Terrorist attack on Mumbai Rail System

Eminent domain is the concept that governments can acquire private land for “improvement” and “development” purposes. But what happens when you combine

1. Farms that have been in families for generations
2. A situation where land is the only thing you own, where all your value, your life and your sense of worth is tied to the land you own
3. The insecurity that comes from knowing that your livelihood and shelter is being taken away from you and things are going to change. In the end, they might be for the better, your farm was not doing too well to begin with, but the uncertainty and fear of the unknown are much bigger in the short term than any possible long term benefits.
4. The typical high handed situation in which the government dealt with the villagers in question

Well, in India, people die.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | ‘Seven die’ in India farm clash

At least seven people are reported to have died after police fired on farmers protesting at the acquisition of farmland for industry in eastern India. The clash happened in Nandigram in West Bengal state where thousands of riot police have been sent to quell protests against a planned chemical hub. Police say they met fierce resistance from thousands of villagers. Police say two people have died, but doctors in a local hospital say five more men have died of bullet wounds. ‘Land grab’ Farmers in Nandigram have been resisting the West Bengal government’s plan to acquire farms for setting up a hub for chemical industries by an Indonesian company.

As India’s manufacturing infrastructure and increasingly rapid industrialization starts to catch up with its already booming software economy, watch for these tensions to get worse. Indian governments are not used to handling issues like these in an equitable fashion. Hopefully, the sacrifices of these people will change something, but I am not optimistic. Lives are cheap in India. Nobody’s going to write a song about these 7 dead.

This is great news, as long as the program is well administered and transparent (usual caveat that accompanies any new policy announced by the Indian government).

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Social security for Indian poor

The Indian government has announced an ambitious social security scheme which is aimed at benefiting about 390 million poor, non-unionised workers. Once passed by parliament, the scheme will provide the workers with life insurance and disability protection.

Under the new scheme, the non-unionised, casual worker will be entitled to life insurance and health and disability benefits by contributing just one rupee (one cent) a day.

The government says it wants to help the under-privileged

The government and employers will also contribute an equal amount. Those earning less than 6,500 rupees ($160) annually will be designated as living below the poverty line, and their one-rupee share will be paid for by the federal government.

It is estimated that the government will need $22.2bn to implement the scheme.

Assuming a purchasing power exchange rate of approximately 14 for India (year 2000 value), this poverty rate works out to approximatey $1.25 per day, a little more generous than the world bank’s dollar a day PPP adjusted figure, but not really. I would guess that the poor would need a little more help, but it is a start, and a good first attempt to get some kind of safety net for most of the Indian workforce.

States on alert against polio – NDTV.com – News on States on alert against polio

India appears to be in a grip of a polio outbreak with 352 cases reported so far this year, many of them from areas that were free of the virus, and officials fear the number may increase further. Uttar Pradesh alone has reported 312 cases, the highest of all the states, and World Health Organisation officials have described it as an “exporter” of the disease.

In Uttar Pradesh, officials said 90 percent of the cases were due to ignorance in the minority Muslim community, who believed the polio vaccine could make children impotent.

From wikipedia

Only four countries in the world (Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan) are reported to have endemic polio.

I remember reading about a Nigerian Province issue with Clerics claiming “that vaccines supplied by Western donors were adulterated to reduce fertility and spread AIDS as part of a general war on Islam”, which the Wikipedia Polio article verifies. But we have never seen this in India before, and I find it hard to believe. I will remain sceptical about the Muslim clerical influence on India’s polio debacle unless I hear better. News from India sometimes builds its own “truth momentum”, with speculation and hearsay morphing into bulletproof truth in a matter of hours. It is also easy in India to start rumors to deflect blame.Here’s a contrarian take from a Reuter’s Article

“Tens of thousands of children were missed by state health workers over the past year during rounds of immunization, leading to a resurgence of the virus, they said.

“We are very concerned. It raises the threat to India and is also threatening other countries,” said Jay Wenger, head of the National Polio Surveillance Project, a collaboration between the WHO and the Indian government.

One federal official said around 10 percent of children in several western districts of Uttar Pradesh, known for its ramshackle state health care and sluggish bureaucracy, could have missed immunization between late 2005 and early 2006.

“These (vaccination) rounds were of poor quality,” said the official, who did not want to be named.”

Well, sounds more logical, does it not? But why let the depressing truth of inadequacy get in the way of a juicy and self-perpetuating tale of Muslim backwardness.

India, the emerging tiger.