off a mean game against a village that is reluctant to give way to a mine in Orissa. When several villagers in Kashipur died, the village officials decided to write it off as food poisoning, which was in fact a food poisoning induced by un-availability of food. Sampad Mahapatra got involved in the investigations that told a simple fact that, in the time of dire situations humans try to find something to hang on. And these villagers, having been denied their rightful share of ration, had been pushed to a state where they had to consume contaminated dried mango kernels and wild mushroom. The government still stands by their claim that it was a mere food poisoning, and consuming mango kernels was their tradition.

The thin line between an investigator and reporter, between activist and reporter is tested in many such cases. I cannot deny that even when I am typing this, there is someone scheming about some crime of wide social consequences. Plenty of things happening around, often under our noses or about something which is outright guessable, like the illegal mining, encroachments, land mafias, defence lobbying. A true investigative reporter should be able smell those trouble, says Chitra, which was what she had been looking out in the multimillion deal that was being signed between the Swedish arms giant Bofors and GOI. It is the same sixth senses that lead Tarun Tejpal to initiate his Operation west-end that trapped money hungry politicians and army officers in sting operation. Pradeep Magazine's scoop came out through a casual talk with a bookie in West Indies which prompted him to disguise himself as someone close to the cricketers. His adventure ended up in exposing one of the biggest match fixing scandals that rocked the trust of millions on the game of cricket.

Jaleel's account on Kashmir talks about how, as a journalist, his credibility was tested in Kashmir as caught between devil and deep sea. If a journalist writes about atrocities of Kashmiri militancy he would be declared as pro-GOI and would end up becoming a target for separatists, whereas if he writes about army atrocities the GOI would declare him as pro-separatist and could end up in censoring his articles. Being a territory of where a sane journalist would never want to stay, he managed to survive and had been successful in gaining access to the areas which had been barred for other journalists. He accounts for how many journalists have been targeted in Kashmir, as he says Army takes it away in day time and militants takes it away at night. He isn't sure how long he can survive in a place of least press freedom and high volatility without losing the trust of either side.

Beyond the stories, it also tells how these impacted them personally. Anita pratap talks about how RAW agents were advised to threaten her by kidnapping her son, if she did not reveal the names of her sources of leaked news.  Chitra Subramaniam speaks of how terrified her husband and in-laws was when she was making calls to the sting agents in sweden, on Bofors issue, two days after the delivery of her first child, from the hospital bed! And Tarun Tejpal recounts the tense moments of Samuel Mathews and Anirudh Bahl and their laborious editing phase and the period of dark clouds when Tehelka was destroyed from the arena. Teesta Setlevad's account on post-godhra riot had the flavour of human rights activism more than journalism. Her’s were the account of how a state deliberately tried all it could to let the rioters have a carnage for days. The reluctant hospitals, who denied treatment to wounded, unbothered police force and the ordeals in bringing the guilty in front of justice, are accounted in the final chapters.  

Often the journalism has come under the scanner of being biased, this stigma still holds true in all the major media houses. They often end up as mere mouthpieces of either the political parties or corporate. Hence the biggest challenge a journalist face would be to get the facts sorted out from all the parties. Taking the case of the Maoists insurgency or the Kashmir issue, only a few media did cover the news from all perspectives. The new age of 24x7 news channels has failed in this case, mainly because of the competition to report something before the rival channel. They invariably end up with the most easily accessible sources, like the police or army or political spokespersons for news, editors then sensationalize it and that comes as breaking news they are not patient enough to get the complete picture leading to bias in the report, which they hide skilfully with their diplomatic statements. Another problem with the 24x7 channels is that the shelf-life of a news item is very less. News of importance loses its temper after few days or until another breaking news surfaces. Ultimately this TRP hunter ends up more as a bane rather than becoming a boon! So, while the TRP hunters are on their spree, all we can do is to trust those unknown faces that are on prowl at the backyards of the society to unveil the veiled.

