Developmental Issues of India: Should We Do the Root Cause Analysis or Should We Pray for Getting Back Our Senses?

Let us pray for getting back our senses!

Here are some interesting news that are online today which tells about the Indian economic projections:

1. In a global survey 62 % Indian CEOs are reportedly optimistic about the future of their companies for the next 12 months. ( Don't ask why only 12 months!) 

2. India poised to become the fastest growing economy in the world in the next two years- says IMF, the Economic Times report.

Yes, the above reports are very optimistic, but apparently look like vision statements of people who operate from air-conditioned coziness rather than knowing the grass root realities.

The problem is that we hardly understand the dynamics of money and physical work. 

For example, how do we compare the worth of two companies doing business? 

Company-A  has a turn-over of 2000 million rupees and is consistently showing profit for the past few years. Undoubtedly, its stocks are in high demand and are traded many times above the issue price.

Company-B on the other hand has a turn-over 5000 million rupees and is barely showing any profit or at times reporting losses in the balance sheet. Its stocks are not much favored and has a low value.

By simple common sense of present day economic macro analysis, company-A would be the preferred one. 

Now, let us examine these two companies a bit more closely. 

Company-A , though has a good looking and posh air conditioned office with modern office gadgets and decor, the office space is on lease. The company's 200 odd employees do jobs connected with some financial services online. The economic activity the company does arises out of some policy guidelines and special economic situation. There is no guarantee of the situation remaining the same for ever. But if the company goes without work, they have not much to lose.

Company-B on the other hand is a manufacturer of physical goods. It has more than 2000 employees having various skills belonging to various professional disciplines. The raw materials to the company are produced by several ancillary industries. The products of the company also go for industrial consumption. The company has its own land, factory, machinery and such infrastructure. Thus this company can be considered as a core industry and an economic activity booster.

Often, company-B would be seen to move towards more and more unfavorable conditions including getting an incompetent management team that would eventually make it to close down its operations. That causes painful miseries to the 2000 families directly and a dent in the country's economy indirectly.

In olden days, governmental authorities used to be more sensitive to such issues and would have intervened at the right time to prevent such economic mishaps. Of late, in the so-called liberalized economy, governmental authorities are seen as shying away from executing their responsibilities lest they may be accused as partisan.

As I have written in this forum many times, government has a right and a responsibility to intervene in the affairs of any corporate business entity when it is faced with situations where employment and governmental income by way of taxes are affected or likely to be affected.

The ultimate aim for any government is to ensure welfare of its people and employment should be one of the first priorities under citizens' welfare. If the citizens do not have income, no country could progress. So, income of citizens should be the first priority of any progressive nation and its leadership.

Leader of a massive BPL population is nothing of a big achievement! Power and prosperity of the nation vest with the people. If the people are poor and pathetic, the nation as a whole too would be of that type. Strikingly rich individuals of such nations should not be in a position to raise their heads in pride if they have any consciousness left within them!

India is a nation of predominantly income-less people, with only about 3 % of the people officially paying direct income tax as per government reports. Even in this nearly 90% are in the income range of  $ 3000-8000 per year. A little over 42000 people in the whole of India are officially reported with an income exceeding $ 160,000/- in a year. But people having wealth in millions may be much more considering the high levels of black money, corruption and under reporting of wealth.

But yet it is a shameful condition. There is nothing that common Indians could take pride of in such a situation. The unemployment and under employment situations are alarmingly growing with no one having any solutions. Even those employed are hardly with any decent income that could cause any boost in the Indian market to generate more employment.

In India no one seems to be bothered about the situation. All seem to be pretty well satisfied with all the problems. They move as if in good sedation that they feel no pains ever!

A young man sent this famous Napoleon quote to me that reflected the anguish and anxiety that only a negligible number of people in India realize:

" The world suffers a lot not because of the violence of the bad people, but because of the silence of the good people!"

Is India listening? I doubt. 

Should we worry about the walking dead bodies of India any more? I do not know. I too am becoming one of that!

So how to do the root cause analysis of India when the majority feel no pains?

I could have done it to some extent. But there is no one to see and act on my analysis.

All around me appear as senseless. 

Soon, my own ability would vanish.

I too would become a walking dead body, sedated , senseless and feeling no pains!

Perhaps in the bliss of ignorance!

See how infectious this sedation is!

I started with something and ended with this sedated philosophy!

But it's okay because no one is going to read this and react.

If possible, let us pray to God for giving back our senses!

Narrow Minded People Will Not Allow the Society to Prosper!

A view of the War Memorial Plaza  of 
Malaysia- a prosperous Asian nation with 
a high human development index

What is the difference between broadminded people and narrow minded people? 

Broadminded people have the following characteristics:

They are open to new ideas. They are keen to know more about others. They are willing to listen to find out their own weaknesses and willing to correct it willfully with conscious efforts.

Normally they become more balanced and matured as they gain more and more life experiences. 

They wholeheartedly encourage others to do good deeds and are willing to provide good and impartial advice to others when they are approached. As they grow up, they discard negative qualities such as envy, anger, anxiety, intolerance, prejudice, etc. As they grow, they acquire more and more knowledge and are keen to learn all the time. As they gain more and more knowledge, they understand their ignorance more and aspire to learn more.

Since they are broadminded, they become more and more aware about the true nature of God, regardless of their traditional learning or religious upbringing. They might also realize the purpose of life and may adopt a life style that is simple and humble regardless of their position or status.

They become more cultured and civilized with experience of life. They would never use their power, wealth and position for satisfying their own vested interests. 

They give first priority to the society than to their own personal interests. 

They would never argue with others for forcing their ideas or viewpoints. 

They would not get angry with others who are not accepting their view points or ideas, but my have sympathy for those ignorant fellows around them who have mind capacities much lower.

It is not difficult for them to understand good from bad and with time they develop the technique of appreciating good in every thing and in every deeds. They tend to become true mentors for those who are in their team.

They enjoy working, but they are not workaholics. They understand the importance of both work and leisure. They are truly balanced and are not addicted to any one particular thing always!

Broadminded people would prove to be very good leaders. But they would not adopt clever and cunning ways to climb up to leadership positions!

Since they have not closed their minds for new thoughts and ideas, they are bound to become more and more experienced with life experiences. Therefore they are the ones who lead the society towards cultural advancements, progress and development.

Broadminded people like reading , listening and learning the ideas and thoughts of others. They also like to share their thoughts with others. But they dislike to force their thoughts on others and also would not normally get carried away by the false teachings of others. Truly, many of them develop the capability to discern the right from the wrong over the years!

Children of broadminded people may be like the children of every one else during their initial years of growth. But later in their adulthood, these children do exhibit good qualities of their broadminded parent.

Broadminded nature is both inherent and acquired. Some people may have inherently better chances for developing a broadminded nature than others. But broadminded nature could also be nurtured and developed by conscious efforts. Education imparted by broadminded teachers help children to develop this quality, even when they have little of it inherently with them.

