Bangalore "Blasts"

There were at least 7 bombings in Bangalore this afternoon. A number of people were killed, and everyone is pretty freaked out. I, and all of my friends, are safe and well.

What does it take to get a new laptop charger in India?

An act of god.

In a world where the gods are white people living in countries in other time zones who have issues communicating with Indian people who can actually release replacement parts. Three days, and four hours of infuriating cell phone time later, I have electricity for my computer again--HOORAY!

Otherwise, life is going brilliantly. Mysore is such an incredible place to call home. I wake up at 5am in the dark every morning to practice yoga as the sun rises; sit in the cafe next to the school and have a delicious and healthy breakfast; then spend the day interviewing industrial managers and come home to run, eat dinner, mediate, and collapse into bed to bird song and the wind in the trees. It is a great schedule and a beautiful life to live. My yoga shalla (school) is a haven of serenity every morning before careening to work. Well, peaceful in some ways, but my teacher pushes us harder than any sports coach I've had in the US. He is only maybe 4'8" and 70 or 80 pounds, and I regularly find him completely standing on one part of me while bending another part of me in a direction that I hadn't realized was possible and intermittently find myself in lifted off the ground--hanging upside down. So, class itself is not so peaceful, and borders on grueling, but I like the discipline and feel fantastic afterward (even if I'm unable to walk straight). The cafe is attached as a garden in the back and is populated by other students, four hand sized kittens, and their mother.

Research is proceeding faster than we had planned! We have almost all of our initial interviews completed. From here out, I mostly need to track down the scrap dealers who interact with my industrial areas and find the companies that are otherwise closely linked with the area. This should be challenging, but really interesting! The rains have come now, but that means an intermittent 10-minute downpour and then clear skies and cool breezes. Nothing like a serious monsoon. Hopefully, the real rains will wait until I have left :)

Growth, Inflation, and Food Sovereignty

The BBC tells me that the inflation rate in India just passed the growth rate (bbc.com). Pakistan is fairing far worse: the 5.8% growth rate is outpaced by the 19% inflation rate (economist.com). I do not pretend to understand all of the factors that fuel inflation growth, but monetary policy at a central bank usually has a strong influence. The central bank in India, though, has relatively tight policy--inflation seems to be driven by other factors including the meteoric growth of a few sectors of the Indian economy, global commodity prices, biofuels (bbc.com) and the like. When Americans (myself included) look at the growth rates for South Asian countries, they seem to be doing quite well on a relative scale, but looking at GDP alone hides the reality of a developing economy.

I recently heard a report from Andhra Pradesh (the central Indian state containing Hyderabad) that childhood malnutrition rates have actually increased there in the past five years from 55% to 60%. Yes, 60% of all children are clinically malnourished. This isn't just in Andhra, it is all over India. As the population dramatically increases and arable land is infinitely subdivided past the point of recognition, food sovereignty evaporates. India may be food secure in the sense that it produces more than it consumes, and more food is available than is required; however, most of the rural poor do not have food sovereignty. They no longer control the source of their food: crops are now a globally fungible commodity and those without purchasing power lose. Talking about controlling the means of production may sound a bit Marxist, and it is in a sense, but basic nutrition differs drastically from industrial production. Access to food is a fundamental human right that no successful society can deny for long. This right is being eroded across India and across the world, developed and developing.

The media has carried a number of stories about the "two Indias" lately. The successful and wealthy one that American protectionists fear alongside China, and the destitute one. Looking at India from the outside, the first is much easier to see, but the second is much more prevalent. In this, I see many similarities between America and India: we are all too eager to craft a national image of prosperity at the expense of forgetting those without decent food, education, or health care. If the minority of the country grows while majority languishes, and even slides backwards, India's success is more of a threat to itself than it is to the established world powers.

I am not trying to suggest that growth here is a bad thing--economic growth and rapid decoupling of material provision from material consumption, alongside population stabilization, is the only way that India will succeed. Ultimately, the only path that can sustain economic growth and avoid large-scale suffering and unrest must include equitable access to food, clean water, and other critical resources.

If you are not thinking about food, start. It matters--nothing happens in a vacuum.

Enough pontification for one night.