Travelling south Asian film festival @ NGMA

Travelling south Asian film festival had been going around in the National gallery of Modern art in Bangalore for few weekends. This festival features some of the documentary from different parts of south Asia involving travelling and culture. I managed to attend three screenings last weekend, three totally different subjects.

Come to My Country: Journeys with Kabir and Friends: This was the documentary of three people, one is Prahladji, a teacher from Malwa district in MP, whose passion lies in travelling around with this troupe and his tambourine, and singing the Kabir songs in various gatherings; the second is Linda Hess a scholar who is teaching Kabir’s poems and songs in Stanford University for humanities students and the third is the director herself, Shabnam Virmani. First half is basically about the life of Prahladji and Linda. At times the documentary seemed to go overboard with spirituality and all those hoo-ha about Indian culture, but it soon gets back into the mainstream of Kabir songs. Linda Hess was at times boring! Prahaladji and his wife were wonderful simple individuals, very innocent, frank and witty. I loved their part .They journey together from their individual worlds to various places in search of friends of Kabir. On their way to and inside Banaras and later US, they meet many ‘fans’ of Kabir, including crooked saints and spends the time singing and contemplating the verses of Kabir discussing social issues prevailing in various parts of the country and world. Their discussions and disagreements over various aspects were very interesting. And Kabir’s poems are like arrows.

Saamam: This was a Malayalam documentary by Ramachandran K about MDR (MD Ramanathan), a carnatic musician and vocalist who used to sing at high octaves which is considered a very difficult thing and something which nobody often attempt. With booming voice he sings most of the recitals very slowly giving ample time for each words adding his own expressions into it. He was the disciple of Tiger Varadachariar another high octave singer whose got ‘Tiger’ attached to his name because at his high octave sound that almost turns into slow growls of a tiger! That was their uniqueness and also something that didn’t let them become popular vocalists. Many people didn’t find such high octaves pleasing to hear due to the growling gruff sound of it. But his followings and disciples are popularizing this through various mediums. Documentary featured Sanjay Subramaniam, Sreevalsan J Menon etc

The Salt Stories: This is a documentary by Lalit Vachani who takes a trip from Sabarmathi to Dandi, following Gandhiji’s path traversing through the villages where Gandhiji had halted on his way to break the salt law of British imperialism which would then ignite the non-cooperation movement. On his journey he meet various people from different human created strata of the society divided and ghettoised by caste, class and religion. It goes beyond the glossy and shining image of ‘vibrant’ Gujarat and does a profit-loss calculation of the development - How the SEZ culture is uprooting people from their villages, how the no-slum policy is mere aiming to bring down the slums without providing adequate rehabilitation to the people. He talks with many people, he met on way,- village heads, his own production controller and cameraman and some self proclaimed Gandhians who where revered elsewhere, about the slum clearance, communal riot, caste issue etc and is shocked and saddened when he finds that most of them happens to support the system and prevailing acute castes and communal despise . Some relief comes in the form of those inspiring individuals who had been fighting against the odds of the society, like the folks from Napa village which didn’t get affected by the post-Godhra violence, Ketanbhai - a progressive corporator, the salt farmer of Dandi, the people working towards the justice for forcefully evicted people and many similar individuals. It was a very poignant documentary which tried to tell what the real face of development is, which is pretty much the case of most of the upcoming states. At the end when the credits roll down, the pricking question as to what should take the priority – Social development for all or economic development for the benefit of few, lingers in the mind.

Mayomi: Mayomi was a documentary feature from Sri Lanka, showing the life of one of the Indian Ocean Tsunami victim, Mayomi's, life in the post LTTE Sri Lanka. Her husband was in navy, and was killed in a fight against LTTE and her mother died in the tsunami disaster that left many dead and thousands homeless. This feature showed how she was trying to cope up with taking care of her brother's son and her own ailing father, and at the same time struggling to get the new house allocated, as per the Tsunami relief, by roaming through the corrupt corridors of bureaucracy. To add to her troubles, her brother is a habitual offender and is another burden for her. The documentary was tad boring as it failed to evoke the true emotions of being homeless for years.