A society with more and more broadminded people would become more and more developed socially. The human development index of such societies would be higher than those societies where such individuals are a minority.

All the above said qualities are just the reverse for the narrow minded people, in varying degrees. Narrow minded people are those having inherent narrow mindedness and those who did not get the right kind of education to remove their inherent negative qualities.

Narrow minded children educated and trained by narrow minded teachers develop as hardcore narrow minded people in the society. They are full of jealousy, anger and envy towards all those who appear as successful in life. They cannot tolerate beauty anywhere. They keep devising ways and means to destroy good everywhere due to their jealousy. 

Narrow minded people are suspicious of others. Fear, anxiety, envy and anger keep fuming within them destroying their mind and body slowly. They keep their minds closed that they fail to learn from others. A few of them become dangerous extremists who get sadistic pleasure in inflicting injuries to others.

They are prone to develop false ideas and thoughts. It is easy for those cleverer among them to make them their blind followers. 

The more narrow minded people in a society, the more it tend to become underdeveloped socially. The narrow minded ones keep negating the good works of the broadminded people!

It is possible for narrow minded people to discard their negative qualities to some extent provided they get proper education and training from broadminded teachers. It is possible for the society to reduce the number of narrow minded people by devising and implementing broadminded education system. Such societies and nations are likely to progress culturally and socially in a much faster pace.

Narrow minded people might adopt all clever tactics to get in to leadership positions. They aspire for leadership positions not for doing any good for the society, but for deriving sadistic pleasures by inflicting problems to others. Power positions and leadership for them are for their own self enjoyment. And that is what they perceive with their narrow minds! Narrow minded leaders are likely to make their societies and nations deprived of all good things and might even inflict greater damages and pain to all due to their narrow minded decisions and actions.

Organizations headed by narrow minded people might show apparent success for a short while. But such organizations are bound to prove as failures in the long run.

Your narrow minded relative or neighbor or colleague or even spouse would never be able to accept your success. They would never appreciate you or provide you any complementary support in your acts and thoughts. Instead, they keep pulling you down either directly or indirectly that you find it difficult to live in peace. On the other hand, had they been broadminded, you would have become a happy achiever! When every one like you become a happy achiever, your society naturally become one high in human development index.

It is a good idea to have an introspection to find whether you have any narrow mindedness in you. Though it is difficult for narrow minded people to get rid of this negative and destructive quality, by conscious and willful efforts much desirable could be achieved.

Remember, becoming a broadminded personality is one of the greatest achievements in human life. There are many inherent rewards, though they may not be directly discernible always. Broadminded persons are not like touch-me-not plants. They would not show sudden outbursts of joy or gloom because they are balanced and matured. But within their minds they are loving and with full of peace. Many of them acquire the good qualities of Character, Competency, Compassion and Courage (the 4-Cs) as they grow up in their life, unlike the narrow minded ones.

Now let me give some illustrations that give the nature of narrow mindedness and broad mindedness from real life experiences:

In a particular organization, this narrow minded person become overnight successful and becomes elevated to the position of the chief executive. He had inherent weaknesses in many fronts and since he was narrow minded, he was not able to realize his weaknesses. Over the years he became highly suspicious of others and had developed a grudge to all those around him because of his inferiority complex. He was anxious to demonstrate that he was better than others and was waiting for an opportunity to teach all those others who directly or indirectly ignored his presence in the organization. By his good fortune, he got a family mentor who could catapult him to higher career positions regardless of his inherent weaknesses. And thus he became the CEO. He did not waste time to fulfill his desires of teaching all those others some befitting lessons causing much distress and damage to the organization as a whole! Since he was narrow minded, it was difficult for him to understand his mistakes and follies!

Sometimes, in an organization (it could be even a government), the new incoming head of the organization, if he or she is narrow minded, would tend to become too pre-occupied with such actions that are predominantly with the intention to negate the work of his or her predecessor due to certain kind of grudge that they have developed due to their narrow minds! The society as a whole suffers on account of this.

In a privately developed apartment complex in India, the builders had built dwelling units of a few different sizes. The residents later formed the owners' association and registered a society for the purpose of managing the common interest affairs of the apartment complex. Some knowledgeable and broadminded individuals helped in making the most acceptable bylaws in accordance with the laws of the land. The bye-laws considered all owners equally and they did not make any differentiation among themselves on account of the size of the apartment they owned. The association carried out the management smoothly as there was no disagreement among them. However, soon a few narrow minded among the lot began to play their crooked activities. They started creating divisions among themselves by demanding a change in the bye-laws allowing differential treatments of the members according to the size of their dwelling units. The management of the common facilities of the apartment complex soon began to go haywire affecting all who lived there.

A young couple were happily married and both were having their own successful professional careers. If they are narrow minded, marital disharmony would begin to spoil their peace both at home and at their work place. In many cases, this situation might reach to such heights that either one of them (most likely the wife, if it is in India) may leave the job or they go for a divorce. Depending upon the degree of narrow mindedness, they develop varying degrees of animosities among themselves. If the family members too are narrow minded, the husband-wife dispute soon envelop a larger group of people!

The management board of a company wants to provide some good incentives to all its employees because the majority in the board are broadminded people. They are willing to spend a sum as high as 10% of their annual profits for this purpose. The board entrusts the CEO to work out the details. The CEO in turn sets up a committee of three headed by a narrow minded finance official for a detailed study and for recommendations. The committee, greatly influenced by its head, finally gives a recommendation that in the final analysis was more of a disincentive rather than any incentive to the employees. Here the head of the committee being narrow minded was ready to give up his own benefits. He disliked the idea of the majority of the employees getting some better benefits!

A private school run by a society floated by an Indian church soon became very famous attracting a huge rush of parents to get their children admitted in this school. Soon the society's accounts began to swell with huge money as the cost of running the school was much lower than the amount of fees collected from the students. The funds were so huge now that there was no problem for the school to extent better pay and perks to the teachers and the staff. They could now also hire the best teachers and enhance the infrastructural facilities. They are also in a position to provide fee concessions to a good number of deserving children or to institute various scholarships. But unfortunately, the management committee of the school comprised of narrow minded Christians who could never understand the broadminded teachings of Jesus. The school, obviously, could not make any further progress due to this narrow mindedness!

A man in Kerala lives by the side of a main road. He has more than half acres of land where his house is located. But his financial situation is not so good. A million rupees can make his financial problems vanish for ever. This fellow has a neighbor who is financially much better than him. But this neighbor of his is unable to buy a car and use it because he does not have a proper approach road to his house. For making an approach road, the first mentioned person has to allocate some of his land for that purpose which he had been denying for quite some time now. The richer one now has offered more than a million rupees for the one or two cent of land that the first person has to spare for widening the approach road to his house. But the first man is so narrow minded and adamant that he would not budge. He prefers not to take the money. For him, the neighbor using the car conveniently is a bigger problem than his own financial problems! He does not want to solve his own problems because it gives some advantage to his neighbor!

