Dear Friend Shiva

I am not good at writing these pieces but I thought I should make an exception in Shiva’s case. I had known him for the last 3 years to be precise. Through his days in the Sironj team of Pradan he always made his presence felt in any gathering with his “different” thoughts ideas and ways of perceiving a situation. Always ready to share his thoughts, engaging with others with an infectious verve were his traits which I admired. Was not in touch with him for the last year or so but I still remember him telling me standing in the Bilaspur railway station platform, like it was yesterday, that one has to take some risks to get what one wants in life. 

It still is a little unbelievable to come to terms with the fact that he is no more with us.

He touched  many lives in his own inimitable way that no one else could……. And I will always remember him for that. He takes away a part of me with him! Dear Friend …Rest  in Peace!

My Work!

IT has almost been two months since i shifted to Digital Green from PRADAN. I am already finding it very exciting because i see myself addressing one of the major problems of the development world - upscaling by mobilising the very people who are the recipients of benefits of any development program - the community. Something which is missed out by many.....something which I thought I had missed out for so many years till i had an opportunity to work in a certain place called Kesla. More about Kesla sometime later....as now its time for my new place of work and the nature of work.


I was always convinced that information communication technology had a huge role to play in development provided the right place to introduce it was found.One was the area of market interface for disadvantaged populations and the other is as we are doing in Digital Green- taking the best practices in farm and off farm livelihood options and the experiences of good farmers to other farmers.  Basically we are trying to bring down the lag time between early adopters of innovations and late adopters. And being a development -wallah I believe that it is us who have make sure that agricultural adoptions are the business end of our services. Yes i know it is a not a two way process and that most of our partners and their overall methods of extension would also play a huge role; but i am under no illusion when I say that such short films made by youngsters from the villages and on farmers is the way to go forward to achieve greater numbers in any intervention and with quality. The reason - Quite simple! Farmers learn by observing...and who better to observe than someone who is their own?! so Play on..and lets make this happen.....Ohh!! and Krishnaa.......well i promise the next post will be about him and his new life that hes come around to.

Chapter 1: The Awakening!

Slowly……..my eyes open……the blur of the neon lights are painful and my eyes flinch trying to get accustomed to the glare. It’s as if a long time has passed since I saw this familiar glare of the tubelight. But why do I feel that a long time has passed since I saw this familiar glare. Strange indeed!

My gaze slowly adjusts itself to the brightness around and falls on this elderly woman who I see in front of me. She has a smile on her face and her eyes are tearful. I can make out by looking at her face that  she has been crying for a long time and waiting for this very moment… for me to open my eyes….why? My eyes move around trying to see the reaction of all others in the room and I see similar expressions on everyone’s faces. There are a couple of men one in his thirties, tall, quite handsome; he has a smile in his face a very genuine smile. There another who is in his sixtys and I could see that his eyes like the woman in the room were moist with recently welled tears and yet he was smiling amongst all of it. He looked quite stoic and beautiful like someone who had lost everything and by some miracle had got it all back.

 And then I became aware of a dull pain in the back of my head which was there ever since I had opened my eyes but it took me sometime to realize that it was painfull. This realization was disturbed by the first words from someone..it was the woman who had lowered her face and brought it nearer to me and asked me “Krishnaa! how do you feel?” “There is a slight pain here” I said pointing to the back of my head when I realised that my head was all taped up. I also saw that the room was a hospital and all the implements were there in place…the ECG machine, the Temperature and the Blood pressure display blipping away incessantly.  Suddenly a splurge of thoughts started to flood my mind……what am I doing in this hospital room? who are these men?  who is this woman? who is this woman talking to? who is Krishnaa? Where am I?....and then the next question struck me and struck me hard….WHO AM I?.......I did not remember who I was. I blinked my eyes hoping that all this was a dream but I did not get up from any sleep. I was wide awake and yet I could not answer this simple question….Who am I?

to be continued.....!