This coming weekend there are few movies being shown as part of this festival

"Raavan" - Mani Ratnam's Maoist Ramayan

Mani Ratnam has been one of the film-makers who has keenly worked on portraying certain social realism in movies that are often very relevant to that period.. His movies are often woven on layers of different themes that are encountered by the plot as it thickens. For instance, Roja was made during the dark periods of Kashmiri insurgency where behind the love story lied the harsh realities of extremism and the emotions of the perpetrators as well as the victims, while in Bombay he explored the communal riot that broke loose following the Babari Masjid issue and the possibility of triumph of humanity over communal forces. Each of these movies had a firm layer on which he casted his story. In Raavan he uses the ongoing war between law and outlaws in the dense tribal zones of this country. He tackles the story from the point of view of three characters mainly. They each represent a party in the whole drama

Characters

Dev: The civilized, ambitious police officer assigned to maintain the law and order. Doesn't realises the crimes being committed by the officers from his group. Becomes the Law that apparently created lawlessness. He is the embodiment of the power that Law allows, his actions will be deemed as legal whatsoever be the means he take.

Raagini: Legally married to Dev, leads a happy married life. She believes Dev is police, legal and good while Beera to be outlaw, illegal and bad. She never realised the atrocities committed by the police. Her realisation of what is good and bad, what is legal and illegal, who is Raam and who is Raavan is a statement to us. She, very well, represents the 'People', who attaches itself to the legal side of the world. The one who is persistent in believing what outlaw does is wrong and what law does is right. She is ill-informed about the crimes committed by state. She is the one who has to take the fire test of loyalty at the end and decide who is right and who is wrong.

Beera/Veera/Raavan: The stylish, outlaw. His war is against the law. He is the saviour of the tribal, the master of guerilla warfare. He seeks revenge against the crimes committed against the innocents in the name of law and order. He represent all the forces resisting the law.

Ramaraavanan.

The main theme of the movie was the fights between the good and the bad. Dev and Beera are the two poles, their destiny is interlinked. They doesn't change, they are how they were and wouldn't escape their definite destiny. So what is the relevance of this theme? As the movie tag lines suggest, Is there a Ram in Raavan, is there a Raavan in Ram? Who will decide which of the two are what. Raagini forms the epicenter of the movie, the movie starts with a Raagini and ends with a different one. She transforms as she comes to know about the stories at the other end. The clouds depart, sky becomes clear. Finally she was able to decide. Going back the theory, People have many pre-concieved notions about the world. We read, discuss, apply logic but finally we do come up with some presumptions on various aspects. We trust the sources to be true, but are they always true? What if the things that you believed to be true was in fact a lie? Do we always get to see things from a bird's view? Was Ram really a good person?

Tribal world

The canvas on which the movies is drawn is a tribal world in the middle of a jungle. The hostile, humid, forest and its children who had been living closely for decades or centuries. The movie brings out the beauty to its fullest thanks to the directors of photography. It shows how isolated are these cultures from the rest of the country. There is an instance When Beera's brother bring food for Ragini which she declines with a sense of disgust, is  offended and he tells her that what she just refused is what they eat everyday. They are self-sufficient, they don't want big big things, they wouldn't even know what salary is let alone cribbing over it, they don't want pizza huts or shopping malls or multiplexes. World is not enough for whom, then? Tribal zones appears to have caught the attention for past couple of years. Tribal zones of Orissa, Chattishgargh, Jharkhand, Andhra, Karnataka are all targeted by big Industrialists. Attappady tribal zone has been in their radar following the geological survey reporting the possibility of gold reserves in the hills. Numerous tribal have already been evacuated for various projects. To them it is like expelling from their country. No one bothers doing some maths to assess the gain against the loss.