Take the cases of the Aranmula airport proposal or the proposed liquor ban of Kerala. These are also typical examples of narrow minds in action!

In short, the more the individuals in a society are narrow minded, the more it is difficult for the society to prosper! 

Would you like to share some of your views about this in this forum?

15 Most Critical Problems that Force India to be a Nation of Imbalanced Progress and Development!

There many public problems that remain unresolved in India, but could be resolved to practically acceptable levels if there is some competency, character, courage and compassion (the 4Cs)   in the minds of the concerned people who occupy responsible positions in all levels of governmental organizations in this country.

If these issues are resolved, India would become a developed nation from that of a perpetually developing nation.

In my opinion, the following are the fifteen most important Indian Public Problems that need to be resolved on priority:

1. Problems Due to Improper Land Reforms and Property Laws.

2. Problems Due to Improper Urban and City Management

3. Problems Due to Improper Health Care Management

4. Problems Due to Improper Animal and Environmental Laws

5. Problems Due to Regressive Taxation Laws

6. Problems Due to Improper Social Security Systems

7. Problems Due to Lack of Compassion and Trust in Laws

8. Problems Due to Improperly Regulated Education Systems

9. Problems Due to Improper Electoral Reforms

10. Problems Due to Improper Judicial and Law Enforcement Systems

11. Problems Due to Complex Administrative Approval Systems for Business

12. Problems Due to Complex Contract Settlement Mechanisms

13. Problems Due to Inadequate Public Record Keeping and Communication Systems

14. Problems Due to Neglect of Competency and Character of Individuals in Work Teams

15. Problems Due to Neglect of Planning

But in general all these problems together make India a unique nation of irrational logic and a mysterious economy among all the nations of the present world.

It causes this nations to become more and more imbalanced as it makes every step towards progress and development.

Would that imbalance topple the nation later?

It is time to think and act!

Some Reasons Why India Keeps a Slower Pace in Technological Development!

Yesterday I was listening to a TV interview of one well known political personality who is now a new cabinet minister of the Modi government. He is now holding three important portfolios, namely, the media and broadcasting, environment and parliamentary affairs. 

The minister seemed to be very clear about his future priorities especially with regard to his agendas regarding the government owned radio and TV and also with regard to environmental clearances to various projects. Unlike his predecessors, his concepts seemed to be unambiguous and straight forward. I think that is indeed a good sign  for India.

But growth and development of a nation cannot take place only by having some improvements in some areas only. Of course, the vision and determination of the political leadership of the government is of prime importance, that alone cannot bring about much desired results quickly. A wholesome integrated approach is necessary.

For example, a good driver alone cannot make the vehicle to run smoothly. The vehicle needs all its hardware in perfect order done by a competent mechanic wholeheartedly. It also needs good quality fuel and other consumables. And finally, the vehicle, its mechanic and its good driver are of no use, if there is no one who wants to use and take advantage of all these.

For that wholesome approach for bringing the nation to top gear, it is necessary that we know all the inherent problems and the root causes that hinder our efforts for achieving progress.

Being associated with the Indian industry for more than three decades, I have experienced the effect of many inherent problems that cause our nation to limp and lag in progress as compared to the developed nations.

In any system where supply of any goods or services are scarce, a few persons could subvert the systems with unfair means for their advantage while making the nation as a whole to much disadvantage. This fundamental has to be understood while we venture in to any activity to make improvements. In such a situation, we may observe spectacular growth and development in isolation while also observing pathetic situations elsewhere. The overall situation is high imbalance resulting in an average that is not so enviable.

Let me elaborate a few examples where Indian planning has gone wrong.

Education is one field. While allowing the private players to set up top class education facilities, we neglected the existing public owned educational facilities in both urban and rural areas. This deprived the underprivileged class to slip and fall back to a situation worse than that had been existing. India failed to improve its literacy levels any where near to many other nations.

Without analyzing the real employability potentials, Indian planners have allowed mushrooming of thousands of higher education institutions offering engineering education. While doing this, they forgot the necessity to allow equivalent training and development of skilled man power various engineering trades. While engineering graduates, post graduates and PhDs increased in enormous numbers, the Indian industry felt the acute shortage of skilled masons, surveyors, electricians, welders, plumbers, mechanics, riggers, turners, machine operators, engineering field supervisors, draftsmen and the like. 

As a result, most of the Indian engineers lost the opportunity to practice what they learnt. India as a whole could not develop enough opportunities to employ all these young engineers who pass out from these engineering colleges by spending huge sums as fees with high personal efforts to learn the various engineering topics. The talent waste that has been happening in this area has become a matter of unconcern as many fresh engineers kept getting employment in unrelated areas such as banking, IT and IT enabled services, marketing, market research, etc. What the employers look for seems to be their comparatively better IQs rather than the engineering fundamentals that they have painstakingly learnt!

With this kind of a situation comes another problem. The engineering faculties keep losing their real interest in teaching engineering subjects as they realize that their bright students may not be pursuing their careers in the engineering field. Again, as the people keep realizing the real situation, the demand for engineering learning slows down.

With the best talented Indians no more get opportunities to practice engineering and technology related jobs in their home country while advanced technological innovations keep happening routinely elsewhere, India would keep maintaining its status at the most  as a technology user rather than a technology inventor. The nations which supply technology to India keep doing it for a high price! India would move to 2G and 3G technologies, when other nations move to 4G and 5G. Effectively, India would never ever overtake any nation in technology even while its leading citizens wish otherwise!

What really keep India going is its vast natural resources- its people, its minerals and its fertile lands. But without enough technological self sufficiency, India would be forced to discount its wealth for higher margin technology which it has failed to master of its own.

What are the areas where India is lacking in skills? I think the following areas in this context:

- Equipment design and engineering
- Equipment manufacturing
- Machine tools manufacturing
- Mining, mineral exploration and processing
- Production of special alloys and materials of construction
- Aviation equipment , avionics and spares
- Computer chips and hardware
- Electronics and communication
- Advanced construction technology
- High speed rail rolling stock
- Medical engineering equipment and diagnostic equipment
- Precision machine tools and equipment
- High resolution optical glass and equipment
- Energy conversion and production equipment
- Fuel cells and bio fuels
- Waste recycling and reuse
- Water and waste water technology and engineering
- Alternate building materials and low cost housing
- Innovations and inventions
- Fundamental and Industrial research
- Food production, processing, storage and distribution
- Technology for rural production and development
- Health care
- Education and employment generation
- Practical and innovative management
- Effective organizational management
- Town and city planning and management
- Sports and recreation
- Travel and tourism

You might add many more. It is not that in all these areas India has not achieved any thing. But the point I want to make is this: India is not a market leader in any of these areas! India remains an average performer.

It is often said that necessity is the mother of invention. Unfortunately, opportunities do not get converted to comparable benefits in India.