Yet Again

No this ones not about Krishnaa. Much though i like writing about superheroes..I like cricket better. Another series is all but gone and the people can do without any further ennui from Test cricket. What purpose does a pitch such as the one in SSC, serve is beyond my understanding. Maybe the Sri Lankan Board will have more accurate answers. This series has been like two boxers sparring at each other much like Davids searching for the Goliath in the other where there is none to be found. India's bowling is toothless without Zaheer and Ishant needs to find self belief. The rest of them are pedestrian in their efforts and talent ( i would exclude Harbhajan from this comment as he needs time to recover from the flu that he had had).

But coming back to the old issue of that 22-yard long strip called the pitch. It seems the subcontinental teams are hell bent on making test cricket obsolete...which is ironical considering that both India and Sri Lanka are the world number one and three in test rankings. Aaah!..... but test cricket doesnt fill the coffers and neither it will if we continue give such dull and drab wickets for our players. It is better to give under-prepared wickets at least there is some sort of a contest. People come to see a contest of skills and not players going through the motions. Oh God for those blades of grass, the uncovered pitches of yore and the brownness of the asian wickets! I would trade them for 5 dreary days at the stadium where runs are scored, records are broken but skills not tested. But yet hats off to Tendulkar the modern day great for keeping his resolve and scoring a Double! but thats about it for this test match! Thank you Sri Lanka!

My superhero!...Krishna!

i have found the name for my superhero ....Krishnaa! thats the name of the man who is the superman amongst men and yet is fallible. Watch this space for more on Krishnaa

The birth of a new superhero!

Hmmm dead parents…looking to wipe out evil from the heart of the city by donning darkness……old stuff..out of fashion; do gooder from another planet and allergic to kryptonite……..move over. Billionaire playboy and armored suit rolled into one! what two-faced nerd are we talking about? We need a superhero, albeit a new one. Someone who is very normal….approachable and someone who is INDIAN. No not Krish….he is a half baked concept at best!

We are talking about a man who is believable yet his actions are unbelievable. He is not incorruptible but inherently good…he gives into his passions but loves fellow being too much to give in completely. That is the essence of todays superhero. He is fallible yet he does not fall……….the 20^th century superhero!

Keep watching this space a new superhero is about to be born. And the cape…and cowl?...let us see what form this one takes!

Old Ailments die hard!

Aaah!................ another tournament has passed India has lost and, predictably the daggers are out! Funnily, those who should be giving us answers are also asking questions of the players. Harsha Bhogle sums it up very aptly…”Those who call for the heads of our cricketers are among those who bow deferentially at the first opportunity. Currently we are armed with hindsight, that greatest of all selectors. It bestows on us great wisdom and sagacity but delivers no results.”

After having gone through all this brouhaha and ranting about the failure(s) of our cricket team I have been very fortunate enough to retain some of my sanity. Enough to develop an understanding of the situation at hand which allows me to understand the debacle.  These are not the times for drastic measures like rolling of heads  but instead to take time off,  understand the situation in its entirety. We are now on the brink of the time when the troika of great Batsmen have started their walk towards the twilight of their career. And mind you! they were all “great” batsmen. We have been fortunate enough to have been born in the era when three of the best batmen ever in cricketing history played together in a team...it was almost like the pace quartet of the west Indies of the eighties and the spin quartet of India. All three, over the last 15 years have given us many reasons to celebrate and have taken us to the pinnacle of Test Cricket and this only comes through consistent performance and we all know that consistency is an adjective which is hardly associated with Indian cricket. But these three gentlemen who respond to the names of Tendulkar Dravid and Ganguly in their different manners have striven to give India that quality which had eluded us….consistency along with talent. They were helped in no less measure by the brilliance of Laxman and brutality of Sehwag. But that age is about to end and we should realize that all of the players named above were “special” players and in no way representative of the way Indian batsmen are. Well one could say that Dravid from amongst all of them is the most “Indian” in his temperament but that too from the old Gavaskarian school of cricket where batting meant more of a penance of renunciation.

So playing the short ball is still a tricky question and the “moving” ball is a threat after all. A look at our history would tell us that we never been sprightly at the sight of a ball being dropped short. A Gavaskar or a Mohinder Amarnath were aberrations at best when it came to playing the short pitched ball. We have been lulled into believing that with the advent of all these brilliant batsman at one go, our overall systems and the abilities of the players have improved and that we would retain the top-spot in Test cricket. But that, unfortunately, is not the case! Our domestic season is played on very underprepared wickets and is able to generate very little interest amongst the junta.

