Where is community radio in India today?

I've written briefly about radio in India as of today, and this is mainly my diatribe about what's happening with the third category of radio in India- Community Radio.
To get to the nub of the story straight away, its been one year (give or take a week) since the Government of India, declared that NGOs, colleges and Krishi Vigyan Kendras (and not communities!!!) can apply for community radio licenses.
Today not even one NGO is on air. About 30 colleges are on air today, but nobody knows what kind of programming they are doing, how much of the community they are involving, what kind of impact has it had and so on. There is no central or organizing force which makes this kind of information available.
So in the land of committees and sub-committees, how on Earth did we miss this one out? Of course we didn't!
Sometime in Jan 2007, a body calling itself Community Radio Forum (CRF) was formed, with some of the people who have been associated with community radio initiatives, being at the centre of things.
They would have campuses, NGOs, Krishi Vigyan Kendras as members (since the policy has forced them to share the roof). They would organize details about members, their programming, their impact, their policies, would take up their case in advocacy matters, at the time of application, in case they got in to trouble with the government, create awareness about the concept, facilitate better technology for community radio etc. A noble thought, and what's more, a noble action, the meeting I mean.
We have already seen how seriously the government has taken its own policy.
Now its going to be a year since the CRF was formed. Even today, the CRF has not registered itself. So there is no question of members. Some people who are interested, use the open mailing list cr-india@sarai.net.
My open challenge is to approach the communities anywhere in India, and see if they have heard about the CRF. My guess is that you would be able to count them on a single hand.
Many NGO's have got their application for radio rejected (despite them being rooted in the community) merely on grounds that they are based in conflict areas. Sadly, there is no organization to come to their defence.
NGOs or institutions new to this matter have no idea how to apply, or what equipment to buy or generally, what to do and when.
According to the laws of physics, there are more than 5 million community radio stations which can come up in India, and after a year, about 30 colleges is the best we can showcase to the world and to our people.
Today, the hype is over, people have gone back to their own jobs, and soon new policies will come and its going to be the same new circus all over again. I say with shame that the sheer potential of community radio in India (especially in India!) may never be realized, and we would have lost the opportunity of a lifetime to hand over the power of a medium like radio to the real people of India, who need it the most.
signing off- An ashamed member of the CRF

And the Dead Tree Gives No Shelter

A play by the same title was performed today by Parnab Mukerhjee, a development consultant and a creative mentor (don't ask me what that means!) at Koramangala.
The play stitches together three narratives, two of which are short stories by Mahasweta Devi, one of the more prolific short story writers and activists, based in West Bengal, India. The props used in the play were simple- A cloth with a Dali painting- The Persistence of Memory , a miniature face mask, some clips for drying clothes, a clothesline, some rope, black scotch tape, a chair and a bedsheet.
The play begins with the story of Yashodha, a tribal woman somewhere in Purulia, West Bengal, but place is insignificant as it resembles the tribal landscape anywhere else in India. The story is simple- the woman is young but her husband loses both legs in an accident, his employer is a lecherous fellow, and his employer's wife offers her money but she has to breastfeed her grandsons in return. She is a private fascist but just doesn't show it. Soon Yashoda starts breastfeeding other children in return for earning money. There is the conflict of why her identity should be reduced to her breasts only to earn some money but on the outward, she goes through the motions stoically. Soon, she learns that her husband has got property elsewhere and so he abandons her to start life anew with another woman. Her two daughters elope when the time is right. All three family members show disgust at being supported through the breastfeeding money (even though that was the sole means of support for them). Soon she dies from blood cancer.
The story is a front for reserving comment on the state of the Advasi in India, what is the extent to which they occupy the mindscape of ordinary people like you and me, what is the violent displacement they undergo and their miserable integration in to the urban life, by becoming servants, construction workers etc at the expense of state sponsored SEZ type projects.
The second story is that of Ram, who is a photographer who has attained fame by shooting Shurpanaki, an adivasi woman who was shot bare chested in all her innocence. This shot makes it to a calendar sold in New York and she becomes famous. Soon, the fame starts fading, and one day 12 members of the local Panchayat rape her precisely because of her fame. She confronts Ram (who is unaware of this incident) and he tries to placate her with some kind of compensation or rehabilitation, but she is way beyond such talk. She has totally lost all inkling of hope. Ultimately, Shurpanaki, who lives in a Shanty by the railway station in Mumbai, starts running towards the train, with Ram behind her. The newspaper states that two bodies have disappeared, in the next day's news.
The third story is Parnab's personal story, as a middle class failure, who in the days of successful role models, wants to become a model failure by committing suicide in full media glare. And so he invites the media people to cover his suicide, (by cutting himself with the free safety blades he got at an offer at a supermarket). He wants to die because he has no options left. He refers to researchers, academicians, fund loving NGOs, etc who all are a part of this hypocritical society who will watch and discuss and sympathise while the poor are systematically getting raped and murdered all over India.