For example, India has a huge demand for rail transport for both passengers and goods. But Indian railways keep lagging behind to en-cash this great market opportunity to the advantage of the service provider and the users.

India's need for electricity is growing in geometric proportions. But India is lagging behind in implementing its energy fulfillment plans.

India has tremendous potential for business by equipment and plant suppliers specializing in pollution control water and waste water treatment and engineering, etc.But such companies do not have the confidence to enhance their business organizations with more people because their potential customers do not have the requisite level of understanding to realize the benefits of such technologies.

Indian political and bureaucratic leaders keep dilly dallying with decision making, especially when some aspects of it is a matter of some commercial advantage to some private players. This is because, India does not have proper systems to evaluate project proposals with regard to their commercial potentials coupled with the lack of guidelines on profiteering. 

Indian contracting and public purchase procedures are too complex and difficult to adjudicate or arbitrate. This is because of the lack of knowledge and competency of the people who draft and interpret such documents.

There are many contradictory laws in India. There are also many areas where there is an absence of any law. Both are not conducive for development as it gives enough opportunity for nuisance creators to take the shelter of law to create irreparable damage to both public and private investments.

Land reforms is another area of concern.

Conflicting interest among various governments and government departments create another major problem coupled with the perceived scare the decision makers have on various kinds of inquiries that might give them sleepless nights some time in the future. This forces many in the bureaucratic and technocratic chains to adopt safe actions to 'pass on the ball' ( passing the files with irrelevant suggestions and opinions to unconcerned authorities) indefinitely. Irresponsible or technically not-so-capable watch dog agency authorities could make the situation worse.

Environmental regulation is another area which make things much more complicated. Some people when posted to the regulators become so biased and over reactive that they start behaving as if every action is environment unfriendly. The Indian media is known to make things worse by irresponsible reporting of the issues involved.

One example which come to my mind is the 'environmental controversy' centering the western ghat areas of Kerala in the inhabited areas around Munnar. The over enthusiastic environmental scientists of the country preferred to keep these areas out of bounds to human habitation by disallowing any commercial development in these lands owned by people living in those areas for decades. These areas are not prone to environmental hazards such as the high mountain regions of northern Uttarpradesh, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal or Jammu and Kashmir. Yet for some, the environmental issues could well become useful tools to banish some regions from the rest in some convenient manner as they deem fit. Here, science and technology become biased and lose their rational outlook and reliability.

Division of power among the union and states according to the Constitution in a fractured Indian society is another thing which causes developmental imbalances. To offset this, the nature of Indian bureaucracy needs overhauling. 

There are many such issues which need to be addressed in India. It is difficult but not impossible. If the head of state wants it to happen, it would definitely happen.

That is what a good majority of people of India are now hoping. They earnestly hope that Mr Narendra Modi has the will and capacity to do it!

What do you think?

Land Reforms: Some thing Most Important for India to Progress!

Some time ago, I wrote a blog article about the poor land owners' agitation in Odisha State of India against an ambitious private integrated steel plant (ISP) project promoted by the South Korean steel major POSCO with the active support of the state government. 

Post liberalization, the only state which might have implemented large scale private industrial projects in record time perhaps is Gujarat under the chief minister-ship of Shri Narendra Modi who is shortly to take the mantle of Indian government as the new Prime Minister. World renowned companies such as Reliance Industries or Adani Group  would not have become a reality without enough land to set up their large industrial manufacturing and service facilities.

Unfortunately, Asian countries such as India with their below average human development indices, have been markedly behind in effecting land reforms. This Wikipedia article gives an overview of land reforms in major continents in the recent past. 

In India, land reforms have not been in the agenda of the national government since its independence. Land reforms have been left voluntarily to the state governments. Only two states, West Bengal and Kerala, tried to do some thing regarding it during their initial years of existence. Later on, no political party got enough strength and wisdom to do some thing in this connection for the general good of all people. 

Just before its exit from power, the outgoing central government of India in 2013 enacted a law which is known as  The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013  [Get the pdf copy of the Act Here!] This law has now replaced the previous Land Acquisition Act of 1894 which has been a bone of contention between the land owners, the governments and the industry for many years in the recent years due to the manner in which the government authorities operated it. 

While the old law has given too much power to the government officials and had been considered as anti landowner,  the new law is believed to be anti industry. The new law perhaps burdens the private industry with too high costs towards land procurement. The new law apparently provides for high compensation for the land owners. However, it does not ensure future protection of a land owner who becomes landless when his land has been taken over for some industry or development project.

When a land owner's land is taken over for any project, he should not only get a fair compensation, but also get fair protection to live with dignity. All land owners whose houses have been taken over together with the land should be provided with decent housing before his property is physically taken possession by the project authority for whom the land is acquired. They should also be ensured of reasonable and steady future incomes as a compensation for disturbance of their traditional living.

On the other hand, it should also be necessary to protect the industry from incurring heavy initial costs on investment towards acquisition of land. With heavy land costs, many projects might become techno economically non-viable. On the other hand, large projects enhance overall economic activities in its vicinity. Many times it has been seen that when large projects come up and stabilize, the land costs in and around the project go up due to higher commercial opportunities.

This creates a peculiar situation of disadvantage for the people whose lands have been taken over at prevailing market rates. For example, in the rural areas of India where there is no activity other than rural agriculture, the land costs are low to the tune of say, Rs.10 per sq.ft. In the near vicinity of a large commercial project, the cost could be around Rs.200 per sq.ft or even as high as Rs.1000 per sq ft or more. 

Thus, the person whose land is acquired would feel as cheated even when he gets a price of 3 to 5 times more than the market rates due to the probability of the land prices shooting up many times more in the vicinity of any large project once the project becomes commercially operational. Such a situation often causes some people becoming reluctant to part with their land even when they are offered much higher price than the current market rates.

In the previous law, the government forcefully captured the land for any project declared as 'public interest' and paying the affected people prices as decided by them to be paid at the whims and fancies of the officials concerned. The new law is made to help the land owners, but its efficacy is yet to be seen. On the other hand many private entrepreneurs are not so happy about the new provisions of the land acquisition law.

Another problem that arises for any commercial or infrastructural project requiring land is the complex and vague rules that have emerged under the environmental protection acts and rules. Vague laws and rules give enough room for whims and fancies of some authorized persons to play havoc and unending litigation. No business man would like to land in to such complications under normal circumstances! A typical example of this type of a problem is the environmental definitions that are applied to the sloping lands of the western ghats of Kerala while similar situations in states like Himachal Pradesh are dealt with different yardsticks! Obviously, the definitions and yardsticks change from person to person!

The question is how India tackles such problems? As the PM designate Mr Narendra Modi keep telling: "Less government, more (better) governance" The idea is great, but the vast lot of people with high ambitions for getting a slot in some 'offices of profits' would not allow such a thing to happen. It can happen when people become honestly interested in doing good for the people and not for themselves!

