Stories of disasters foretold

by JOHN SAMUELAPRIL 10, 2016

 Narada News 

Why do we have so many stories of disasters foretold in Kerala? The tragedy in the early hours of Sunday due to the explosion of fireworks in a temple woke us again from our weekend slumber and callous apathy. Once the disaster happens we all get shocked, the government gets in to responsive mode, media highlights the issues and a commission of inquiry gets established. Once those steps are taken we wait for the next story of the disaster to unfold for another set of predictable response. However, we as a society or as a government hardly learn from the past stories of disaster and we move on to the comfort-zones of ‘business- as usual’ mode.

The tragedy that killed more than hundred people Sunday morning by fireworks at Puttingal Devi temple , Paravur, near Kollam, once again exposed that the government and people are yet to learn from the tragic lessons of the past. As I write now, the entire government paraphernalia, media and all the powerful and mighty from the government and political parties are rushing towards Paravur to express their concern and to make a point that government, both at the centre and state is responsive to the tragedy. In the next two days media will have stories full of this tragedy and experts will dissect the causes and consequence of tragedy.

The government will announce a judicial commission and after a week everyone in the media and political parties will be busy with the election. Thus one more tragedy and hundreds of dead people will move into the backyards of history.

In the aftermath of a ‘man-made’ (as mostly men are responsible for disasters of war and destruction) disaster, there is an almost a predictability of responses. Most of the leaders would make it an opportunity to demonstrate their ‘crisis-management’ skills and media will have lots of work to do for few days after the disaster. In India, there have been a series of fire accidents in the last ten years killing more than hundreds of people in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and elsewhere. There have been so many deaths due to the explosion of firecrackers in Sivakasi as well as in Kerala. In a huge explosion of fire-crackers at the Peruvuruthy Malanada in Kollam District, around 33 people died in 1990. There have been number of incidents firework explosion in Kollam district alone.

In the last few years Kerala witnessed a series of man-made disasters. In 2009, around 45 people,mostly tourists lost their life when a boat sank in the Thekkady Lake. In 2011, more than hundred people lost life and so many hundreds were injured during a stampede at Pullumedu near the hill shrine of Sabarimala. In road accidents at least one person die, every two hours in Kerala. Last year there were around 39,000 road accidents and 29,000 people were injured. Of these 9,000 suffered from serious injuries. It is estimated that more than 4200 people die every year due to road accidents.

Kerala is supposed to be one of the well-governed states. Kerala society is relatively more literate, educated and empowered. The southernmost state is also supposed to be relatively more democratic in terms of party politics and elections. However, there are more and more instances of man-made disasters in Kerala. Despite concerns of the media and society, and the quick response of the government, the fact of the matter is that Kerala society in general and the government paraphernalia in particular are simply cynical. There is an entrenched sense of callous apathy at various level of governance. We have become a rhetorical society devoid of responsible action to prevent or manage disasters.

Soon after the boat tragedy in Thekkady, there were lots of discussion about safety measures and if there is a quick check on the safety measures or disaster preparedness of boats in Kerala, there will be serious safety and security lapses. Soon after the fire-work explosion at the Malanada temple there were number of discussions on ensuring safety measures to prevent such disaster. But soon after, the media and those in the government and the society in general forgot about all those measures. The usual approach is to put the blame on someone and then make a customary noise for the ban of all fire-works etc.

Those of us involved in disaster responses and disaster mitigation have been asking the government to ensure an active disaster prevention approach across Kerala. In 2012, the government of Kerala organised an excellent international conference on Disaster Preparedness and I was personally involved in organising this important learning event. All the experts on disaster mitigation and management provided a series of recommendations. One of the recommendations that I have given was to ensure that there is a disaster and safety protocol at the level of panchyat and municipalities. The key recommendation was to designating a standing committee on disaster preparedness and safety at the level of local government at the district, block and panchayat level. It is also important to include safety and disaster preparedness training to police, fire-force and the entire official concerned.

In the last fifteen years, the number of high-rise buildings have increased exponentially in Kerala. However, most of the corporations or municipalities don’t have even a single rescue lift or evacuation device if there is a fire on the high-rise building in Kerala. Despite such a decision in 2012 and despite so many requests the government is yet to invest in a fire-and safety system for high-rise residential and office buildings in Kerala. Though there is a relatively more active state disaster management authority and Institute for Land and Disaster Management in Kerala, there are serious issues of capacity and preparedness at the grassroots level.