All through the play, the emphasis was on the body itself. The body became the point of reference, and this was particularly thought provoking because today when everyone is talking about community, globalization and generally of a flat, uniform world; bringing the focus back on the body singles the individual, her feelings, her identity and brings the individual back into the picture. Perhaps this is a comment on how Adivasis are different from the rest of us, how they have always been neglected, been getting the raw end of the deal and how State attitudes and middle class attitudes in India don't really work for these Adivasi individuals whose stories are portrayed in this play. Ultimately, the play hits hard the point that all arts are either escapist or political, and maybe this is true of people on a larger level also, and Parnab provokes us into thinking whether we want to keep on living our lives with our aspirations and escape the realities around us or make a conscious decision to be political and actually have the courage to face the differences of this "socialist, democratic, secular and fairly well known republic called India"

The play does not assume to have any answers to the problem, and does not articulate any specific "social problems" either. All it does is tell some stories, largely unheard stories, and asks us to think about what we as individuals want to do about these stories.

All credit to Logos Theater and Parnab Mukherjee for bringing about this play, for the hard hitting lines and hopefully they will remain etched in memory long enough for us to wake up, sit and take notice.

Thought for Today-WTF

Hindus and Christians desperately trying to convert
Muslims desperate for survival
Buddhists getting stomped by generals
Jains pushed into obscurity
Sikhs fighting for identity
Today's the day
I remember Nietzsche

Leftwing genocide in Nandigram
Rightwing genocide in Gujarat
Ordinary people,
without any politics to hide behind,
thieving, killing and raping
The Congress is red taping

What government, what law and what order
What country and what border
Acually WTF

Rastey- an anthropological view of civil works

We Indians have humility
Is it philosophy?
Is it our tradition?
I think not,
what rot.
Cause if we don't look down,
we will disappear
down the holes down that road..
Our bodies-the full load..
and appear all bloated,
if not broken,
at the next sequential manhole
or pothole

Its the end of the Road!

An Ode to Whiskey

I don't know if its whiskey or whisky, but i like it with the e
So here goes:

I see the filth around me
I see the beauty
I see the lies around me
Truth abounding
Its a see-saw, hee haw
It's the economy, Stupid!
But hark, comes a day when,
bile rising in my throat,
head spinning
a smile on the face
pleasantly stupid,
cheap lobotomy
With a whisky jar in my hand
I dream on,
of a neutral universe

P.s- show me the way..to the next...