So, land reforms in India is not difficult to be achieved, provided the people of India, high and low, are willing to keep the nation in front than their own individual priorities. 

Again the first principle to be remembered for all land acquisition is this: The individual land owner's willingness to part with his land possession is to be respected. The land owner should be treated with dignity. The government has to ensure that the land owner does not become landless and homeless when his or her land is taken over. Not only they are paid reasonably well for their lands, a portion of the land acquired should be utilized for creating a well planned and well designed housing colony for the displaced land owners. This should be in addition to the monetary remuneration paid.

All government officials involved with land acquisition should be sensitized by proper training so that they do their work efficiently in a time bound manner with out antagonizing the people. Concerned laws need to be amended if required. While laws are drafted, the government should also check the clauses with regard to their compatibility for good governance. The practice of passing laws for the sake of it should stop.

These are not difficult for any government if the people of the government are great visionaries and true leaders!

In any case, land reforms in the positive manner on an urgent manner is what India needs now for progress and development. The latter again should be for ensuring enhanced employment to the Indian youths and not for unjustified accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few.

What do you think? 

The Potential of Delegation in Progress and Development!

In the beginning nothing existed but the Sole Deity.

The Sole Deity existed as a living power over an enormous non-living energy-matter concentrate.

The Living Power that prevailed over the non-living energy-matter concentrate of a unique nature had all the prerogatives and potentials of thought, creativity and personality. 

There were no universes, no galaxies, no stars and no planets.

Everything was static and there was no dynamic activity or movements. So time had no meaning. And there was no space as we now know.

This period is known as eternity about which no one knows any thing except the One that existed from eternity.

The Living Power of eternity which possessed life, thoughts, creativity and personality was God, the First Source.

During eternity, God the the First Source undertook some acts of Creation by self-division. We see self-division in single-celled animals like amoeba. 

God the Second Source and God the Third Source thus came into existence during eternity. God the First Source had thus become the Father God. God the Second Source had become the Eternal Son God.

The three together became the Trinity God. 

Further during eternity, the three singly or jointly created innumerable perfect living beings having innumerable functions and prerogatives creating the pantheon of gods or immortal celestial beings.

For them they created the enormous and magnificent eternal universe consisting of a billion of perfectly created globes which all revolved around the static matter concentrate that existed originally with the Sole Deity. But all these were still not in the form of matter and energy that we are familiar with. The eternal universe too came in to existence during the eternal period.

Time and space as we now know have not begun yet.

The eternal Trinity knew the potential of delegation in effecting creative progress and development.

Hence the Trinity God delegated the power to create material and energy from the pre-existing matter and energy of eternity (let us call it the spiritual matter and energy as I had written some time ago) to a group of divine beings who were to use another technique called the controlled evolution for this creative activity.

Thus started the process of evolution for the build up of visible energy and material from the infinite source of invisible eternal energy and matter (or the spiritual energy source). The moment this process of evolution started, time and space came into existence as we know now.

The evolutionary process of material creation began in various sites at various times there after. All such sites became vast regions of space filled with evolving matter, initially in the form of the single atom gas called Hydrogen. Living eternal beings supervised the evolutionary process and made necessary changes wherever required at appropriate intervals of millions of years.

The living eternal beings of several kinds in innumerable numbers performed various functions including long duration observations in millions of groups. Each group performed under a group leader responsible for material creation, called the Creator Son of God. The matter and space created by each group became vast galaxies containing innumerable stars, planets and other celestial objects and became a material universe of its own called a local universe. Thus an enormous conglomerate of material universes got created around the eternal universe which got divided into seven enormous regions called the seven super universes having almost same matter and energy content.

Each local universe under the leadership of the material Creator God became the domain of dynamic activity and further creations. Several orders of divine beings and materials beings then got created in each of the local universe by various creative techniques.

By evolutionary techniques planets were formed. Some planets were fine tuned as homes for the creation and further development of evolutionary material life in the form of plants and animals. Such material life sustainable planets eventually became homes of advanced life such as the humans of earth.

Human like life was a preferred material life form for the Creator God and also his eternal parents because it was a life form which could be entrusted with some of the special prerogatives that God himself had- the prerogatives of personality, thought, creativity and independent decision making, though in a much limited manner.

The planets where life could be made sustainable and where human like life could evolve and sustain have become the material worlds. There are millions of material worlds now in each of the local universes.

The Creator God and his innumerable celestial subordinates keep observing the evolutionary progress of all humans in all the material worlds.

They feel happy when human beings make positive progress in the same way when a human scientist feels when  his robot or machine performs in the desired manner.

No doubt, the Creators could have made a perfect world having perfect humans. They had done that way elsewhere. But in humans and in the worlds for the humans they have different plans.

The Creator God and his associates want humans to progress using whatever abilities, creativity and talents that they have inherited while they were born as individual material beings of their material worlds such as our earth.

The Creator God and his associates want humans to develop qualities similar to them by their own volition or desire. 

The Creator has created human beings not by any magic. The evolutionary creative process has been a group activity for billions of years. The Creators have stopped their interventions in human activities the moment humans have got the required abilities for self development and progress. The Creators have become observers and guides ever since.

The human life is intended for gaining varied experiences of material life and for willfully differentiating and adopting good from bad. Good is that which is considered as acceptable to the divine creators or God.

Human life is for experiential learning. Humans who have failed to learn and understand the essential truths by experience have achieved nothing in this life even if he or she might have succeeded in becoming a resourceful king or ruler of other humans.

One of the essential learning that humans have to experience and accept is the power of delegation or the power of sharing just as the divine beings are doing. 

God has shared himself and his power. That is how all the universe and its innumerable beings came in to existence. They all have delegated their powers and abilities in varied manner. That is how the universes have been developing and progressing.

The more you delegate or share, the more power you are likely to get. That is a universal truth. The more we share, the more our world will progress. The more you realize this fact, the more you have learnt some fundamental truth by life experience.

The opposite of delegation and sharing is greed and selfishness and the latter two qualities are disliked by God and would lead to unhappiness eventually.

Those who have learnt the beauty of delegation and sharing have learnt one of the greatest life experience and are perhaps preferred by God for taking up higher responsibilities.

The more such learned people on earth, the more our earth would progress in development!

Could you understand anything what I wrote above?

Enhancing Employment in India Should Be the First Priority for Indian Politicians!

What should we Indians expect from our successful political leaders who chance to become our heads of governmental functions in our central and state governments?

How are we going to evaluate their performances?

In an election year, how would we decide whom to vote? There are so many candidates forced on us by the numerous political parties all with highly ambitious chiefs who are interested in getting in to the seats of political power and governance.

They are spending millions and millions of rupees from their individual and collective coffers to reach out to the Indian voters. All parties get the money to spend on their party leaders and for election propaganda by what is known as donations from the Indian people or the Indian business organizations who make money by various economic activities.

So the circle is like this. The individuals gain money by doing various economic activities. Some of them get paid for their work as employees of some organizations of people formed for doing making profits from various economic activities. These economic activities are numerous. Any activity of human beings which is carried out for some cash benefit is an economic activity. 