Ramayana

Ramayana is one of the popular epics of India, apart from that it is considered a holy epic. Ramayana is explained to the current world with a lot of disclaimers that is enforcing the reader to keep in mind that Rama is an avatar of Vishnu and Sita is the Avatar of Bhoomidevi,  to consider anything that is explained in the text to be gods will so as to prevent any logical questioning on the illogical things. Questioning the episodes like killing of Bali, Asking Sita for purity test, Humiliation of Shoorpanekha, Forcing Sita to exile, conducting Ashwamedham to expand the kingdom etc., though seemingly ungodly, could be considered blasphemy. Such epics have only one ending Gods win, Demons loose. It is very much the same in the reality.The fight between rights and wrongs will go on till the extinction of humanity, the question is how do you decide on which side you are. Beeras will die. Law always win the war. Everything comes back to normal, except Raagini. If at all there is any meaning to all the war that should be the one word - Change.

Hovering over the technicalities and faults

Raavan was one of the outstanding movies featuring subtle use of camera and technology. Camera and the background music blends with the ethos of the environment. The movie is a treat to the eyes of those who love the greenery, water bodies and the lingering dampness of evergreen forests. Talking about the shortcomings of the movie, the editing department had to look into the abrupt usage of scissors through the flow. Most of he scenes are short, due to which the director is not able to sustain the relevance of characters between scenes. If bad editing is indeed the case then they should realise it and bring out a director's cut version when they release the dvds. Lousy casting would be the next point, Mani Ratnam should realise that his signature on the movie is well understood amongst the movie lovers. He could have employed any new face in the movie and still people would come to watch the movie with the same enthusiasm

.All in all, there is something to ponder on the back of this movie. Not the lousy love story, but something more serious.

The Elephant thing

Elephants form the integral part of any Kerala festivals, reason being that the gods or goddesses unlke us likes to travel on these majestic creatures instead of low-floor volvo or Maruti WagonR. Off late such festivals have increased, apart from that the similar ezhunnallappu (procession) are being organized even by Jewellary shops and supermarkets. Needless to say I was lucky to witness the procession of a single elephant carrying 'Uninor' god accompanied by Chendamelam on the day before Thrissur Pooram.

Irattupetta Ayyappan was the third elephant from the centre of the 15 elephant entourage of Paramekkavu Bagawathy for last year's Thrissur Pooram, he was probably living his life peaceful( or not) in the misty high ranges of Irattupetta. Everyone would have read about or even saw in live how this jumbo fainted and collapsed as the Ilanjithara melam was cracking through the 4th level. The people who had gathered around didn’t hesitate to sprinkled water from their mineral water bottles to cool him, and after some struggle he managed to get up and was immediately taken away into some shade and replaced with another chap. Doctors who checked him up found that he had a swelling on his leg and the swell might have had got aggravated by the heat.

Paramekkavu had been little laid back in terms of conducting the pooram, they give most of their tasks on contract which means the involvement of people is lesser here. A swell on the leg could have been easily identified and the necessary steps taken to prevent this unfortunate incident. A suggestion to make things easy going forward - rotation of elephants in Pooram. For e.g. The battalion that takes the idol and begins the initial procession will be relieved by another batch towards the noon events(like the ilanjithara melam) and after that as the batch ‘descends towards the south’ the first batch takes over for the Kudamattam(Umbrella show). Then the other batch takes over for the night Pooram. This would give them ample time to recharge and probably take a quick shower before the next shift.

A couple of days prior to this event I happened to come across a 'Elephant lovers group' while visiting the umbrella and other chamayam display at Paramekkavu, they were collecting signature to regulate the use of Elephants for festivals. While signing in their petition I asked them how could we imagine about a festival without elephants, to which they said though they prefer complete ban on elephants being used for such activities they at least want some legislation to be introduced to check illegal use, ill treatment, improper transportation for long journey, medical facilities etc.I promptly signed my name in their petition. 

An year has gone by and Thrissur pooram is around the corner. Eagerly waiting for that...