A review of Dharam

I saw Dharam, a film which has quite a sterling performance by Pankaj Kapur, who plays Pandit Chaturvedi, not to mention Supriya Pathak, who plays his wife.
Set in Varanasi, this film explores the mindset of the Hindu Brahmin, and the conflict that he faces in terms of accepting people from another community, specifically Muslims.
The story takes off with the priest accidentally touching a Dalit sweeper, on his way back from bathing in the Ganges, as a part of his morning ritual. This accidental touch results in the Dalit person getting beaten up by the onlookers, since he has defiled the priest. A rival priest, who happens to be there, says that even the shadow of a Dalit is not supposed to fall on a Brahmin.
The film then goes on to portray the priest's family life, which consists of an obedient wife, who is happy to accept everything which her husband says. He also has a daughter, who obeys his dictates, from education to not watching television! In the middle of all this, there is the beautiful young daughter of a patron, who falls in love with an American, Paul. She is supposed to be the embodiment of an Indian woman, who knows her status in society (which is nil without a husband) and quotes from the Manuskriti.
The film really takes off when an abandoned child is bought home by his daughter, and due to circumstances, the priest decides to adopt the boy, and this child becomes the son he never had. Again, it is problematic, because it presupposes that only the son can take the ideals of the priest to the next generation. And it is the wife who gives him this motivation!
Anyway, cut to eight years later, when they discover that the boy is actually Muslim. So the priest goes to great lengths to atone for his "sin", and performs various rituals for cleansing. However, he finds that he cannot get this child out of his mind, because of course, he has bonded closely with the child, and all the times he has spent teaching the boy, the rituals of a Brahmin, keep flashing in his mind.
Now the patron's son, hates the priest, because, he seemingly encourages the daughter, his sister to study, and therefore spoilt her, and encouraged the decline of culture in her. So he partners with the rival priest to remove Chaturvedi from the main priest post. In the meanwhile communal riots break out, and the child, who is now living with his real mother, comes to the priest seeking for safety, while the riots are going on. The priest and his family turn him away, only to repent. The climax is where the priest stops the mob, gives a speech about how Dharam or karma is about humanity and not duty of a particular caste. It is about accepting differences. The last shot is where the priest hugs the Muslim boy and walks away in to the sunset.

As an aesthetic exercise, the director gives us some wonderful footage of Varanasi, and there are some memorable shots of Chaturvedi bathing in the Ganges, with his students in the moonlight. However, as a film, which attempts to explore a serious issue of communal divide, I think it fails to do its job, and only asks more questions than it gives answers.

Firstly, the film is distinctly sexist in the way it portrays women characters, and the script itself relegates all the women to the sidelines. Worse, the film suggests that the role of women is just that of keeping, bearing children and sustaining the family. The girl who dared to marriage ends up being widowed, and says, it is tough to sacrifice love. Its an extremely puzzling attitude.

Secondly, the film takes on too much. The scene of Dalit Vs Brahmin is entirely wasted, and is not related to the Hindu Muslim issue at all. Even when the film explore the divide between the two religions, it dilutes the issue by playing up the internal politics in Varanasi where rivals are trying to usurp Chaturvedi from his post.
The most problematic thing in this film was the reasons given for the change of heart in the priest. He only intervenes when the child's life is at stake, and not for anything else. The film tries to simplify the whole issue, by trying to have us believe that when he says that our duty is humanity, the entire mob suddenly sees sense, and all are ashamed of their violent acts.
Throughout the film, he is made to look like a living saint, which is again very unrealistic.

All in all, its a commendable effort to make a film which differs from the run of the mill stuff. However, we must realize that sometimes, in our intentions to do good, we make things worse than they already are. Watch out for some good music, and some good vocals by Sonu Nigam.
The rest of the cast pretty much hams it throughout the film. 6/10