So activities related to agriculture, mining, production, manufacturing, transport, communication, entertainment, health, sports, education, administration and governance, insurance, accounting, auditing, policing, politics, law making, law practice, tax collection and administration,  research and development, software development, quality control, etc, and even religious activity are all economic activities. Some of these are economic activities directly involving production of goods and materials while a large number of other activities involve some kind of service. In short economic activities are all about goods and services by people and for people all done for some kind or remuneration or advantage or profit.

Food, clothing, shelter, health, entertainment, security, justice, spiritual comfort are all essential for human beings and as humans progress in body and mind, his requirements and aspirations also increase. Food is the primary requirement of a person who is hungry. But when hunger is resolved, he needs clothing and shelter. When these are also fulfilled, he wants to improve and aspire for other comforts and entertainment.

No human can be self sufficient. God has created humans to exist and prosper under mutual dependence.

Modern economic activities with money as its measuring unit is one of the greatest evolutionary achievement human beings have made. Human progress of any nation is measured by the sum total of the value of the economic activities of its people that our economists define as the Gross Domestic Product or GDP.

The more the GDP the more likely the country's prosperity. Alternatively, the more the people are engaged in economic activities, the more the country's GDP. So, GDP grows when more people are involved in economic activities and their individual gains also keep growing.

Organizations of people help in organizing the economic activities of individuals and to gain collective synergy.

If these organizations make more money than they spend, they make profits. If they make profits, they can afford to enhance their economic activities by employing more people by paying them salaries or even enhance the salaries of their employees. Such business organizations are legally known firms or companies. The companies pay salary to their employees and divide profits among their share holders and promoters. The companies, their employees and their share holders all pay taxes to the government and the governments also get money when business firms progress. 

The money generated through small and big business gets further distributed to people as money never gets accumulated any where, but only accounted. So if some one makes lots of money it will be reflected in his bank accounts but the banks in turn lend that money to some one who uses that money elsewhere for some other economic activity and in turn help others to engage in more and more economic activities.

Thus the more the economic activity, the more the people get opportunities for getting involved in some kind of such activity and gets paid in some manner. Only when economic activities increase, then only employment opportunities enhance. Enhancing the economic activities should, therefore, be the primary concern of all people who come to occupy the seats of decision making in governments.

People occupying governmental positions have many functions. They have to first get money for themselves through collection of taxes and by promoting other economic activities. Then they have to spend the money for various purposes such as defense, policing, infrastructure development, health, education, etc. All functions are important. Income generation and income distribution are all important.

But the primary thing to remember is this: if the income is less then expenditure would be affected and the government would not be in a position to give attention to all of its functions and responsibilities properly. This kind of government would soon become a problem for its people and the nation suffers because such governments would try to do foolish things that kill economic activities. Employment opportunities in the nation come down when the governmental authorities take foolish decisions under stress, ego, incompetence or immaturity to visualize the effects of their decisions wisely.

In my opinion, all business men should be honored because they are the agents and key-drivers of economic activities and employment generation. Businessmen and women are driven by the passion to achieve and move against the odds. The greatest thing they do is tapping the small potentials of individuals to contribute in in a larger way in economic activities under the companies and firms they have created and nurtured. 

So, the Ambanis, Adanis and the Saharas of India have done greater contributions in India by fighting the odds to create large business organizations that employ thousands of Indians. In the process they might have influenced many in the decision making hot spots of the Indian governance and administration by various means. But that is essentially that they do and what makes them different from others. That is why they are business leaders.

It is foolish for any one to kill the organizations that they have created by accusing them of corruption or breaking the rules. It is not good for any country to put such businessmen behind bars for any so called economic offenses. Economic offenses should be deemed as only business errors and it is not fair to equate business errors with felony. It is not good for any democratic country, whether it is the USA or India, to make and implement laws that kill the enthusiasm of people to to do business and enhance economic activities. 

In my opinion, punishment for economic offenses or errors should be only fines payable to the government and such fines should not be such that it would kill the organization for ever. People who violate the laws by taking willful decisions should be taken to task. But that should not kill the organizations that they had created. That would be sheer injustice to the employees , the shareholders. and clients.

In my opinion, it is not at all harmful to the country if any Ambani or Adani or Sahara has achieved huge profits for their companies. Through their companies and their employees the country has made billions as taxes of various kinds. Their businesses have made great dynamism in the economic activity scene of India directly and indirectly. That is what all businesses are doing. If they make profits it is good. Viewing that with jealousy is not good.

Remember, none of these businessmen and women are not going to take all the wealth that they have created with them when they die. The money and the systems that they had created would remain in the country for reaping economic benefits to the people of India.

That is the reason why I adore the visions of Mr Narendra Modi more than that of Mr Arvind Kejriwal. Mr Modi speaks of economic development through companies while Kejriwal speaks of corruption by companies. Modi stresses more on growth while Kejriwal stresses more on putting some breaks on economic growth by trying to cleanse the economic systems from possible violations of rules.

While I do honor and respect Mr Kejriwal for his honesty and spirit of principles, I do have doubts about the practicality of his visions in a country like India where the people are not essentially idealists nor mature enough in mind and body. I think he and his associates are wise enough to understand this and make corrections.

There is no point in talking idealism to people who are deprived from earning a livelihood by involving in some kind of economic activity. Generating economic activities to the maximum should, therefore, be the first priority of any politician who comes to occupy the hot seat of decision making in India.

Let economic activities grow first so that all Indians are gainfully employed and earn a livelihood. 

Other priorities can follow later.

The Proposed Aranmula Airport of Central Kerala: A Typical Test for Democracy in an Yet-to-Mature Society!

The place called Aranmula [ആറന്‍മുള  in Malayalam, the language of the Kerala people] is hardly four kilometers from my ancestral home in Elanthoor [ഇലന്തൂര്‍ ]. Both these places are peaceful places in the central Travancore region [മദ്ധ്യ തിരുവിതാംകൂര്‍] of Kerala State in south India. 

Aranmula has been well known  for mainly three things. 

One is the Aranmula Metal Mirror called Aranmula kannadi [ആറന്‍മുള കണ്ണാടി] which is a polished metallic mirror made traditionally by some traditional artisan families of this place in some special alloy mix. This traditional knowledge got almost extinct some years ago, only to be revived again, thanks to the prominence of Kerala in the international tourism in the recent years.

Next is the Aranmula Boat Race or vallamkali [വള്ളംകളി] , a traditional water sport conducted in special wooden boats called chundanvallams [ചുണ്ടന്‍വള്ളം ] or snake boats. This is associated with a Hindu religious tradition of the Aranmula Parthasarathi temple [ആറന്‍മുള പാര്‍ഥസാരഥി ക്ഷേത്രം] which is the other thing that makes this place famous. The boat race takes place in the Pamba river [പമ്പാ  നദി ] during the days of Onam [ഓണം]  when the river has enough water. Now-a-days, due to a few hydro electric projects and dams, the river does not have much water during the season and the state government releases water for a few days to help the traditional boat race to be conducted without much difficulty.

