501­15 December 2014INDIA The Sabha

In the cold of

November, the only

thing that seems to

be moving in Ladakh

was the NewLADAKHMovement(NLM.They organisedrallies to say NOto bribes, boozeand feast for the

election time during

November from

valley to valley,

NLM is a youthmovement that aims tobring clean and competentgovernance in Ladakh andbring freshness into thepolitical and ecologicalscenario.

The Students' Educationaland Cultural Movement ofLadakh (SECMOL) wasfounded in 1988 by agroup of young Ladakhiswith the aim to reform theeducational system of

region. They organizeactivities for Ladakhiyouth, run a campus forstudents going to school orcollege in Leh and developsolar energy projects.

They also take drop outstudents and teach themsustainable way of livingthrough earth architectureand community ways to dothings together, fromcooking through solarheater to growing crops inthe harsh climate ofLadakh, being independentin the world through livingin community.

Sonam Wangchuk founderof SECMOL and the NewLadakh movement gave alecture at the Nationalschool of architecture in

THE WANGCHUK OF LADAKHSECMOL and NLM

Grenoble, France onNovember 27th. He said:

“ It is the only institutein the world which hasPost master and Phd inearth architecture whereironically, close to halfof the population in thedeveloping world livesin earth houses.”

He urged the gathering ofleaders from the Frenchindustry in the renewableenergy sector to use theirheads and hearts togetherto face the 21st centurychallenges at the famouseInstitute de Monde Arabe,in Paris.

“Businesses need tolearn from the caringhearts of the NGO

world, while NGOscould do well with theanalytical heads of thecorporate world. “

He also shared with themhow SECMOL in Ladakhis parting ways with thepure charity mode of the20th century and insteadhelping young peoplelaunchsocial/environmentalentrepreneurships whichprovide the youth withcreative careers, while atthe same time bringinggreen services to thepeople in a most efficientand sustainable way.UNESCO is chair for

SECMOL school of

alternatives. SECMOL is

4th in Asia and 2nd in

India after Auroville Earth

Institute to receive the

status.

Part I:Local alcohol in kerala iscalled todi. There was atime when Todi workerswere organised and werein demand as a groom.They were treated withrespect and their hard.work was appreciated.

Historically, these workersalso fought against Britishand they have been loyalto the left parties in Keralasince decades.

Slowly the status of theirwork declined comparedto others. Nowadays, it isvery difficult to find evena single todi worker.

Part IIThere are millions oflivelihood attached withthe sales of alcohol andtobacco.

If we see the policies ofgovernment related topeople involved, it will befavourable to people whocan afford to buyexpensive cigarettes and

drink alcohol in Bars.

The ban of flavouredtobacco in Maharashtrabefore and the recentpolicy of Keralagovernment to leave thefilthy rich bars and closeonly the cheap ones areimpacting mostly lowerincome groups involved.

For the government itseems the rich liver andlungs can fight cancerand other diseases morethan others. May besome signatures andmarlboros are betterthan old monks andbidis.

Slow Death lastslonger, making goodbusiness for hospitals,bars and tax collectionfrom the same.

Why not first ban thecigarette and alcohol infive star bars and then usethat famous effect of ourfinance ministers, kabhi

toh chune waala hain :

trickle down the effect !

Part III:The Cobra Effect is a termused to explain when anattempted solution to aproblem actually makesthe problem worse. Anexample of the same atplay in Kerala.

Earlier this year the Keralagovernment held uprenewal of the liquorlicences of 418 bars in thestate for being“substandard”. The movewas also supposedly aimedat bringing down liquorconsumption.

Far from having thedesired effect, it resultedin the masses thronging

COBRA EFFECT:

RICH LUNGS & LIVER

outside the outlets of theKerala State BeveragesDevelopment Corporation(Bevco), the state’s solewholesale and retaildistributor for Indian-madeForeign. And theminimum order quantityhas upped to a quarter(180 ml) from the morecustomary peg (30 ml).Where is the proof of theaforesaid theory? Maybe afew numbers will help usthrow light on the truth.

The revenue of Bevco in2013-14 is Rs 9,350 Cr,that’s about Rs 750 Cr amonth. Bevco’s turnoverin the 2 months since theclosure of 418 bars hasbeen Rs 200 Cr higherthan the same period last

year, a 15% increase inrevenues.