Radio Days

I don't know if too many people have been watching the media closely, but it appears to me that radio is making a comeback. Not enough to kill the video star, but definitely on a comeback trail.
Now those of us living in major cities like Bangalore or Mumbai, know how popular FM has become, with all the radio stations belting out the latest hits day in and day out.
So how did this happen? Why only now? Where has radio been all these years? Just what is the inside story? Ladies and Gentlemen, the facts to the best of my knowledge:
Ever since 1924, when the Madras Radio Club was formed, radio hasn't looked back. Ever since then All India Radio has been pretty much the face of radio in India as we know it.
But things changed drastically in 1994. Private companies were allowed to broadcast commercial radio programmes on FM. Firstly, the question, why FM? Unlike AM, FM does not need expensive transmission towers, enables a great degree of localization and helps bring interactivity and local flavor to the programming.
This paradigm shift really took off when the Government started auctioning off frequencies in 1999., for 32 Indian cities. Although many players perished in this game, an equally large number of private companies have been able to consolidate their media empire by owning these stations. Today revenues from Mumbai alone are in excess of 50 crore rupees for the Government. Consequently, only media conglomerates with really deep pockets, and the ability to absorb losses over a period of time, have kept their stations going, i.e. groups like Reliance, Times Group, Tata etc
Now a really tiny group of people were also making a few noises around the same time. They said, radio is cheap to produce and to listen to, allows illiterate people to participate, and as a medium has a long history of listenership in India (remember 1924!). So why should only AIR and private companies be allowed to start FM stations? FM radio would be perfect for rural people who can use the medium to express their views and address issues which have been hidden under the surface, unscratched, waiting to explode, i.e. things like marginalization of women, Dalit's struggles, senior citizens' issues, HIV/AIDS, etc and God knows, the list runs a mile.
The truth is radio and in fact all broadcast media is governed by the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885, an Act which was put in place by the Raj, when Marconi was a mere 11 years old, and years away from pioneering radio or as it was called in those days- "telegraphy without wires"!
Finally, the Indian government relented and in November 2006, a policy for what is now called "Community Radio" was drafted. However, this policy also allows only NGO's, educational campuses or Krishi Vigyan Kendras to apply for a community radio license. They are only eligible for 100 Watts ERP. NGOs have to be registered for a minimum of three years- these are only some of the restrictive conditions.

Today, in 2007, there exist three levels of radio in India (FM Radio)- AIR, i.e. Public Radio; Private Radio and Community Radio.
However, we are still a far cry away from realizing the huge potential of this medium to really make a difference in our lives, be it through entertainment, or bringing out hidden , suppressed information and participation from the masses. Whether our sleepy Ministry of Information and Broadcasting will wake up one day to this reality is yet unknown.

The Panchayat Andolan in Karnataka

I've mentioned this topic in a previous note, but I've always wanted to write in more detail about it, since it seems to be such a non issue in the public domain. I guess I'm really irritated about it being a non issue as much as i'm concerned with the Andolan itself...
Anyway, I work for a media advocacy group, which is quite specific in its interventions and as it happened, my organization was not in a position to participate in this Andolan.
So I decided to do it outside working hours...and in partnership with my girlfriend who was already involved with the Andolan.
I hate to make my life public, but at the same time, I want to make public some the things i'm working on, and its really irritating when these two overlap...so i'm not going to be too specific but more like a record of what we did just for memory and documentation.
Basically, E was already in touch with the one of the co-organizers of the Andolan, and was in charge of preparing audio and video material for the Andolan. Now before this, I need to explain what the Andolan is about. In short, I quote, Nandana Reddy, " the hurried passage of amendments to the Panchayat Raj Act by both houses of the legislature. The amendment gives MLAs powers over grama sabhas and panchayats - the separate tier of local goverment into which citizens directly elect representatives"
For a more detailed write up on the issue, one can go here

Anyway, this is more about what E and I did in this Andolan, which is also fascinating from a mediaperson's point of view, and not so much directly involved in this activism. Another thing which i think is irritating is that a media person is always watching these amazing events unfold and yet this burden of objectivity forces the media to sit on the fence...its strange that i choose to call it a burden...anyway getting back to the point;

Now for a simple explanation of the Andolan itself: Basically a few NGOs in Bangalore got together and managed to get about 1500 (at best) Panchayat members and villagers to come to Bangalore to protest against this Amendment to the Panchayati Raj Act. Of course, the people who came were quite politically conscious and had come to Bangalore on their own, without taking money for accommodation, travel, food, or any other cost. Usually these NGO programmes are such that the community participates only if costs are taken care of...reminds me of how elections are conducted!
So it was quite remarkable that even 1500 people turned up...although at this point, i must admit that it was so funny and ironic to see that about 3000 people from only Bangalore, turned up the following week to protest against some obscure VSNL policy!!!!