But if you consider development and infrastructure in the modern viewpoints, Aranmula can hardly be seen as a developed place. None of the famous things that I  mentioned are visible for a common traveler who happens to pass through this place by road, the only major road through this place which connects the towns of  Kozhencherry [കൊഴെന്‍ചേരി] and Chengannoor [ചെങ്ങന്നൂര്‍] with the nearby district headquarter town, Pathanamthitta [പത്തനംതിട്ട]

All these places in the central travancore area have been traditionally famous for its religious harmony among its peoples who are mostly Hindus, Syrian Christians and Muslims. The Hindus are the major religious community with the Nair [നായര്‍] castes and the Ezhava [ഈഴവ] castes numbering the most. The upper caste Hindus, many of whom associated with the erstwhile travancore royal families have been the traditional land lords of this area. However, the Christians too have prospered much in recent decades and many from this community are very rich due to education and opportunities some of their peoples tried out in trade, plantations and foreign employments. 

When neo rich communities emerge, it is quite natural for people to develop jealousies and suspicions against each other. Typical cases of such happenings that culminated in to tragic holocausts and human tragedies are fresh in the minds of at least a few among the world community even now. I am referring to the tragedies the Jews faced in Germany during world war -2, the upper class faced in Combodia , the Hindus and Muslims faced during India before and after partition, the Sikhs faced in India during the early Eighties, the Chinese faced during world war-II and similar other events, small and big.

Fortunately, Keralites of modern times are in general well mannered and educated and they would not resort to such inhuman acts, even while some of them keeping some jealousies and animosities deep in their minds. Those deep rooted jealousies and animosities could surface as peaceful or violent conflicts cleverly disguised as issues relating to environment, animal welfare, traditions, labor and the like, when issues of public interests are initiated to be resolved.

The general opposition of a majority of people of the local community to the proposed Aranmula International Airport project is to be understood against this background.

Ever since the Indian government moved away from socialism and embraced a mixed culture of halfhearted capitalism in the Nineties, what actually suffered a great deal in India is infrastructural development. Government almost stopped spending on infrastructure requiring major budgetary support such as airports, air transport, harbors, shipping, highways, road transport, postal service, education, telecom, etc all of which used to depend much on governmental support earlier. Instead, there was a major policy change wherein the government seemed to encourage private participation in these areas. Regrettably on account of various reasons, the Indian government could not install firmed up policies and laws which would be a win-win situation for all the stake holders in some generally acceptable manner maintaining reasonable transparency in its decisions, in this regard.

In Kerala, the Cochin International Airport Limited [CIAL] was one major successful project which got implemented specklessly during this time as a beautiful example of private-public participation with a determined and efficient leadership provided by a politically handpicked administrator belonging to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). In a similar manner another one of its kind in north kerala, named the Kannur International Airport Limited [KIAL] is being planned. The small, but highly developed state of Kerala, is perhaps the only state in India with three working international airports within a span of about 600 kilometers and yet another in the making. If the proposed KGS Aranmula International Airport Limited becomes operational, this state Kerala would have five international airports in the same distance. Indeed a remarkable achievement for any Indian state!

If the plans of the Indian government goes well, all the commercial airports in India would become privatized in the near future.

Now, coming back to the story of the Aranmula Airport. Aranmula, as I have stated, is only a quiet hamlet in Central Kerala. There is not much commercial activity visible. But Kerala is different from other parts of India in many ways. It is a full and evergreen state with a full coastal region , a full mountain region and a some plain lands. It has both wetlands and dry lands. It has the sea, rivers and the backwaters. It has the green and cold hill stations like the Munnar. What is perhaps not found in Kerala may be the snow and the desert sands! Big cities are a recent phenomena in Kerala. In reality, Kerala as a whole could be considered as a big urbanized land with all benefits of the farmlands. Population density, literacy and percapita real incomes in Kerala are the highest among the Indian states. Millions of Keralites work abroad and millions from other nations prefer to visit Kerala as it is now a very preferred international tourist hot spot.

Over the years, road traffic density in Kerala has increased many times. Due to this, it would take hours for any one to travel to the capital city Thiruvananthapuram [തിരുവനന്തപുരം] or Kochi [Cochin-കൊച്ചി] or Kozhikode [കോഴിക്കോട്‌] from any other place. Most affected in this respect is the people of the central Travancore areas. At least one member from a majority of the families of this region either work in the foreign lands or in other states of India. If they travel to their home state by air, they have to either depend the Kochi or the Trivandrum [Thiruvananthapuram]  Airports and then take the road route to reach their respective homes. A decade ago, they could reach home in just about 2 hours. But now it takes more than double that time. In the years to come, that would increase further, if the government does not act to enhance the transport facilities.

Thus, there is much commercial and infrastructural logic in having an airport in the central travancore area. The prospects of such a thing was visualized first by a businessman from the same area who happened to amass a great fortune by his decades of work in the United States of America. This gentleman knew that an airport would need a considerable stretch of land, a scarce thing to mobilize in the densely populated central travancore.

But without no one ever noticing much, there was a great piece of land belonging to many local people which many of us of that locality identified as Pannivelichira [പന്നിവേലി ചിറ ] a wet land earlier used for paddy cultivation , fish farming or perhaps even pig farming. Panniveli literally means pig enclosure in Malayalam. In my teenage days, I remember visiting this place and remember it as not used for any useful purpose by its owners for most of the time. The owners of the land considered it as a burden and were ever willing to sell their portions of land to any one who was willing to purchase their pieces of wet land that had become not so worthy now.

So, this gentleman slowly purchased this pieces of land and consolidated it in one single ownership. It was a few hundred acres. Perhaps, while purchasing this land, he had no idea of its future use.Anyway, no one found any thing objectionable for this person to become the owner of this land. In later years, he declared his intentions to construct a private airport in this land. He needed the clearances of the state and the central governments and accordingly moved the applications for this purpose. Remember, this is a case where a private citizen has decided to spend his money to create a treasured infrastructure in a place which was otherwise much inferior in developmental aspects.

But India is a land of differing interests. No one actually does anything unless there is some personal benefit. No one thinks of the overall benefits that can accrue to a nation or its people on the whole. What is the benefit if this man is going to spend money, make an airport, run it and amass more money for him and his descendants? For those in the central government, there is not much benefit if the small state of Kerala gets another airport.

So the files kept moving from department to department and I personally heard from reliable sources about the errands this gentleman made meeting the various VIPs to get the clearances for his pet project of a life time. Many times he became apparently successful when the governments, either in the state or in the center declared some kind of approval, only to be realized later that it was nothing final. In the initial period, there was not much opposition from the local people. But as the project got some favor from one political outfit, the others opposed it. Later, the political leaders got successful in initiating some of the locals too to their fold.