In the context of the present fireworks tragedy, the immediate knee jerk reaction will be to ban all fire-works in Kerala. The real villain of the story is not the art and science of pyrotechnics. The real villain of the story is the sheer sense of cynical apathy within our society or government in preventing such tragedy. The aesthetics of fire-work was invented in China in the 7th century. In China, the firework was used to ward off evil spirits from the temples. There was active trade-links with China and the present day Kerala for centuries. The chances are that the idea of using firework to ward off evil spirits from temple must have been influenced by the Chinese traders settled in Kollam for few centuries. Kollam was thriving port and a hub for Chinese trade and ships from 8th century to 14th century. There is a whole range of Chinese influence in the art, architecture and cuisines of Kerala.

Instead of asking for a knee-jerk response of banning pyrotechnics in Kerala, what is required is a set of key policy measures and systems to ensure safety and security of such fireworks. As of now almost all in the fireworks trade are those who practise it as a family business and often the training and skill-development is through informal networks without any training in safety or science of pyrotechnics. The government must institute at least six months compulsory training and regular ‘in-service’ training before granting licence to such practiconers. There has to be a strict safety and security protocol to ensure that all such practice of pyrotechnics are done in safe, and secure environment and ensuring minimal air and noise pollution. Both the police and fire-and rescue departments should be trained in ensuring that there is spot-check to provide final approval for such a pyrotechnic performance. There has to be strict measure to ensure the safe storage, secure transportation and ensuring that people are at a safe distance from the site of pyrotechnics and the magazine store house.

I have had the privilege to witness the sheer beauty of the pyrotechnics across the world. The largest of the event was held in Norway where I used to live. The Beijing Olympics stunned the world with the beauty of the pyrotechnics. Both Singapore and Japan are also famous for the pyrotechnics. However, in all these countries, the pyrotechnics is managed through a professional safety and security management system. In the case of Kerala, there are hardly any safety and security measures comparable to the international standards. The second issue is that most of the fireworks is a part and parcel of the temple festivals in Kerala. Hence, it is a sensitive issue to question the validity or rationale for such fireworks in densely populated areas and crowded spaces. In the present context of increasing sectarianism, even those who are deeply concerned about safety will adopt the convenience of silence as they would be termed as ‘communal’ to raise such issues. What we need to challenge and change is the all pervading sense of cynical callousness at different levels of governance and society. The most important tribute to all our brothers and sisters who lost their lives in this tragedy is to ensure that we commit ourselves to ensure safety and disaster preparedness in every panchayat , municipality and corporations of Kerala.http://naradanews.com/2016/04/stories-of-disaster-foretold/

Social Media Campaigns

                        

                                                 John Samuel

I.          What is a campaign?

A campaign is a planned and organised set of communicative and social actions, within a definite span of time, to influence a set of people/public/decision makers to convince them to support a certain cause/ initiative/goal/ or specific objective. The nature and character of campaigns will be influenced by the social, cultural and political context in which a campaign is launched. In designing a campaign, there has to be clarity of purpose, audience, messages and modes of communication.

Principles matter

The most important aspect of a social media campaign is a clear and shared understanding of the ethical principles that inform the campaign. For example, peace, justice, non-violence, integrity, protecting environment, human dignity, social responsibility, and equity are all core values that will have implications for the strategic use of social media for inter-religious dialogue or for peace initiative.

It is often a shared sense of core ethical principles that help dialogue between those who belong to different religious traditions or beliefs.

Elements of a campaign

A good campaign will have the following aspects:

1)  A clearly defined goal(what do you want to achieve?)

2)  Target of campaign and communication( whom do you want to influence?)

3)  A clear idea about key messages (what do you want others to hear)

4)  Framing the message( How do you convey your message in a way others want to listen)

5)  Choice of appropriate medium( Social media /mass media/ alternate media)

6)  Strategic knowledge-action networking( who are the your allies/fence-sitters/opponents)

7)  Communication strategies( information becomes powerful when one knows how to make strategic use of information)

8)  Consistent and focused messaging ( don’t lose focus or get distracted from the goal)

9)  Winning over strategic people/organisations to speak for your campaign (when others begin to speak your message, you are winning)

10)        Monitoring the effectiveness of the campaign( outreach and quality of messaging)

11)        Reorient the communication strategies if required.

II.         Social Media Campaign

Social media channels /options( Facebook, Twitter,  Whatsapp, Snapchat, Instagram, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vine etc.) are interactive communication platforms that would help to communicate real time messages/images/videos instantly all across the world. Social media can be local as well as global; social media can communicate to a whole range of actors across the globe based on the purpose of communication and the character of message.
Social media campaigns are planned and organised interactive communication strategies for influencing a set of actors for a particular cause/initiatives/ objectives, primarily making use of the social media channels.