Classical science, convergence and some thoughts

Few months back there were some discussion about science and superstitions in bulletin board. Needless to say, much of the arguments ‘for’ superstitions were in fact attacking the idea of science. Few questioned the superstitions in the science too, which I thought was valid(strangely, though it was not the intention of the questioner to point out the beauty of science) - do you believe in Einstein’s special relativity theory? Do you believe in Schrodinger’s experiments? Do you..?. Science has nothing to do with believing something. Science is that which is enquired upon, it is the liberty to do experiment and question the properties and nature of the natural world. People who believe in some scientific theory, because it is an accepted theory, are nowhere different from a person believing in ghost. Having that innate itching to question things is the real scientific temper because scientific theories could be wrong. Long ago Anaximander proposed an idea of geocentric model of universe. His philosophy, simple and backed by many accurate observational points, was that the earth is at the center of universe which revolve around it. Similarly Rutherford’s model of atom was a well known hypothesis. Though their theories have now been proven wrong, it doesn’t take away the scientific methodology adopted by either. We know, Later the church adopted and somewhat ‘base lined’ the geocentric theory. They attacked the scientists who put forward the heliocentric theory, and were marked and killed as heretics. The interesting part of this argument is pointing to how the same theory were defined as scientific and superstitious based on how the lines are drawn around it.

I believe classical science played a major role in drawing the lines between the hypothesis and proven facts, it didn’t give space for approximation or caveats and was persistent in defining the natural world with classical mathematics. But there were always something that baffled the scientists and mathematicians which finally brought forward the idea of Convergence. For instance, we know 1/3 + 2/3 is 1, but 1/3 is .333.. and 2/3 is .6666.. and when you add that up it just comes to .99999…. which a classical mathematician equated to 1 with a glass of water. Philosophical thinkers which dominated the scientific fraternity didn’t have anything other than the convergence theory to agree upon that .9999… converges to 1.

There was a famous paradox, which is often used to explain the convergence theory in a classical physics experiment. It was the same old story of the Hare and Tortoise, quite popular hence very likely that you have heard of it. In this story, Hare was confident that he will not sleep on the way and Tortoise, as usual, appeared cool and unperturbed. He approaches the Hare with a humble request, “Mr. Hare, Since you are very quick why don’t you give me a little advantage of starting 10 meters ahead of you, 10 meter is all what I am asking from you”. Hare laughed out loud thinking of Tortoise’s inanity and agreed to the condition. Now the Tortoise will start from a point 10 m ahead of Hare’s starting point. Monkey blows the whistle and the race starts. Now let us apply classical theories into their race..

The hare running at V velocity takes T1 time to cover the first 10 meters, ie after T1 seconds Hare reached the point where Tortoise started. But, Tortoise was not simply standing there, he was walking with a velocity of U and has, by now, covered a distance of U*T1 meters and is still ahead of the Hare. Now Hare takes another T2 seconds to cover the distance U*T1 meters and reaches the point where the Tortoise was, at the end of T1 seconds. But the bugger Tortoise is again U*T2 meters(however small) ahead of Tortoise. Going by this, Tortoise will always be U*Tx meters ahead of hare..which means as per the above explanation the hare would never overtake tortoise!! (Or will this race ever end?). But in reality we know the race would end, and hare would overtake the tortoise. The only explanation to this could be given by the convergence theory, i.e. as the distance between the hare and tortoise becomes infinitesimally small after infinitesimally small fragments of Tx, it is safe to assume that the distance between the hare and tortoise is 0! I.e. as limit Tx->0, the U*Tx->0 and hence after sometime Hare and tortoise would end up in same line. That was the only way this race could be explained with mathematics. To many, it was a failure of classical mathematics in clearly explaining the natural physics, which was otherwise considered as the ‘unambiguous language’ of physical nature. The idea that, a measurable quantity like 1 sec or 1 cm could be divided into infinite quantity of infinitesimally small units even gave the prominence of infinity in mathematics and natural science a stronger base.