The Kerala government onthe other hand has notclosed down any of itsown Bevco retail shops.Oh yes, how can it, when22% of governments totalrevenue comes fromLiquor-related earnings.

This onam was acelebration all round, witheverybody exchanging thecustomary season’sgreeting, “Happy Onam”.The Onam sales for Bevcothis year was up by 29%over last year.418 bars closed, Liquor

Sales up. The scoreKerala Government 0Cobra Effect 1.

ST Reporter & Sayuj

Alumni: LIBA, Chennai

6 01­15 December 2014INDIA The Sabha

The Indian economy is growingand the process of urbanization isdeveloping at a high speed. Theexisting cities are being expandedhorizontally and vertically,satellite towns are emerging aswell as new sub-urban areas.

Also, economic zones (SEZ) andgrowth corridors are beingdeveloped in almost every state ofour country. But this growingurbanization leads to the problemof housing, which is verycommon in all of our cities.Housing is one of the mostessential needs of any humansociety (roti, kapda aur makaan).This problem is mainly faced bytwo income groups, which are theLIG-(Lower income group) andthe EWS (Economically weakersection).

These two classes constitute amajor chunk of the country'spopulation. Many real estatedevelopers in India -this includesthe name of some of the richestbusiness groups of our country-are keen in developing affordablehousing for lower income peoplein almost every developing cornerof our country. Millions of squarefeet of affordable housing projectsare built and sold every year.

Most of them are beingdeveloped in 2 tier cities like-Bhiwadi, Jaipur, Udaipur,Vadordra, Pune, Bhubneshwar,Aurangabad, Mysore etc. or in theNCR region or the developingarea, which are situated around 30

to 50 Km away from the maincities.

The flats offered in the categoryof affordable housing are 1RK,1BHk, 1.5BHk & 2BHk in therange of 300 sqft to 700 sqft.These apartments are pricedbetween 8 lakh to 17.5 lakh. Theflats are sold at a very affordablerate as compared to the otherprojects in the market; the rate ofa flat in these projects is 2500-3000 Rs/Sqft.

The general break-up of the costfor these types of housing projectsis as follows:35-40% is the cost ofconstruction and sitedevelopment ( 2nd class

construction as per thenorms of construction bythe Indian government.)

20% is the loading of theland cost on each flat.

15% is the expenses ofproject management,Architect’s andconsultant’s fees.

10% are the othermiscellaneous expenses.

5% is spent on marketingof the project.

10-15% is the developer’snet profit.

There is a very marginal profit forthose involved in these type ofprojects, but the biggest amountof demand and supply provides aproposition of profit on both shortterm basis and on long termsbasis.

All the affordable housingprojects targets to the LIG sectionof our society, basically ahousehold with a minimummonthly income of 14,000Rs. Ifone calculates the affordabilityfactor for this household ,thenthese projects seem to be quite

unaffordable for them.Forexample if we take a case study of

a household earning Rs14,000, the maximumEMI this household canafford is Rs 4200 i.e. 30%of its monthly income.The principle amount forthis EMI over a period of20 years with an interestrate of 10% is 4.4 lakhs.

With this amount ofmoney a person canafford a flat of only 176sqft with a minimum rateof 2500 Rs/sqft. Out ofthis 176 sqft afterreducing the loadingfactor (area for thecombined staircase andother services) the netarea of the flat is only150 sqft i.e. a room of15ft X 10ft.

This is the scenario ofaffordability of a person from theLIG section of our society who iswilling to buy his own house.This is not the economicallyweakest class of our society. Weare referring to people like officepeons, drivers, clerks or BPOworkersforexample.To be continued…

ENTER THE STALER : The need for affordable social housingRameez ,

Alumni: TVB School of Habitat Studies, Delhi

In the tenure of Mukesh Bansal as collectorsince 2009 in Raigarh district, manyirregularities have been found such as rippingoff local people from their land, forest andwater resources, both by the public andprivate sectors. The collector has revealedmany scams from private to governmentsectors.

Amongst these scams , the prominent onesare: a Rs 800 crore scam by NTPC and landgrab by corporates such as Dainik BhaskarPower, Jindal Power, Sharda Energy,Navdurga fuels through unfair means.