Social media campaign can also help to get traction in the mass/earned media channels.

Hence, a multi-pronged trans-media strategy can be effective to use both social media to get tractions of mass media as well. Social media campaigns become effective when there is a complementarity between social media campaign and other communicative and social action. Social media campaign can often amplify and help to reach out to a larger audience on real-time basis. Social media campaigns become effective when they are supported by a portal or webpage or a blog as the words and images in social media have a ‘fleeting’ character.

Three key aspects of an effective social media campaign:

1)  Timing

2)  Framing

3)  Targeting

a)  The timing of social media campaign is crucial for the success. The choice of time will have to be carefully chosen depending on the purpose, target audience and opportunities.

b)  Framing:The most important aspect in messaging is the ‘framing’. The same message can be ‘framed’ in number of ways. A strategic ‘framing’ (for example using photos, small videos, positive messaging) help others to listen to your voice. ‘Framing’ is the art of managing your message in way that others want to hear or see. Framing helps to avoid ‘self-righteousness / aggressive modes of communications and make communication into an art of making others to listen your voice/message.

c)   Different strokes for different folks.  Communication strategies may have to be customized for different target groups and choice of the social media channel can vary depending on the strategic audience.

Strategies to remember

a)  Social media is not one- way traffic: The significance of social media is in its interactive character over time and space. Hence, it is important to manage discontent/disagreement/haters/trolls etc. in a subtle way. You are not alone in social media. Social media often is like a cacophony; many millions of people chatting, discussing, communicating multiple messages at the same-time. Hence, it is important to manage to get your target audience and manage multiple distractions on the social media

b)  Build an active social media profile:Social mediaspace is an interactive communicative space primarily used by people. It is the ‘human-touch’ that makes social media unique.  Hence, building credibility within social media requires a consistent engagement and an active social media presence to build an active social media profile. An active social media profile is built over a period of time and by building credibility through interesting and informative posts and images.  Effective and active social media profile helps to build a community of online friends and supporters in the social media. Such a positive profile and active support/friends base often help to fast-track social media campaigns.

c)  Art of Hash-tags: Hash-tags are strategic labeling to attract more people to your campaign message. Hash-tags are certainly important for twitter and Facebook communications.

d) Language matters:It is important to choose the language, depending on your target audience. While English is useful to reach out to an international audience, it may not be effective to reach out to your particular constituency. There is a wide range of more than hundred languages used in social media. Hence, depending on the context, one or more languages will have to be chosen based on the target group and those whom you want to influence.

e)  Have something to say and know how to say it:It is not only the choice of language but also the choice of words and tone matter in social media communication. Social media campaign is to communicate to convince, convince to change and change to commit to your cause. Hence, the tone and content of the communication will have to be to win over maximum number of people for your cause. Hence, the use of language will have to be appealing and good enough to make others listen to you.

f)   ABC of social media communications: Accurate, brief and clear in your communications.  

g)  Images inspire: A photo or short video (3minutes) can be more effective than a thousand words.  A strategic communication requires multiple modes of communication and ensures that communication is catchy, informative as well as appealing to a larger audience. Well-designed posters, small videos and excellent photos can often go a long way to reach out to lots of people. Infographics can help too.

h)  Real Network works:  Social media communication requires an art of orchestrating your real –life networks.  As social media will have lots of noises, it is often difficult to get your voice heard. This requires a strategy of working in tandem with a group of thirty or hundred or more people who would ‘like’ your posts, re-tweet or share you’re your Facebook posts.  Usually people use ‘Whats app’ groups to coordinate their posts in twitter or Facebook. This ensures that as soon as you post something, the same messages get re-tweeted or shared by so many people and post in to so many groups that your message will reach the target groups. This orchestrating strategy helps to get your voice ‘amplified’ and heard in the midst of competing messages.

i)   Consistent engagement and constant monitoring:  Social media is about instant communications. This requires consistent engagement as social media is all about people and engaging with them in a strategic way to win over their support. In a campaign page or campaign group, your opponents or those who disagree with you can manipulate communicative space and turn it around. Hence, consistent engagement and constant monitoring is a must in social media campaign.