Frustrated, the gentleman realized about his folly and somehow escaped from his mission by handing over his land and project to someone more influential than him.

Now that group seems to have managed to gather the much required central government and state government supports and clearances. No, India is a divided state of opportunists now. It is not that easy to go ahead when the house is divided!

If anyone analyze the whole issue from a pure common sense approach, it would have been the local people who would have given the support to a project like this. If the project, that too an international airport, takes shape, the people in the immediate vicinity are going to be benefited.

There are other projects in India where people are opposing. But in those cases, it is the people who are going to lose land when the government tries to grab land in the name of acquisitions using the infamous land acquisition law.

But in Aranmula, it seems that the issues are quite different. The main opposition here is due to something very different. Let me quote the reasons as quoted from an online media:

"The local people and the Greens fear that the airport to be built on a 700 acre land at a cost of Rs20 billion will destroy paddy fields and upset the ecological balance. They also fear that it would destroy the ‘global heritage village status’ conferred on the town by the UNESCO." [ See the Report ] 

Yet another local group says that the airport would affect the tall flag mast of the Parthasarathi temple and conduct of the snake boat race. [See the report here!] 

But apparently these are not the real issues. It is not very difficult to see that the airport is not going to disturb the Pamba river or the boat race or even the temple in any manner. On the other hand, it would help more people to come to Aranmula and visit the temple and witness the boat race.About the issue of the airport damaging the paddy fields, it is true to some extent. There cannot be any cultivation where the air port facilities are built. But for that matter, the majority of the land had already been rendered un-cultivatable because much construction actions had proceeded in the land that had been privately acquired. As I have stated, paddy cultivation in many parts of Kerala are not being resorted to by the owners due to the high costs and non-availability of cheap labor. It was true for this land too. That is the common stand adopted by the leftist political parties when they are determined to oppose a project!

But Aranmula is an interesting case in this regard too. It was the leftist government that gave the green signal to the project earlier. Now while the central government ruled by the Congress led coalition (UPA) gives the go ahead clearance duly supported by the Congress CM and some of his cabinet colleagues, another strong group of peoples' representatives from the same party oppose it together with the those of the left parties!

The matter may not be very understandable by the unbiased onlooker. But it is easy to understand, if you look into the whole issue a bit closely.

The issue apparently lies with the ownership of the private project. The original business man who took up the project and the present chennai based business group, KGS, are both from the Christian community, with their ancestral roots in Central Travancore. How can the upper caste Hindus who were the masters of the olden culture and traditions easily accept such a thing? Community jealousies are not easy to be removed from the mind even when you say that you are much literate and educated! Owning a gold jewelry chain and owning an airport are two different things!

The Indian mind in general has not yet crossed the thresholds of communal feelings and biases. A good majority Indians belonging to the Hindu community cannot digest their country being headed by a Christian lady from a foreign land, even when she might be the widowed daughter-in-law of a famous non-Christian lady. They can be easily hoodwinked to believe that the name-sake Christians in power and politics here are the agents of the western nations, the west here is synonymous as the word, Christian. The communal jealousies are more among the people who are literate and well to do among the majority. The jealousies enhance further when they get opportunities to work in the western countries and compare the economic affluence and improved governance of the so-called-christian majority secular nations with the inferior conditions that are perceived in India- the land of ancient history and culture in the whole world. It is becoming a frustrating thing for them to find the actual reasons. It is a common trait of the inferior mind to put blames of their own failures on others. It is a typical attitude of many people. This is the same some management gurus teach while they try to make their students understand human behavior : It is called the 'I-am-okay-you-are-not-okay' syndrome! And this mindset in the majority is a fertile area for some clever leaders to sow and harvest good fortunes when democracy is experimented as the new system of governance. 

Remember, there is not much opposition for the proposed Kannur International Airport. But that is being managed directly by the government with perhaps some minority private equity participation. But in Aranmula, government is only a minority stake holder.

Caste and community feelings are dividing India and the Indian political groups and leaders know too well the benefits they accrue by keeping the people divided over such petty issues. Some of them are too happy to have smaller domains of ruler ship just as the local kings of the olden days. Such divisions can also ruin them and their future generations is what they blissfully forget!

Some seventy eighty years ago, Hitler brainwashed the common christian folks of his Germany to believe that the Jews of his country who were well educated, industrious and generally prosperous were the real cause of poverty and mismanagement of Germany. He was a fiery speaker and writer who could easily convince the general public to vote and support him to accomplish his mission of coming to power.

He managed it somehow. He became the Chancellor of Germany by a flimsy technical majority. Once in power, he used that power to eliminate first his individual enemies and opponents and later an entire community of  a few million Jews. As a person, he was from a decent christian family who got educated to become a christian priest. But politics and power made the man blind and evil! His personal immaturity, jealousies and envy played the rest to his ultimate peril. 

Such evil nature resides in all humans regardless of community, religion, culture or educational status. Give the right manure for the evil nature to grow, it will grow. Greed, jealousy etc are some of those manures for evil to grow. At the same time, some Godly nature also resides in man. Love, compassion, fellowship, honesty, service mentality, etc are the factors that make the Godly nature to grow in man.

But it is easy for evil to develop in mind as compared to the divine nature. Therefore, it is easy for some to make a whole group evil with some manipulation.

When divine nature predominates human mind, humans start developing true maturity. A society predominated with mature individuals accomplish progress, peace and happiness.

I am not for or against the Aranmula Airport project. In the city where I live now, there is an airport in the midst of the city. My home is in the line of the airport runway, just a kilometer away. The huge planes take off and land passing over my residence. There are people just a few meters away from the airport wall who cultivate paddy. We have not felt that it is causing some problems to us.

Development and growth is human nature. And that is connected to creativity. And creativity is divine.

I have been a professional connected with environmental issues for many years. But I am not an environmental activist as the so-called Greens of today. If developments cause environmental problems we have the creativity and the solutions. But blindly opposing everything in the name of environment is insanity.

There are some hardcore environmentalists now who do not even allow the tribal of Andamans to wear clothes! There are some others who do not allow people to drink mineral water or aerated water. They would make a hue and cry over Pepsi or Coca-Cola so long as these multinationals do not grease their palms! The polluted and infected river waters are too good, natural and refreshing than the treated water that these companies use in their bottles, at times! 

Great enthusiasm! Isn't it ?

But when a developmental project like this Aranmula airport is causing some heart burns on the majority community on whatever reasons, a democratic government in my opinion, should not proceed further. Honoring the majority is what democracy is. Development should not be at the cost of hurt feelings, even when such developments appear as quite logical or reasonable.

But how could you determine majority opinion in a democracy? It is a big task in an yet-to-mature society. 

Whatever be that, let not Aranmula cause  building the communal tensions in the Malayalee [മലയാളീ] minds for a potential future explosion, just as it had been happening elsewhere in this great nation for centuries, now and then!