The grabbed lands were acquired from nontribal people and sold off to the corporates ofwhich 273 hectares has been returned to tribalpeople under 17(b) of the constitution untilnow.

According to the state law, a tribal personfrom a different state coming to Chattisgarhcannot sell the land to a non-tribal. Even if itis sold by the local tribal, it cannot be donewithout the permission of the collector.Corporates lured the migrant workers fromstates such as Odisha, Jharkhand using M.Pand many fake names to siege the land.

Demand to hold GRAM SABHAbefore Auction

On 29th and 30th of November around 140social organisation working for tribal rightson land, forest and water resources met inParadip in Odisha. They discussed about theupcoming auctioon to be held on 10thDecember which will detemine the allocationof coal blocks.

Around 214 coal blocks were deallocated byorder of the Supreme Court. There are still alot of cases pending against Jindal companywith matters related to compensation andrehabilitation in the same land where coalblocks are present. Local people fear that theblocks allocated to Jindal will be given toAdani Power.

The demand to hold a Gram Sabha before theauction was decided in the meeting of theorganisations. If the land is allocated to othercompany the cases will be shrugged off asADANI company can say that it is a matterbetween JINDAL power and local people, andthey have no responsibility over it.This gramsabha with the constitutional powers candecide and negotiate about the conditions andamount of land to be given for mining.

REVIrTuAL GRAB : CHATTISGARH

701­15 December 2014SOUTH ASIA The Sabha

I am from China and my name isXiopeng Sun. I work in theAPPLE company in the city ofShenzen, China, like many ITprofessionals in India. My villageis Xiayong, in weihai city in theShandong province of China. Thetop level cities in China are alongthe coast like in the case ofMumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.They are Shanghai, Beijing,Shenzen and Guangzhou. Thecities become poorer as theirdistance from coast increases.

I finished my university degreefive years ago, so I've lost touchwith the student way of thinking.But let me try to connect back toit. Nowadays my schedule is asfollows: I have breakfast, whichmy girlfriend makes, at around 8am, and then take a metro ataround 8.40. The metro takes halfan hour and I start work at 9.30am . I have 1.5 hrs for lunch from12 am. I leave my office at 6pm,but usually I work overtime till 8pm. Maybe it is similar with ITworkohaloics in India too.

In China, the government has adepartment called Chengguan incharge of stopping beggars andhomeless people from enteringthe cities. If they find anyonebegging they buy train tickets forthem and send them home. I findit strange, though a littleunhygienic, but interesting too,that in Mumbai people can openshops and sleep on the street. Youguys have freedom not only inFacebook and Google but also incity spaces.

Interestingly, I was in Mumbai atthe same time when our leadercame to visit India two monthsago. I travelled to Kochi, Jaipur,Agra, Kolkata, Delhi andChennai. I heard about bullet

trains. One thing I can tell fromChina is that it was worse forpeople, especially for middle andlower income groups becausewith speed also comes costs.Moreover these trains onlyconnect major cities and notvillages. So all the taxpayer’smoney goes for the benefit of therich, maybe because their time ismore important than that of the

rest.

I want to tell about my family too.I have one elder sister. Yes inChina child policy changes fromtime to time. If your first child isa daughter you can have another,especially when you are fromvillage, it is difficult to check.And also if you are single kid anda couple then you can have twokids. Strange for India I guess!!Also, like in India the guys areusually older than girls in acouple.

My village Xiayong is on theNorth East coast and it’s very far.I go hardly once a year but I keepin touch with my parents over thephone. We have a pattern ofhouses. All houses in our villagehave a big veranndah whichfollows a main door which entersinto kitchen. After the kitchen youenter into two rooms which areside by side. The big open

verandah also has a big storeroom on the side. Let me draw asketch:

The wall of the bedroom andkitchen has a common window tokeep the place lit up in bothrooms at same time. Our bedroomhas a very big bed touching thewall. Laslty, and this may surpriseyou, usually mothers don't wearanything on top the upper body athome, even if their kids grow oldhere.