III.       Dialogues for Peace

Dialogical communication involves sharing, listening and understanding multiple perspectives to enhance our own perspectives and perception. The purpose of a dialogue is to understand multiple perspectives and also discover the areas of convergence. A shared sense of ethical principles and values can facilitate the process of dialogues

Dialogues require a sense of empathy and an ability to understand different dimensions of a position or perspective and an ability to find areas of convergence depending on the topic of the discussions. While dialogues are relatively easy in a secret Facebook groups, dialogues can be problematic in open-public groups as there could be many who may intervene in a discussions and begin to distract the discussions or troll. Hence, it is important to moderate discussions in open groups and begin to manage those who distract the discussions or trolls (by deleting message or even blocking those who are primarily there to distract)

One of the major challenges for those who use social media for inter-religious dialogue or peace is the high prevalence of negative images and negative stereotypes. Hence, it is important to identify positive stories and positive images that help to build a positive image and positive examples for inter-religious cooperation and dialogues.

While social media can facilitate dialogue across the different geography, virtual dialogues become effective when they lead to real actions on the ground or inspiring more dialogical action.

Effective dialogues require active moderation and working across networks to steer the dialogue to a desired action/objectives.

One of the challenges of social media is the fleeting words and images. Hence, it will be also useful to use websites and blogs to coordinate the discussions and take the dialogue or campaign forward.

Social media campaigns and communications help when there is real communicative space beyond the virtual communication and when virtual communication gets transformed in to real commitment and communicative space. This multi-prong approach of making use of multiple communicative spaces to inspire real action is what makes social media campaigning and communication relevant.