These are long term questions to which answers need to be found out and the good thing is these are cricketing questions and we have the best cricketing brains to find out answers. But what appalls me is the attitude of the parent body…the BCCI. Instead of finding out answers the first news which is emanating out from the BCCI corridors is that heads are going to roll. Such a perfect way of deflecting the attention on them to the cricketers. The problem lies not just in the ability of the players but in the attitude of the BCCI. Abilities can be fixed but attitude(s) I am afraid are almost impossible to mend unless there is introspection….and the BCCI into a nothing but introspection. Yes there are a few players about whom questions about attitude apart from ability are also being asked…..take action against them by all means. And if this has a consistent manner to it please take urgent action but what good will it serve to axe a captain who has, in real terms, taken up the captaincy right from where Saurav Ganguly had left off! I say this by acknowledging the fact that Anil Kumble though a very good captain was there as a stop gap arrangement till M S Dhoni could take over as the full time captain. And we also need to understand that judgments are about a situation are personal and are taken by considering the situation at hand also the interpretation of circumstances. A lot of cricketing decisions are intuitive by nature and therefore prone to failures. If we are able to accept this fact of life and sports then it would become easy to accept defeat and the fact that the other team played better than us and won and that there are days and tournaments when nothing goes your way. We have to stop believing that our team is always going to perform and accept the failures as part of human nature. We also have our goof ups in office don’t we. Just because they are earning more money doesn’t mean that they are not prone to such frailties. Havent heard any such witch hunting of players in Australia or in South Africa when their team loses in a big tournament or when Australia were down in the depths during the early 80s under Border.

Now the IPL question……… to my mind IPL is a substandard tournament which has hype surrounding it because of the extensive media coverage and the glamour attached to it. Although it has given us the Vijays the Jadejas and the Yusuf Pathans, not many have been able to make their mark in the international arena; at least not until this piece was being written. But to say that IPL tired the players out is a bit of an overstatement, because the team played two matches and won them comfortably and one of the teams was South Africa. Clearly there are cricketing reasons of technique and temperament against the rising ball which need to be sorted out. And yes players who have been consistently out of form should be dropped to give youngsters like Cheteshwar Pujara a chance to prove their mettle.  Probabalt the Board also need to look at the way they are scheduling tourneys and series’ right left and center so that they are help players recover from injuries especially fast bowlers; and I don’t think that it is mere coincidence that it is almost the fast bowlers who are charged up in the first couple of seasons and then suddenly dip to become trundling medium-pacers…and I don’t have to give examples to substantiate my case.

So we need to be aware that this is a transition period for Indian cricket and we need to look for batsmen who are able to fill up the void created by the “troika” and also lessen the burden on the players especially the fast bowlers so that they are less injury prone. And the Board has to look beyond than just sacking captains…… maybe even a professional set of administrators who are more accountable and who have a vision for cricket in India.

Chickpea! Thy labour lost!

Have been studying the chickpea sector for about 8 months now. A reluctant student of the sector.... I started off by thinking that "Well, at least i would be able to learn about one crop and the way it is traded in the market and the sarkaari policies are formulated on that particular crop!"

8 months from then on I am deflated to say the least! I have understood a lot about how our country moves and what drives our policies. Brought up on phrases like "we are an agricultural country!" "Agriculture is our lifeline" I have smartened to take these statements with a pinch of salt...well!....rather!.. a dash of salt would be an appropriate phrase to actually express myself. The Chickpea sector (chana or chholey) is full of irony! And the irony starts from the name itself. My study started off by knowing that though it is called Bengal gram it is not grown in Bengal. (errr......who was the one who was talking of irony? must have been me!). For me who didnt even know how to differentiate between Kabuli chana and desi chana it was quite a climb. Forget knowing the names I didnt even know that such a distinction existed! But anyways I trudged along trying to motivate myself that it is best to start right at the bottom as at least i would learn the most! I know these words ring hollow and also a trifle cliched but i guess it is cliches like these which come to a man's rescue when all seems lost! What else can a man do but rely on cliches. (Ohh!! the irony continues unabated)