Classical science relied on the observation and observational experimentation which involved macro subjects that are quite readily available, visible to human eyes and comprehensible to the human brain. Chemistry was probably something that split the philosophers as the experiments often convoluted into magic, but the idea of science and philosophy were, very much, hand in hand until the end of macro science and evolution of micro science. Now the uncertainty and approximation has changed the way things are seen. It has gone beyond the limits of human imagination, looking at the way the scientific reasoning during the age of enlightenment lead to evolution of the classical science, as we get into the age of nano science. Things are changing, The modern physics may not be able to appreciate philosophers. With the evolution of nanotechnology, philosophy of physical science had been getting heavily dependent on ultra-precision equipments and confined to the walls of expensive laboratories. Astronomy is probably the only classical realm that still remains undiscovered to a large extend. This well known arm of philosopher’s physics still manages to elude the boundaries of human imaginations.

Future of food

Had been watching a BBC feature called Future of food, basically much about the future of food production and consumption and the trend seen across the world and how much the third world countries have been “feeding” the developed countries.

Hungry kya?

Few interesting facts presented in that documentary were, like 70% of the food items imported by Britain comes from the countries where there has been a history of famine, starvation deaths and food riots, this includes countries like India, Pakistan, African countries and South American countries. In one of the episodes the narrator travels to India speaking with various farmers about the problems they face, the responses were like the water shortage, excessive dependency on fertilizers, threat from genetically modified crops, rampant urbanization etc. The documentary was basically for British audience, while it talked about the troubles in various countries it also put forth a warning on how bleak the future of food is going to be.

Genetically modified vegeteroids

A mass movement against the BT Brinjal proved to be a landmark one. But that has just gone for hiding all prepared to come back with more “pleasing” rules and regulations. Now that the nexus between Indian government and corporate have been exposed, it leaves us to wonder why government was so desperate to get the GM food items introduced into the Indian market. It was about a couple of months back I watched yet another documentary called “The World according to Monsanto” It was a stunning documentary on the chemical turned bio-chemical turned Biotech firm that is posing to hold the world at ransom. It was interesting to find that the infamous “Agent Orange”, a mass defoliant used by US in the Vietnam war was a Monsanto product. This indicates the long living marriage between this company with the US government and her ambitions.

The World according to Monsanto

'The World according to Monsanto’ presented various case studies of the seed market invasion done by the Monsanto, like how they file lawsuit against the farmers onto whose farms the GM seeds accidentally fell from the adjacent farm due to wind – the lawsuits were on illegal usage of a company product without consent! Similarly how the BT corn has managed to degrade the local corn of Mexico forcing the farmers to buy the BT corn seeds from the company. The BT Cotton debacle has already showed its fangs when it sent numerous Indian(Vidarbha) farmers suicidal over the seed dependency and crop’s vulnerability to ball worm attacks. These were the few known calamities that the company couldn’t suppressed under their political or media blanket. Recent comments from some leftists, that the people’s apprehensions on BT seeds are superstitious, was slightly shocking considering the fact that they were up front in the protest against BT Brinjal.

Threat to Sustenance

Vandana Shiva, an imminent environmentalist, has started a program called Navdhanya to conserve the natural seed and to create a seed repository to fight against the seed privatization. The developed countries, who currently have to survive by importing food from third world countries for cheap, are already scared on how long they can continue importing food. In case a food riot breaks out any moment in any of these countries(which looks quite possible), that could threaten their sustenance as well. The powerful nations have, hence, let the private parties loose, to graze through the meadows of third world countries and innovate any mechanism to retain the control over the food. Once they control the food, they control the economy of that country, and when they get to control economy they bargain over a nation’s sustainability and social fabric.

Sustainable farming has to win at any cost.