John Samuel

Jsadoor@gmail.com

തിരഞ്ഞെടുപ്പ് ചിന്തകൾ

വീണ്ടും ഒരു തിരഞ്ഞെടുപ്പ് മാമാങ്കത്തിന് കേരളത്തിലെയും മറ്റു സംസ്ഥാനങ്ങളിലേയും രാഷ്ട്രീയ കക്ഷികൾ തയ്യാറെടുപ്പിലാണ്. തിരഞ്ഞെടുപ്പ് ഒരു ജനായത്ത വ്യവസ്ഥയിൽ ഏറ്റവും പ്രധാന ഘടകമാണ് . എന്നാൽ തിരഞ്ഞെടുപ്പിലെ പണാധിപധ്യം ജനായത്ത തിരഞ്ഞെടുപ്പ് വ്യവസ്ഥയെ തന്നെ കളന്ഗിതമാക്കുന്നു. തിരഞ്ഞെടുപ്പ് കമ്മിഷൻ അനുവദിച്ചതിൽ എത്രയോ ഇരട്ടി തുകയാണ് മിക്ക സ്ഥാനാര്തികളും ചിലവഴിക്കുന്നത്. ഒട്ടുമിക്ക പ്രധാന രാഷ്ട്രീയ പാർടികളും അവർക്ക് കിട്ടുന്ന ഫണ്ടിങ്ങിന്റെ ഉറവിടത്തെ കുറിച്ചോ എങ്ങനെ ചിലവാക്കുന്നു എന്നതിനെകുറിച്ചോ സത്യാവസ്ഥയോ വെളിപ്പെടുത്താറില്ല. മിക്ക വന്കിട അഴിമതികളുടെയും ഉത്ഭവം തുടങ്ങത് തല്പര കക്ഷികളായ കൊർപെറെട്ടു ബിസിനെസ്സ്കാര് കോടിക്കണക്കിനു തുക പാര്ടികൾക്കും പ്രധാന സ്ഥാനര്തികൾക്കും 'സംഭാവന' നല്കുന്നതോട് കൂടിയാണ്. കൂടുതൽ കൂടുതൽ കൊർപെര്രട്ടു ബാന്ധവങ്ങൾ ഉണ്ടാകുമ്പോൾ രാഷ്ട്രീയ പാർടികളും കോര്പ്രേട്ടവൽക്കരിക്കപ്പെടുന്നു. തിരഞ്ഞടുപ്പ് പരസ്യങ്ങളും മുദ്രാവാക്യങ്ങളും അട്വേര്ടിസിംഗ് ഏജൻസികൾക്ക് ഔട്സൌഴ്സ് ചെയ്യപ്പെടുന്നു. തിരഞ്ഞെടുപ്പ് മാനേജ്‌മന്റ്‌ ഇവന്റ്-മാനേജ്‌മന്റ്‌ കമ്പിന്കൾക്ക് കൈമാറുന്നു. ഇപ്പോൾ വന്നു വന്നു സ്ഥാനര്തികളെ പ്പോലും ഔട്സൌര്സ് ചെയ്യേണ്ട അവസ്ഥയിൽ ആയിരിക്കുന്നു . ഒട്ടുമിക്ക രാഷ്ട്രീയ പാർട്ടികളുടെയും താഴത്തെ ഘടകങ്ങള്ക്ക് പഞ്ചായത്ത് തിരഞ്ഞെടുപ്പിനപ്പുറത്തു വലിയ റോളില്ലാത്ത അവസ്ഥയാനിന്നുള്ളത്. പാർലിമെന്റു അസ്സംബ്ലി തിര്ഞ്ഞുട്പ്പിൽ സ്ഥാനര്തികൾ ആകുവാൻ താഴെ തലത്തിൽ നിന്ന് പ്രവര്ത്തിച്ചു വന്നവർക്ക് അവസരങ്ങൾ ഇല്ലാതായിക്കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നു. അതുകൊണ്ട് തന്നെ തിരഞ്ഞെടുപ്പ് ഉത്സാഹ കമ്മറ്റികല്ല്ക്കപ്പുറം ലോക്കൽ നേതാക്കൾക്ക്‌ പറയത്തക്ക സ്റ്റൈക്കൊന്നുമില്ല. ആയതിനാൽ ഒട്ടുമിക്ക രാഷ്ട്രീയ പര്ട്ടികളുടെയും താഴെത്തട്ടിലുള്ള നേതാക്കളും അണികളും അസംത്രിപ്തരാണ്.ഈ അവസ്ഥയിൽ മിക്ക പാര്ടികളുടെയും അടിത്തട്ടു ദ്രവിച്ചു കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നു. ഏതിങ്കിലും സ്ഥാനമാനങ്ങൾ ഇല്ലങ്കിൽ രാഷ്ട്രീയ പാർട്ടികളിൽ പ്രവർത്തിക്കാൻ ആളെ കിട്ടാനില്ലാത്ത അവസ്ഥയാണ് മിക്ക രാഷ്ട്രീയ പാരടികളും ഇന്നുള്ളത്. ഇപ്പോഴും വിരളിൽ എന്നവുന്നത്ര സ്ത്രീകള് മാത്രമാണ് തിരഞ്ഞെടുപ്പിൽ മത്സരിക്കുന്നത് . ഏതെങ്കിലും നേതാക്കളുടെയോ അവരുടെ കോര്പരെട്ടു സ്പോൻസർമാരുടെയോ, ജാതി-മത-വര്ഗീയ സംഘടനകളുടെയോ അനുഗ്രഹആശിസുകൾ ഇല്ലങ്കിൽ ഇന്ന് ഒരു രാഷ്ട്രീയ പാര്ട്ടിയും ആര്ക്കും സീറ്റ് കൊടുക്കാത്ത അവസ്ഥയാണുള്ളത് . എങ്ങനെയും ഭരണം കൈക്കലാക്കാൻ മാത്രം തത്രപ്പെടുന്ന രാഷ്ട്രീയ നേതാക്കളും പ്രത്യേയശാസ്ത്രവും ധർമികതുമെല്ലം വാചക കസ്ര്തുമാത്രമാകുമ്പോൾ രാഷ്ട്രീയ പാർട്ടികളിൽ സാധാരണക്കാരായ ജനങ്ങൾക്കുള്ള വിശ്വാസം കുറയെന്നു. ഇന്ന് ജനയാത്ത വ്യവസ്ഥ നേരിടുന്ന ഏറ്റുവും വലിയ വെല്ലുവിളി രാഷ്ട്രീയ പാര്ട്ടികളുടെ അരാഷ്ട്രീയവൽക്കരണവും കോര്പെടട്ടുവല്ക്കരണവുമാണ്.

Random Reflections- Facebook interventions.

We live by Dreams and Death

As I have written elsewhere , we all live by dreams and death. The core existential angst of human kind is the internalised angst of death from the time one derives an identity and reconciling that life is unpredictable and the fear of death become a part of existence and life itself. The paradox is that the roots of most of the creative ,productive and reproductive urges of human beings are driven by angst and fear of death. This angst of internalised unpredictability of death and an urge to achieve immortality is the beginning of religion and the idea of rebirth or life after death or urges for heaven or fear of hell. This is why almost all religions offered freedom from death or through death and survive on invoking fear of death and destruction and offering the dreams of 'eternity or eternal life'. Hence the notion of creation, ( sristi, sthithi, samhara and punarjani), sustenance, death and rebirth. In fact human creativity is driven by the imaginative potentials of dreams and the human will to create transform dreams in to multiple forms of creative expressions that can outlive us so that we have at least illusive glimpses of immortality and the urge to leave the foot print after the demise.Hence Shakespeare is still with us, centuries after the person of that 'name' died.. So is Buddha, Jesus , Marx or Che or Van Gog or Einstein, Narayana Guru or OV Vijayan. When there is less human will to transform dreams in to creative expressions , human begins simply reproduce by sustaining their gene-pools and giving their names to their children. We all love , make love and live by dreams and death. At some points of life death looks more real than dreams and we begin to wonder how others may respond to death. Human begins live by dreams and death.
( in response to a facebook post by my friend Murali Vettath- sharing his feeling on the death)
23 March, 2016


On Inequality in India

As per the Oxfam research report 22 people in India owns as much as wealth of the entire fifty percent of the population. This means huge concentration of wealth in few hands; twenty two people have wealth equivalent to the wealth of around 600 million people!!
The issues of social , economic and consequent political inequality and the emerging trends of social and political fascism pose serious challenges and potential crisis to the democracy and democratic governance India. Around thirty families control the predominant part of politics, market and media in India. Crony capitalists of different variety are laughing all the way to their own banks every day. They finance elections of major players on the winning and losing side; they buy out media and journalists; they take over mines, minerals, gas ; they finance NGOs and think tanks to posture and pontificate on their 'social responsibility'. They accompany the Prime Ministers and President in search of foreign markets ; they provide vehicles to MPs and grants /fellowship for the kids of journalists and politicians to study in Europe and America. They can finance or finish off a politician. Whose nation is it any way?
( responding and sharing the Oxfam India report on Inequality)
March 21, 2016


Depoliticisation of Political Parties

The irony of the Indian politics is that political parties are increasingly being depoliticised. They have become election networks of interests and identities managed by political managers on the top. Their communications look more like corporate advertisements outsourced to corporate advertising companies in Metros. There is hardly any transparency or accountability of the real sources of income and expenditure of most of the political parties. The perception is that the unaccounted 'black money' get into full circulation mode during the elections. Many of the 'resourceful' political elites 'invest ' in all sorts of construction or other outfits and get the money back during elections. In other cases corporate business establishments or NRI business outfits invest in political leaders and parties in anticipation of the return on their investment. They hire election fixers and 'strategists to 'manage' elections. Such fixers can move from Mody camp to Nitish campaign to Congress 'high command ' without any problems as basically their politics is dispensable and they consider themselves as operators in the electoral market place and made elections campaigns into marketing campaign circus.. Many political parties are not confident of their leaders to win the election and then seats get outsourced to retired film actors/ actors or TV anchors with a 'nice face'. There is no problem for anyone to contest election on behalf of any alliance. But when we have candidates with zero engagement with the political or social process and contest only because people have seen their face on TV or Cinema , it shows the decreasing self confidence of political parties in themselves.

( Responding to the outosourcing of election campaign to advertising agencies and the tendency to hire a candidate from non-political background to win an election)
20 March 2016

Media Masala for Money

The 24×7 media are desperately in search of news to fill in their slots. There are 14 channels in Kerala. Whenever there is even slight chances of a sensation , 24×7 pursue it vigorously to 'build up' the controversy or like Times Now cook up a controversy through the shouting matches of Arnab barking variety . The TV media is in a crowded market desperately trying to increase ad revenue and this requires flow of masala and gossips and controversies. This is why Sarita gets TV media coverage which she uses for her own 'business' and actually even made a business model' of benefiting from cooking up allegations and distributing them in different slots to use media . Tv media are facing a huge crisis. Earlier they only had to compete with print media and now they also have to compete with online media and social networks. We are all living in the time of hypermedia. Media market requires controversies to attract the audience as the new generation of people depend more on social media and social networks. Hence the 24×7 media managers are desperately in search for one or other masala for the dinner discussions. And generally there is a lack of imagination and enterprise in the TV media space. Hence they imitate each other and copy each other and go with the flow of the day. Even now the TV in Kerala follow the programme design of the old Asianet and there is hardly any imagination in developing new programme. And even for dinner discussions they recycle the very same characters with very predictable rhetoric . As a result more and more viewers are leaving TV. This shows a trend. I too increasingly access news and views on social network as i have wide range of choices to read or not to read. How many of you actually watch the TV discussions and masala in the evening?

( responding to the tendency of how each media channel try to cook up a new controversy for the discussions and go in for another controversy next day without any commitment to do substantive journalism or follow up)
19 March, 2016

The tragic predicament of the Congress Party

The problem with the Congress Party is its sheer opportunism and trying to be everything to everyone. What made the congress to this sad predicament of dispersion and dissipation in most of the states is that it has been reduced to a bunch of leaders fighting with each other for a slice of governmental power at any cost. No one can join the congress party today. They can only join a faction of one or other of local chieftain fighting with each other or outsmart the other to capture the paraphernalia of governmental power. There is only one ideology : it is the ideology of unending want of governmental power and it's comforts zone. Power here is less about responsibility and more about the comforts ; power here is not about people and more about the paraphernalia; Power here is not about transformation but about the status quo; power here is not the power of people but power of corporate lords. Power here is not to serve but to show off. Power here is more about convenience and compromises and less about conviction and commitment. Nehru is a nostalgia and an unfinished dream. Gandhi is far away and reduced to the power of currency notes and photo in the establishments of interests.Unless congress move out of the ideology of power for the sake of it and redeem itself from the rootless soothsayers in the corridors of power and self-serving bunch of parasites of power, the grand old party of India will continue to lose credibility . The problem is that there are no more congress men and women of the good old party of Gandhi, Nehru or Azad in the congress establishments of today..When are we going to have at least few leaders with courage of conviction ?
( responding to the news that congress party supported the suspension of a MLA in Maharashtra Assembly  for saying that he won't should Bharath Mata Ki Jai because Sangh parivar hijacked the slogan during the freedom struggle to make it a saffron campaign)

18 March 2016


On Civil Service 

This is how civil servants should be...and this kind participatory excercises can make a difference. A typical 'civil' boss is perceived as personification of the arrogant bureacracy and often follow the status quo of hierarchy and the colonial ghosts of power 'over' people are still haunting the so-called 'civil ' 'service' . The irony is that most of them are neither 'civil' nor consider their mandate as ' service '. It is time to get rid of the term 'collector' , another colonial hangover as if still their role is to 'rule to collect taxes' for the colonial power. They should be designated as DCEO District Chief Executive Officer . In any case it is good to read that there are still many who try to be true civil servants. My friend Prasanth Nair too belongs to this tribe . It is encouraging that new generation of IAS are beginning to move out of the feudal and colonial modes of power 'over" people to a more democratic 'power with' people.
( Responding to the news that the Erankulam Distric Collector and his wife- IPS- joined the people in cleaning up a local pond as a part of the campaign to clean up all ponds in the city)
16 March 2016

Marginalisation of Women's in Politics of Kerala

Why is that all political parties in Kerala continue to marginalize women leaders when it comes to women's political participation in Assembly elections and assembly ?Kerala has one of the worst record of representation for women in the Assembly . All political parties still remain male-centric and patriarchal in their approach to women leaders . There are political parties like Muslim League with zero woman participation in Assembly. The record of a dozen pieces of Kerala Congress too is next to nothing. The entire UDF had only one women. LDF is better not because they have adequate representation and because the UDF is pathetic when it comes to women's political participation. Today every party will say platitudes on women's rights. How many political parties will have the honesty and guts to say at least one third of candidates will be women leaders in forthcoming assembly election ? It is time to publicly shame the leaders of political parties who never have not even a single women in Assembly 
( responding to lack of women's political participation in Kerala on 8 March)

8 March , 2016

How can we improve the public sector enterprises in Kerala?

 John Samuel

Following are the few of the recommendations  that I made in the session to improve the public sector enterprises, at the 4th International Congress of the Kerala Studies, held at AKG Centre, Trivandrum on 9-10 January, 2016




1)Make  a clear distinction between public sector companies involved in delivering essential services like water, electricity and public transport and  other state-owned enterprises designed to operate in the market place competing with other private actors. We also need to make distinction between sectors with government monopoly ( eg Kerala state beverages corporation ) and those enterprises that will face still competition from private actors in india and elsewhere.

Such a clear distinction is important for a clear strategy development to revitalise each of those enterprises to add value and make profit. As of now the loss is calculated mixing all these into one basket giving a very distorted picture to various stakeholders and public.

2) It is imported to re conceptualise these as peoples's enterprises rather than government owned enterprises as the predominant image is that bureaucratic establishments in partnership with a political elites attached with dominant political party formations. It is due to this approach that almost all such enterprises are 'administered '( rather than managed) by typical status quoits bureaucrats rather than professionally trained managerial leaders with domain knowledge and marketing capability. Hence, there has to be moratorium to point typical IAS/IPS officers without any domain knowledge or management aptitude or to accommodate the cronies of respective ministers or the party. It is this 'administrative' , 'accommodative'  and adhoc approach that derailed most of these enterprises. This also resulted in corruption at all levels and a work culture devoid of any sense of accountability and transparency. Hence there is need for a paradigm shift at political , policy, governance , management and operational level to revitalise, sustain and make them profitable enterprises with a collective sense of ownership.