June 30: check out the NYTimes article on the effects of food hoarding, World Bank policies, and the globalization of food markets (or lack thereof): nytimes.com

8 Cups of tea

This morning started off early at 8am so that we could finish an interview that ran over from yesterday because the company officers were somewhere between incompetent and combative. Eight cups of tea, and ten hours later, we were drinking fresh coconut water with the proprietor of a small chemical company and commiserating about command and control regulation, globalization, and margins. He was a great addition to the plywood VP who decided that talking about Indo-American relations took precedence over gathering data. (We rescheduled the interview for Tuesday). Some people here are evasive, which is not helped by the Pollution Control Board setting our appointments, but so many of the managers are amazingly open and eager to find out ways to be more environmentally responsible. I am inspired by how willing and adaptable people here are when it comes to environmental progress. I only wish that I could say the same for Americans.

Discovered a new kind of mango yesterday! The parrot mango is crisp and slightly sour, but completely delicious. Add in eating the best dhal I've ever had last night at a local restaurant, and I am in heaven.

Like I said before, despite some very modern facilities and globally integrated companies, Nanjangud is still very much an Indian industrial estate. Cows wander the roads, while others draw carts, and people beg me for money. Most comically, perhaps, is the continuing presence of the Communist Party here: a state MP staged a rally outside one facility that I visited and then drove off in his posh SUV (see photo above).

On Bureaucracy

Indian Bureaucracy is infamously laborious and deserves a capital B. Important matters can be tabled for years while the appropriate formalities are followed. When I conducted research in the Tamil Nadu Leather Belt (no pun intended) in March, I caught a few glimpses of how difficult offices here can be to maneuver. This summer, I came prepared to wade through marshes, if not lakes of frustrating appointments and sycophants before accomplishing anything.

Instead, Bureaucracy has handed me almost everything I needed immediately and cleared a broad path to the door of every single person I need to speak with. Just when we started to run into trouble today with securing further interviews and I began to wonder if our luck was over, we dropped into the Pollution Control Board in Mysore and watched Bureaucracy work in our favor. Environmental officials may not have large amounts of power here, but they wield what they do have with a heavy hand: they can shut off the power grid connections to any industry that is not compliant. The local environmental officer simply called up the industries we needed to speak with and got us interviews on the spot. Problems solved, and we have all the interviews that we want from now until when we fall over from exhaustion.

Careful what you wish for.

MANGOES

Mango season deserves its own entry: Indian mangoes will take your mangoes any day. Throw some cashew cream and coconut milk on top and you have a complete meal. Yah. That is, if you haven't already stuffed yourself silly with lychees.

Putting aside my disappointment in the lack of emails playing on the word Mysore, I have been overwhelmed by how well this past week has gone. (Special kudos to the zinger from Alden, though). People have bent over backwards to help Megha and me with our work and logistical issues. We managed to scope out both of our potential sites in just a few days, including meetings with the relevant Pollution Control Board officers, Industrial Association heads, and facility managers. Still, the second site, Nanjangud, was far superior. Mysore is so much more relaxed, clean, and navigable than Bangalore and still has the same “salubrious” weather. The PCB officers are so cooperative that they are actually making all of our appointments for us. We just showed up on Wednesday afternoon, called and set and appointment for an hour later, and then walked out by 6pm with our entire next day booked with facility tours and interviews. Ok. So maybe this isn’t exciting to most of you, but I was downright giggly when we left.

Najangud Industrial Estate itself is, well, an Indian Industrial Estate. It is divided up into blocks that are parceled out to a variety of industries that range from a single shed to one of the two Nestle instant coffee factories for India. We are going to know it all too well quite soon, but for now, the sight of the Nescafé logo peaking over the Kabini River, paddy terraces, and palm trees is a beautiful thing.




We took friday off to visit Megha's friend Belli in Coorg: a district in the foothills of the Western Ghats. Belli has a beautiful 300 acre biodynamic coffee and peppercorn estate. The threatening monsoon rains held off and let us talk politics and wander around.



Unsurprisingly, given a few hours to discuss world affairs, India, and the US, we safely concluded that America has thoroughly f-ed up under Bush, but that India isn't doing much better. We hopped on a bus the next morning to pack up in Bangalore and return to Mysore on yesterday. The trip between Mysore and Bangalore is dotted with beautiful, barren stone hills that punctuate the dusty green pre-monsoon landscape. They are the same sort that I became semi-obsessed with during my March trip here. I am excited for some time off to go run up them! As luck would have it, Chamundi Hill is next to Mysore. It is a very popular pilgrimage site with the inscription: "5000 years ago at this time you had visited this place in the same way you are visiting now. Because world drama repeats itself identically every 5000 years." Indubitably.

Some shots below from the train between Mysore and Bangalore: