The latest (Gold)man-made food crisis

Johann Hari writes:
"By now, you probably think your opinion of Goldman Sachs and its swarm of Wall Street allies has rock-bottomed at raw loathing. You're wrong. There's more. It turns out that the most destructive of all their recent acts has barely been discussed at all. Here's the rest. This is the story of how some of the richest people in the world – Goldman, Deutsche Bank, the traders at Merrill Lynch, and more – have caused the starvation of some of the poorest people in the world."

Those of us who come from societies which have suffered under the yoke of imperialism are of course reminded of the all too many occasions when needless mass starvation and death have resulted from blind free-market economics and a failure to check speculation and hoarding, coupled with a disregard for the lives of the oppressed peoples. Two of the most prominent examples were the Irish potato famine of 1845-52, when about a million people died, and the Bengal famine of 1943, when nearly 3 million are estimated to have perished. Of course, in many ways the circumstances of these two tragedies were quite different, but they shared in common an attitude of complete callousness on the part of the British administration; even as masses in the colonies were dying of starvation, food exports to richer markets such as England continued unabated. Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister at the time of the Bengal famine, responded to an urgent request for food on the part of the Indian authorities by asking why, if food was so scarce, had Gandhi not died yet.

However, it is shocking to see that similar phenomena persist even into the 21st century: and the new imperialists are the financial oligarchs whose recklessness has caused such misery. Dr. Jayati Ghosh, an economist at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi and a prominent advisor to the Government of India, is one of the leading authorities on the causes underlying the recent 'global food crisis' (remember how George W Bush blamed the increasing appetites of the Indians and Chinese?). She has noted how there were no massive bailouts for the starving, and demonstrated how financial speculation was the fundamental driver, rather than any dramatic shift in actual demand or supply (interview: part 1, part 2).

The World Development Movement has more information, and is leading the campaign against food speculation. For those in the UK, please take action to help end this lunacy.

The Improbable Popularity of Funny Toy Creatures

Two facts I learnt today:

1. Toy Story 3 has shot up the IMDb charts incredibly rapidly and is now rated the 6th best movie ever, despite not even having been released yet in many countries (including the UK).

2. Zoozoo is the most 'liked' Facebook fan page in India.

Interesting world we live in, is it not?

The Character of Physical Law

The one thing in the whole of science that I have found most captivating and enigmatic, pretty much ever since I first came across it (probably sometime in my early teens), is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I still find it quite incredible how fundamental and deep-seated the idea seems to be: from car engines and refrigerators to cells and living organisms and entire human societies, the working of everything around us is a manifestation of this law, which underpins the phenomenon of irreversibility and the nature of time itself. In my school days, the fascination was a bit more prosaic: one of the reasons being simply that our textbooks contained so many different 'statements' of the law. For a naïve schoolchild brought up under an education system which essentially encouraged one to cram oneself with immutable scientific 'laws', to be regurgitated verbatim during exams, this was quite a novelty. The fact that the same principle could be expressed in so many entirely different ways meant it must be somehow special, and this was one of the things that first tickled my scientific antennae. My favourite statement of the law, however, has to be one that I first heard just a couple of days ago, at a fascinating lecture by a famous physicist:

"If you eat, you have to go to the toilet".

I wish I'd thought of that when writing my physics exams...

On Memory and Emotion

Everything around us is in a constant state of flux: people growing older, responsibilities getting greater, world getting dirtier, entropy (in most circumstances) increasing. Some things hardly change at all though: our memories. Yes, they grow fainter and we start to see them through increasingly rose-tinted glasses and so on, but in essence they remain constant and indeed by definition they must. And it is the persistence of these memories, and the way, over time, in which they begin to conflict with so much of the reality around us, that seems to cause so many of our emotions; particularly negative ones. Memories of old friends whom I haven't seen for years; memories of the one you once loved, but can no longer bear the sight of; memories of that child who I was so close to, but has now grown into a sulky and uncaring teenager. Would it not be wonderful if we had editorial powers over our memories: so that we could make a few changes here and there, obscure the unpleasant bits, enhance the pleasing aspects, perhaps erase a few episodes entirely and write in a few new ones in the bargain? As the Buddha taught us, attachment to people and things is the root cause of all our sorrows. But if we knew that we could alter our memories whenever we wished, would attachment still have any meaning? Would we ever fear the loss of something or someone we loved dearly, if we could wipe it out merely by flipping a few synapses in our brain? Would there be anything worth cherishing, without memory?

Nehruvian musings

Panditji had a beautiful way with words:

"I have become a queer mixture of the East and the West ... Out of place everywhere, at home nowhere. Perhaps my thoughts and approach to life are more akin to what is called Western than Eastern, but India clings to me, as she does to all her children, in innumerable ways ... I am a stranger and alien in the West. I cannot be of it. But in my own country also, sometimes I have an exile's feeling."

The longer I stay away from my homeland, the truer this seems...

Some brief thoughts on Britain's "New Politics"

So Britain finally has its first coalition government since the second world war. Given that India has not had single-party government since 1989, my first reaction is: welcome to the club! I do find it quite fascinating how the notion of political coalitions seems to so strongly polarise opinions in this country (as opposed to India, where we generally take it for granted). On the one hand, you have the optimists, whose views I think are well encapsulated by Nick Clegg's eloquent statement, founded on the notion that politicians can work together for the common good. On the other hand, there are those (specifically, Lib Dem or Tory voters) who feel that their interests have been sold out and that their party has betrayed them by compromising on the manifesto they voted for. It seems to me that this second view is based on prioritising the interests of a relatively narrow group of people, as opposed to the population as a whole. To those who dislike the idea of coalition and compromise, my question is: what alternative do you propose in the situation of a hung parliament? And even more generally, given that there is a very wide range of views and interests in society, what is the most democratic way of representing those in government and policy making? Is it better to have the 30-40% that voted for the single largest party getting all (or most) of their manifesto promises fulfilled, whilst the remaining 60-70% get virtually none of what they voted for, leading to polarisation, partisanship and rancour? Or is it better to try and have a governing system that, on the basis of dialogue and compromise, adopts policies in proportion with their support amongst the population, so that no one will get everything they wish for but no one will feel completely left out either? Which approach is fairer? Which, in the long run, is likely to lead to a stronger and more equitable society?

More etymology

It's fascinating how the meanings of certain words change subtly with time and context. Take "dinner", for example. In Indian English, it invariably refers to the evening meal. However, in British English it is sometimes used to refer to the afternoon meal (lunch), particularly by older and working-class people. I think at one time the most common British ordering of meal names was Breakfast/Dinner/[Tea]/Supper, though now it is generally the more familiar Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner. In the earlier context, the main meal of the day was typically taken in the afternoon, and tea or supper would be a lighter evening meal. Now, in Britain as elsewhere, the evening meal has become the most prominent, and terminology shifted accordingly. The word dinner comes from the Old French disner, which referred to lunch but had originally meant breakfast, having been derived from the Latin dis- + iēiūnō, literally meaning "to break the fast" (the modern French terms for lunch and breakfast are déjeuner and petit déjeuner respectively). So a word whose original source specifically referred to the first meal of the day has now migrated through all of them and largely come to be associated with the last!