Mirror Neurons: Linking Science and Humanity

“Here is a lump of flesh, about three pounds, which you can hold in the palm of your hand. But it can contemplate the vastness of interstellar space. It can contemplate the idea of God, the meaning of infinity, and about itself contemplating the meaning of infinity. And this is truly the most amazing thing in the world.”, V.S. Ramachandran, on brain

I have been watching couple of interesting talks by Dr VS Ramachandran, an imminent neurologists who had been doing research on various aspects of brain and neurons specifically. Neurons are those strands that sit inside the brain and forms the complex circuitry making decision varying from the insignificant zero to the unfathomable infinity. There are many classified types of neurons that is designated for various kind of processing. One interesting topic that he talked about was on a recent discovery of something called the mirror neurons. Going 4000 years back, closeness of all the early inventions like the invention of wheel, fire, self-awareness, civilization etc had always baffled the archeologists as to what made them wait for 3000 years to make the first civilization or discovery of mind and gods in spite of having the same brain formation. What the recent studies have indicated is that at that point of time something evolved in brain which didn’t exist for other animals, something that helped humans to learn and understand things and eventually evolve from a simple animal into a complex personality, a bunch of neurons that apparently has an ability to empathize and emulate from its surroundings as opposed to the basic motor neurons(the one that works on command from senses).

Mirror neurons form a cluster of neurons sitting on the front portion of the brain. What it does is, it tries to mirror the events that it ‘sees’. For instance, if you are pinched on your hand you would instantly know the pain, which is quite natural as there is physical connection between the skin and the brain. But a similar pain is felt when you see someone else being pinched, in a way you tend to empathize with that person. But what tells you that it is painful?. When we see someone cry a similar emotional thing tries to send us to the same state, why? Ramachandran speaks how the discovery of mirror neurons or empathy neurons gave the neurologists an answer to all these questions.

Getting back to the evolution of human beings, the formation of mirror facilitated the Lamarckian evolution, named after Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. While Darwinian theory was slow and involved physical transformation, Lamarckian was quick and evolved brain instead of physique. The example he quoted was, for a Polar bear it must have taken about 1000s of years to evolve itself with the thick white coat to survive in the polar region – this is the Darwinian evolution. A boy learns by watching his father kill that polar bear, skin it and use that fluffy coat to survive in the polar region, in a matter of 10 minutes – that is the Lamarckian evolution. There is a saying in Malayalam “kaateethu kaatunnavan kurangan”(the one who imitate others are monkeys). This saying is not a non-sense but a very sensible one as it is from the times of hominids (with chances of spreading this into the monkey cousins) that he/she started learning things by observation.

The mirror neurons are quick in capturing the ‘characteristic images’  in the brain and is quick in reproducing it later, it appears. How it works is, say we see one person getting beaten up. The brain gets a signal from mirror neurons telling that getting beaten up on arm is painful (as if it is his/her hand that is getting thrashed), the brain tries to verify that with the nerves from the arm and finds that it is not true. Then a cancellation signal goes and cancels the physical pain ‘application’, but it cannot cancel the emotional bit of the pain. So when we see someone beating a kid, we don’t feel the physical pain but we do feel the emotional pain(empathy). The interesting thing is, when the arm of this person is paralyzed or amputated there is no nerves connecting the arm with brain. Hence at that stage the brain cannot cross check the genuineness of the pain. Upon experimentation, what the neurologists have found is that people with such syndromes can even feel the physical pain. So which means if you try to pinch your arm in front of another person who doesn’t have that arm he feels the exact physical pain that you just felt, in his phantom arm!!. This is used by neurologists and physiotherapists to cure ‘learnt paralysis’ -  A person sitting opposite to the patient massages or exercise his own hand, the patient in turn gets the real feel of the massage and eventually gets cured.

He points out the formation of civilization and its development by accounting it under the development of mirror neurons. How a person become insensitive after being tortured for a while, how a child learns about smoking by just seeing from his/her parent, despite of many no-smoking signs etc implies the significance of understanding the surroundings a key to human development. Ramachandran nicknames this as ‘Gandhi neuron’ as it gave humans the ability to understand each other without a physical connection. He is quite right in calling this the real facebook that connects one human being to another without any wire.