3) A strategic analysis of each of the enterprises need to be done and then decide the principles of capacity, market viability and adaptation to changing context of competition and market dynamics.

4)  initiate  a  multi-stakeholder discussion at each of the enterprises by taking all the employees and trade unions in to confidence. Such multi-stakeholder discussions should also involve management experts, governance experts, and also people with direct domain knowledge of the  specific product and the niche market for such a product. Each of the companies can develop a viable revitalisation plan considering all prose and cons.

5) Create  a special vehicle to attract new funding through new investments from NRI workers and small entrepreneurs from the GCC  and other countries.

5) Public  sector for essential services may be restructured to make then optimally efficient and economically viable, rather profit motive alone. However, other enterprises  designed to compete in the market place must have profit generation motive and they must be fully managed by professionally competent managers.

7) It is important to develop a broader social and political consensus about the political economy rationale of revitalising and sustaining such enterprises and boost people's confidence as the entire media discourse is that government should sell off all these to private actors, in consonance with neo-liberal   sort of 'constructed' 'common sense'. It is also important take the trade unions in to confidence about the need to take a long term perspective rather than a very narrow immediate interest perspective.

8) I think it is important to take a principled as well as pragmatic view on each of the public sector enterprises. The key challenge is that all of them are bogged down in operational baggages and cumulative mismanagement and a non-accountable work culture. This operational preoccupation and the cumulative politicisation of all aspects ( from appointment to purchase to management to governance to marketing ) have a debilitating effect and also play major hinderance to creative and strategic approach to the SOEs.

Without a broader political , policy and social consensus , there is a danger that  there will be a broad discourse ( driven by neoliberal agenda) to sell them off.
So we need a specific detailed  strategic approach for each of the companies, a broader policy and governance approach and a  consistent  advocacy at various levels

Cry my beloved world!

Blood screaming today in Paris

Yesterday in Beirut
In the hinterlands of Syria
In the antique lands of Babylon
In Mesopotamia
In the land of Pharos
On the mountains of Sinai
Blood screaming loud
Day before in Mumbai
London
New York
In Kabul and Karachi
In Nigeria and Norway
And everywhere.
Blood screaming from the streets
hatred splash blood.
In the dark labyrinths
of agonies and anger

The pools of blood,
the stench of the dead
In Paris, Beirute,
Mumbai, Ahemdabad, Delhi and Dadri.
The coloure and creed of hate
keep changing
in search of imagined heaven or pure countries.
By lynching, shooting, burning or bombing
In the name of God, freedom or patriotism.

Guns get made everyday
In all sizes and shapes
Automatic,semi-automatic
Well designed to play in blood
Quickly and swiftly
In unspeakable rage of imagined revenge
In schools and streets
In barren landscape of conscience
Guns of muscle and money
In factories for 'security'
Guns that burn the hearts and minds
Bombs of Bush
Never brought freedom
Anywhere.
Mutated in to macabre of hate
In dark webs
in search of fresh blood
everywhere.
The weapons of mass destruction
In the injured minds everywhere
Angrily in search of imagined enemies
Blooming in to flames of hell
Seeking heaven in the mutilated bodies
Of the 'other'

Promising freedom, and evoking fear
Promising security , evoking insecurity
In the marshy lands of mistrust
Seeking enemies , infidels and the 'other'
Everyday everywhere
In the name of God,
In the name colour
In the name of a country
In the name of doctrines
In the name of cow
In the name of a flag!

Processions of coffins
Of children, young, old , and dreams
In the graveyard of poetry and politics
In the lonely despair of night
I took the world in to my lap
Touched every city,
Every country, continents and streets
Everywhere it pains
In a feverish anguish
Of children in the millions of wombs
Waiting be born in to a planet of fear,
Everywhere it pains
Tears in the graveyard of dear ones.
Everywhere it pains.

We shall overcome someday,
the fear with love and hope
We shall wait for the truth to replace untruths
We shall wait for light to erase darkness
We shall wait for the real to remove the unreal
We shall wait for life to remove the dead-minds
We shall wait eternally for love to erase our fear
Ohm Shanti, Shanti, shanti

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Ramesan Kesavan, Sajan Gopalan, Santosh Singh and 23 others like this.

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