Regarding my life, I was also

very interested in politics andjoined the Communist Party ofChina when I was in college. Ieven applied for it but they selectonly one smart student from eachcollege. They also have a branchin each village. So they can easilydo governance and spread theirmessage. We are not supposed toquestion about Chairman Mao.Once I did, and it was not a verygood experience.

People think we are communist,but actually our capitalisteconomy is supporting America,EU and others. Moreover,only20% of the population is insidethe poltical party. We have a hugeindustry and infrastructure.Sometimes it is so gigantic that nobody lives there. There are citieswho have new buildings buthardly anyone lives there, andwith rapid industrialisation wehave a lot of pollution in the city.At times in winter you can't walkwithout a mask.

I am from Han tribe. Hans areusually in control of the power.There are many tribes in the East,and they are usually poor.Regarding marriage, it is gettingdifficult for a Chinese guy to finda girl. They are importing themand trafficking from Cambodia. Iam lucky to have girlfriend, whoalso makes my beakfast.

(Bachelor degree in ElectronicsInformation, and enginner focuson Apple software.)

PrabhakarAlumni, Madras University

Last week, the most pertinentquestion in the political circle ofTamil Nadu was: who should begiven credit for the release of fiveTamil fishermen, who werefalsely charged for drugtrafficking and awarded deathsentence by the Colombo HighCourt? Although both AnnaDravida Munnetra Kazhagam

(ADMK) and Bharatiya JanataParty (BJP) took credit, there aresome serious issues that are notraised either by the politician orthe frontline media houses.

Firstly, though President MahindaRajapaksa released themunconditionally, their charges arenot suspended. Hence, they arestill considered as criminals andcan’t travel abroad to work or forany other reasons.

Secondly, in the last decade, it hasbecome a regular routine for theSri Lankan Navy to arrest orshoot Tamil fishermen who areentering the Sri Lankan waters,knowingly or unknowingly. Untila feasible solution is found, thisevent is going to continue causingdistress for all the stakeholders.Lastly, India is losing its holdover both the Indian Ocean andthe Sri Lankan State. The prime

reason behind this situation is itspoor international policy with SriLanka. Nearly 600 Tamilfishermen were brutallymurdered, so far, by the SriLankan Navy. India, inretaliation, did nothing, apartfrom providing further training totheir armed forces along withmaintaining a good rapport withthe Sri Lankan State.

Unseen portrait behind

the release of five Tamil

fishermen

A SOFTware DRAGON:LIFE of aSHENZENIA

Store

kitch

en

bedroom bedroom

garden

gate

8 01­15 December 2014Editorial The Sabha

The legalisation of prostitution is

driven by demand, by the

demography of our democracy.

The present powerful Indian

government claims to reap from 3 Ds:

DEMOCRACY, DEMOGRAPHY

and DEMAND. Lets analyse it from

angle of the recent debate on the

legalisation of prostitution. Is the law

a way forward ? Is it for millions

involved in this livelihoods ? Is it

only a legal problem?

This democracy separates girls andboys right from 5th standard, at leastin thousands of schools. A boyreceives a punishment for even sittingbetween two girls, which hesometimes enjoys . The thirdlanguage here is neither Sanskrit orGerman but silence (What are youdoing with boys/girls ?). In railwayswomen are separated in the ladies

compartment, so that they can beaway from the men.Barriers arecreated to stop a simple normalconversation between genders. Thedemand for many un-felt emotionsincreases with less supply of genderequitable spaces. Even if somehowthese alienated souls meet, they don'tfind a space in society to stabilisetheir excited hormones, which areclose to make reproductive organsvestigial.

So, what can be done? How to

preserve the magnificent art of

Khajuraho and all the asexual marks

with pure words in men's public

toilets? A few good men have

diverted all their creativeness while

painting, drawing, scribbling in the

endangered aromatic public toilets.

The changing times have gradually

replaced Kamasutra to Jugaadsutra.

Jugaad is a hindi word which means

to innovate in a cheap way. In hindi

heartland of UP and Bihar, it is also

used to ask a girl to sleep with you.

Raat ka Jugaad ho sakta hai kya !!

How to harness this energy ? The

energy spent finding a jugaad: room

of a friend, a bush in the park, a space

in library where most of the senior

citizen always pass by trying to laugh,

read, do yoga , can also be used to

help INDIA to become a superpower!