So, these 1500 people who assembled in Bangalore on the 5th of July, were coming in from almost all parts of rural Karnataka, and this meant that they would be quite tired. So to energize them again and to fire them up, to remind them about why they are in Bangalore, the plan was that we would play an amalgamation of patriotic songs, speeches by national leaders talking about democracy etc...
So when we met this senior freedom fighter for an audio byte, he said that it would be better to get audio bytes from the ordinary people themselves as they are the Gandhis of tomorrow..which we thought was a good idea..and that's when, we both sat in front of a speaker phone, called these people from various districts of Karnataka, and my god, were they eloquent!
they all spoke about the role of the Gram Panchayat and more importantly the role of the Gram Sabha, which is perhaps one of the most democratic mechanisms in India, allowing people to directly and physically interface, interact and participate in decision making along with the local government body. What makes this issue particularly political, is the fact that one of the decision making powers being taken away, or at least the threat of it being taken away, is that of housing, and anybody who has worked in a village for some time will know just how much money is there to be made in these housing schemes. Of course, most of the people were genuinely concerned about the blow to decentralization and democracy if Gram Sabha becomes ineffective but I'm quite sure that not all Panchayats were protesting only for the sake of democratizing the political process.

So we got the bytes, mixed in some really patriotic songs, and burned a CD for the Andolan..came the 5th of July, CD was used, protest went off peacefully, and followed up by a series of protests...in the coming days where each district individually protested...
the upshot of the matter is that the proposed amendments went to the Governor, who took his time,

The story of HIV AIDS

I work in an NGO and in the course of my work, I meet a lot of people...and recently one of the people I met was a woman who was originally a man...and the problem was that she was HIV + and didn't have AIDS...and she was on Anti Retro-viral Therapy (ART)...for the uninitiated, there are three 'lines' or three phases of medicines in ART....now access to TDF (Tenofovir Disoproxil Fumarate) is critical for patients to survive in these phases of ART....and consumption of this drug is recommended by the ART guidelines provided by WHO as well...
the problem is of course that this bloody drug is under patent application by a company called Gilead Sciences, a huge company raking in the profits...
I quote from Businessweek: "...The product called Atripla, hit the market in July 2006, and bought in sales of 205.7 million dollars by December 2006...a strong launch for a drug that analysts estimate could become a $ 2 billion-a- year hit..." (that's John Martin, CEO of Gilead since 96)
On the other hand, Alternative Law Forum, ALF, based in Bangalore has filed a pre grant opposition on the premise that it involves only addition of a salt (fumaric acid) to an existing compound (Tenofovir Disoproxil) and is therefore not an invention...
Of course, patients with HIV AIDS faced a similar problem with GSK (GlaxoSmith Kline) filing a patent application for Combivir, another fixed dose drug containing two essential elements...

the companies say that if the patents are not granted, then it would be tantamount to the Indian government blocking innovation in the field of medicine, and it would violate internation patent laws, and of course discourage investment in India, discourage R&D in India and the list goes on..

The reality my friends, is that people are DYING, because they can't afford ART...not the second line onwards anyway, and to come back to this person I met, she was on the first line of ART and she was telling me about people she knew who were on the second line and how they couldn't afford it...how the Karnataka government had just given up on people who were beyond the first line...their focus is now on prevention..anyway the people who are on second line are going to die..so who cares..lets not allow more people to get HIV AIDS..and this is the esteemed government stance..in not so many words of course...

Anyway, if I remember right, the Karnataka government was supposed to put up 42 ART centres all over Karnataka. These centres were supposed to subsidize ART for people who couldn't afford it...as of September last year, there were 11 in Karnataka...and even these, as far as I know, give out only the first line to patients...

and the story just keeps getting worse...this lady that I met the other day and who was on the first line, tells me, " I have to eat eight to nine times a day, because the medicines I take suck out the nutrients and energy from my body. If i don't keep eating throughout the day, then I faint...and its happened to me several times. I work for a NGO on sexual minorities, and they are starved for funds...you know I get paid only Rs. 4500, and all my money goes on food and medication...I'm finished if I go to second line...the government doesn't care about people like us. To them we are as good as dead"

The biggest pity for me is that nobody cares anymore...it was an issue when the patents issue came out..i'm not writing anything new here..its all there on the net, on the papers..if one cares to look...the point is that the media has to move on, we have to move on and the issue is dying in silence, along with all the patients who cannot afford the medication....
We care to find out only if family or friends get affected..otherwise, its news, we feel pity, and then something like a Abhishek Aishwarya wedding has to come up and everything else is forgotten....I guess I really am bitter about this thing...what is really needed is public support, some pressure from the public not to grant these guys those patents...and get some signature petitions going by us...after all we are what is called the "civil society"...
but i know that this is just a stupid blog, nobody will care and the issue will go on..some of us will fight, others will have selective amnesia...what the hell, life goes on

Of politics and such like!

This Karnataka state is getting increasingly tough to inhabit...for me, and i'm sure for others as well...
i mean, allow me to state some of the things happening in June alone...

I watched a film on Nandigram occupation, nay, invasion of land (with not so subtle games by Buddhadeb & Mamata & Co.) and after the screening, we had a discussion on how Ramanagaram slums are being occupied for SEZ...i read in the papers that another village, called Nandigud in Karnataka is also being acquired...and they're thinking about getting Tata Institute of Social Sciences for doing a baseline survey...sheesh..how low we stoop for credibility.

My friend lives in Frazer town, and the corporator and MLA asked the slum dwellers there to vacate and asked them to live in the park for a few days. In the meantime he would get them separate accommodation..so you had a whole slum living in the park, and to make matters worse, the residents living near the park complained about these "dirty people" being a health risk and being an eyesore and all that kind of nonsense...

The 73rd Amendment to the Indian constitution is being used to take all rights away from Gram Panchayats in Karnataka. Basically the deal is that a Gram Panchayat has the right to identify beneficiaries in 29 areas which include housing, Below Poverty Line Card (BPL), ration card, etc etc...and the allegation from State is that these Panchayats are not doing work in time. So the new Act proposes that if these Panchayats don't identify beneficiaries in time, then all power of identification of beneficiaries goes to MLAs. So basically even though the proposed act, uses the housing as a pivot, Gram Sabha members are freaking out because it says housing and other functions...and the complaint from the Panchayats is that none of the info on schemes reach them on time, funds are delayed, ya dah ya dah....so anyway, there was a huge protest on the 5th of July and about 2300 people turned up, some of them Gram Panchayat members but the majority of them were Gram Sabha members, basically people living in a village and coming within the purview of the Panchayat, ordinary people deciding to come all the way to Bangalore, spending their own money to protest against this act. The surprising thing was that there was nobody from the media, even though the Hindu covered it...but even they came only to the press conference organized near the Vidhan Soudha...but on second thoughts, it was not that surprising.

Moving on, we hear that the Centre has approved of the Nandagudi SEZ in "prinicple" whatever that means. What it does mean is that the Karnataka State govt has recommended that it be passed, just like the State of Maharashtra did....I think about 8000 odd hectares of land will be used to develop a township, complete with swimming pools and shopping malls and all...the juggernaut of urbanization rolls on...we hear that a slum area in Ramnagaram has also been granted clearance for a SEZ....its amazing that there is no large scale protest against this kind of blatant violation of basic right to land...in the name of economic growth, land acquisition is taking place at a fanatic place...a virtual feast for the big guys...which was not the purpose of the SEZ in the first place...anyway, the govt is very conveniently blind to this fact and is clearing things faster than anbody can respond...I've seen some coverage from the mainstream media but these are increasingly getting confined to the inside pages...pity..

Today we find that the govt might have manipulated tenders so that only few of the big companies can provide free bicycles for school children in govt schools...we have made a scam even in cycles...this is the limit...no actually that's not true...lalu's fodder scam was the limit..but this comes pretty close..i mean, who wants the IAS? good old city corporations are good enough for that extra buck...depressing shit i tell you...