But let us get back to chickpea and its position in the country......my visits took me to many places......Mandla (MP), Chitrakut (UP), Bidisha (MP), Chattisgarh, Pakur (Jharkhand), Betul (MP) and Bikaner (Rajasthan). It was an eye opener for me...even after having spent four to five years of working in rural remoteness with tribals chickpea managed to surprise me and yes....humble me. It surprised me with its potential and also with its under-perfomance; (the irony keeps on running as an underlying current) it surprised me with its history and yet the lack of vision of the policy makers. I understood that it is a crop for the poor as it requires much lesser investment when compared to other crops like wheat or mustard; i understood that we (India) are the largest producer of chickpea in the world and yet is the largest importer of chickpea too! That proves we are pretty voracious about chickpea. In the field I found out that chickpea is grown in one of the most primitive ways in most of the places. About the NGOs which were promoting chickpea ........ the less said the better! The production is dwindling steadily with hardly any extension from the line departments and the NGO workers well......what would one expect of them when they give donor proclivity as the reason for promoting chickpea! Oh irony! so what do we do to arrest this problem of dwindling supplies?...Simple....import chickpeas.....! And we do so in tonnes. So much so that we are the major importers of the world, garnering a third of the overall world's imports share. Our demand had ensured that Myanmar, our neighbour, gets a steady market to sell its chickpea to us. To help us out they have doubled their average yields too.......how kind! And how benevolent of us to actually give Myanmar a window to trade with us (a big one at that!)

Although chickpea production is not going to register a growth in production in the coming years but what is important to note is that the rising population would keep up the demand of not just chickpea but the whole pulse sector in general. The Kabuli chickpea does pose some exciting prospects in the chickpea sector but for the masses desi will always be the option for daily use. Therefore although there may be some rise in the Kabuli demand it will never be able to gain substantially on the desi demand. But despite these developments primary producers are not in a position to benefit from the enhanced demand dynamics as the productivity of chickpea is very low and erratic owing to various reasons (lack of technology penetration, lack of seed research, long supply chains etc.) The nil import duties for pulses also mean that countries with higher levels of productivity and lesser costs of productions like Myanmar and Australia will have cheaper farm gate prices and therefore would be a better option than the home-grown desi chickpea.

Upwards in the value chain almost all the actors are trying to diversify their businesses by trading in other items also like ginger coriander etc. Almost every mill that we went to it was observed that it was not more than 50 to 100 days that the mill actually operated for milling chickpeas.

The issues with chickpea and in fact for the whole pulse sector are structural in nature. The Govt’s view that pulses is only “a poor man’s food” and not a “poor man’s crop” is what is driving the policies around pulses. With rising populations and a very low productivity in the whole pulse sector (chickpea being no different at 788 Kgs/Ha) there is always a demand-supply mismatch and, therefore, our dependence on the international market for imports to meet our demands. In addition, chickpea and the pulse sector in general suffers from very long and complicated supply chains with too many intermediaries adding too little value!

With India being a giant player in the international pulse import scenario, prices tend to go berserk with the realisation of the market of impending large scale purchases to match the demand supply mismatch in India; this pushes prices up in the market and pushing all pulses away from the reach of the masses.Well our sarkaar trading wings....(MMTC, STC etc.) are past masters in doing exactly what should not be done in an international market. When we are such big buyers in the international market. instead doing it stealthily..... we do it the big way.......we make a hue cry of our deficits and that gives the chance to international prices to go northwards! Additionally, unlike grains like wheat and paddy, pulses do not have the advantage of captive marketing by the Govt and therefore more prone to the mercies of the private players.

Both Desi and Kabuli chickpea because of its inherent advantages that it can be grown with lesser number of irrigations and also in rainfed condition becomes such an important crop for poor smallholders but unfortunately this is not a crop which is grown by big powerful farmers who have powerful lobbies in the govt. This is mainly grown by smallholders under rainfed conditions...so who cares about producers......keep on importing and whenever there is a brouhaha about rising prices!always blame it on the monsoons or on the producers!

Ohh yes!!!! Us development wallahs' roles in promoting chickpea?? .....will write about sometime again! till then CIAO!