Of capitalism, globalisation and protest! G8

Day 3 at Rostock welcomes a sunny morning...and all is quiet here at Rostock at 9 am. I was quite tired and wanted to sleep much longer, but the sun comes in right into the flat (german flats are so well ventilated that light comes pouring in from anywhere)
So I walk down to the media college which is my 'office' for the next ten days. Anyway, as i walk down, I can see glimpses of colour, and some singing....which means that the first protests have begun.
Usually whenever these world events take place, signs of civilian participation are minimal..but things are changing slowly, there are posters all over Rostock saying FIGHT the G8, fight against capitalism and so on...
although the protest seems very generic, people broadly seem to be in agreement that the right richest countries cannot decide things for the rest of the world, especially when the G8 has no legitimacy and therefore cannot take decisions. Further, this G8 promises to talk about industrialization and globalization, two words which have plenty of opposition world wide, and henceforth the protest...
Even though the official G8 Summit is beginning only on the 6th of June, protests have assumed an epic proportion here...
Talks are on about an alternative summit...and showing that another world is possible...while police is talking about these protests being largely a "socialist conspiracy" and possibilities of "terrorist camps" to disrupt the G8 Summit...and the authorities have referred to some people splashing paint at a hotel in which an earlier G8 Summit was held. You get an idea about how ludicrous things can get with German efficiency.
At any rate, the basic plan for me is to document as many viewpoints as possible, on audio of course, since I'm a community radio guy and try and get some perspectives from developing countries as well as the G20 gang...
I doubt if this G8 summit will lead to anything ground breaking but what is important is that people are coming together increasingly, it is ironically a globalized world and voice is becoming a critical component for voicing dissent or for that matter support...
Will start posting audio later today, with some interviews from people who have come from Latin America, from Africa and of course, some people from good old Germany!

Alternative perspectives on G8 Summit

Day two in Rostock has gone off reasonably well...there's a sizeable team from Latin America and there are three people from Africa...as of now, I'm the only one from Asia! the biggest continent in the world and there's only me, i can't bear the responsibility :)
Well, you know all this hype about the G8 Summit and I don't think i can even come close to the Summit in Heiligendamm, because the authorities have erected a hige fence to keep out people who don't have any 'business' here...apparently the polizei here have even resorted to tactics like scent tracking to keep trouble mongers out and to identify people who can potentially mean trouble...
as of now the main issues of this summit here seem to be
economic growth and sustainability on a balanced and equitable basis.
debt cancellation and fighting AIDS in Africa
Overall increase of aid for developing countries...which was promised in Gleneagles, Scotland as well in 2005, but very little done...
Agriculture remains a major point of discussions because despite repeated efforts, most developed countries have NOT reduced subsidies and free market remains free to farmers only from some countries...the G4 will remain under scrutiny as they are the outreach countries for the G8 this time and they have traditionally been the main opposition to the developed countries in all the WTO and related trade meetings...
Of course, the biggest zinger remains, energy and sustainable use of resources, what with summers becoming hotter the world around and paranoic reports about global warming coming in from the world over...
Germany, presiding over the EU and hosting the Summit, has ambitious plans to come to a resolution at this Summit, but it is unlikely that any resolution will take place...
USA refuses to ratify the Kyoto protocol and of course India and China are not required to reduce GHG emissions as part of this Protocol...
India and China, like the US have adopted independent mechanisms to resolve and reduce emissions in their respective countries, and no amicable resolution is expected to happen during this summit.
Major points in this Summit also include conflicts in Kosovo, Darfur and the middle East skirmishes...
Tomorrow morning, at 9 am, a press conference is being held by protestors who have gathered in Rostock...and an action day has been marked each day, for example on agriculture, on migration, on debt cancellation etc...
Whether, the G8 group actually notices the existence of the protests remains to be seen. One thing is for sure, the Federal Republic of Germany is surely nervous about the other side, to deploy more than 16, 000 police troops in the area....the largest in a long time, spurring further mobilization in Rostock!