An urge to fornicate and be fornicated

is imbibed in all 3Ds, excluding

people who are asexual. The space in

Indian society is in fact more fertile

for homosexuals who can hold their

hands in public and stay in one flat or

shack. The eyebrows and sometime

bamboos are raised when the

unmarried couples try to find a space

for their urge.

Just like our sulabh shauchalaya

runned by upper caste contractors

chewing paan, who hire again the

lower income groups to do the

cleaning, a space can be created. But

the question is will they also agree to

do this noble act of purity, letting

people do karma, and don't expect the

fruit, supplying contraceptives, letting

people do what they want to do in a

private room with their personal

partners in the public institution of

Sulabh Sexalaya.

We are talking about a space which

can charge to clean bedsheets and

supply contraception at minimum

cost. Maybe they can use an aadhar

card to monitor whether one had sex

at least once in a week, and SMS

them to come, maybe once in a

month. This Democracy needs a

Referendum on it!

With pressure on RBI already high, as

the public sector banks are making

crores of non performing assets by

giving protection to corporates, at

least this institution can give

protection to performing people and

reduce the physical deficit.

SULABH SEXALAYA :

A way INWARD

Recent Headlines:Jun 19, 2012 : India to provide $10bn foreurozone bailout.13 Nov 2011 :Manmohan Singh said Kingfisherneeds to be bailed out. Its debt was 7700 crore inSBI, ICICI, IDBI and PNB.23 Nov 2002: Daewoo Motors a korean company,NPA was 500 crore in ICICI, 450 crores in IDBIand 100 crore in EXIM.

According to P Sainath , the revenue foregone in2013-14 budget can fund three decades of RuralJob Scheme, PDS for four and half years which is5.32 lakh crore. And the calculations since 2005-06comes to 36.5 lakh crore which is 36.5 trillion.,which can fund MGNREGA for 105 years andPDS for 31 years.

On 25 Nov 2014, RBI goveernor deliverd the thirdDr. Verghese Kurien lecture in IRMA where hestressed on the sanctity of the debt contractaccoding to which when a poor or rich industrialistborrows money with a promise to repay interestand prinicipal according to specified schedule.

He said that 161018 crore has been writen off frombank in last five years. When big business defaultscredit becomes costlier and less available, whichcan increase the overall interest rate for theindividual borrower. Some of his remarks :

“An Nom performing assets (NPA) by any othername smells as BAD !”

And ,Large Borrower != Helpless Illiterate peasantLender != SAHUKAR but Public sector banks.

The interesting data is that public sectorbanks give more credit to the poor multinational companies than private sector banks.It is a myth that companies coming to Indiabrings along money, while in reality they suck

up all the capital from the taxpayer's moneyfrom PSUs.

Why ? Banks and RBI are supposed to be vigilantand recover it from the assets of the companies.

Raghuraman also lamented in the lecture that thedebt tribunal court set for the recovery are very fewand they lack resources. Even after the interventionof supreme court the government does not provideresources to bring new ones. There are 33 lowercourts and only 5 higher courts. So even if banksget order of recovery from the lower one's thepending cases in higher court keeps hanging on foryears and years.

Are public sector banks more liberal thanprivate banks or it is about the relationshipbetween the bank and government ?Is thereany proximity among corporates, governmentand banks ?

Lets see how the relationship between Banks andgovernment has history in USA. Noni Prins thefinancial journalist whose book ALL the President'sBankers: The hidden alliance that drive AmericanPower points out the role played by bankers inshaping the financial, foreign and domestic policyof USA in the last 100 years. It came out during thetime when inequality in USA was highest and wallstreet payments were increased 15% to $ 26.7billion more than double the pay of minimum wageworker in the country, earlier his year.

She higlights how men and banks prospered fromrecycling petrodollars from Middle east into thirdworld countries, capturing oil revenues andtransforming them into high interest rate in latinAmerica just after great depression. Dumping loansafter loans to developing countries caused the debtcrisis in third world in 1980s. The first bail out of

banks happened in this time in 80s under Reaganand Bush regime. The relationship among wallstreet, government and war also figures in her bookwhich put Wars as the fastest way to createdebt, which creates big profit.

These relationships among government, bankersand corporates gave birth wars and presenteconomic crisis. In India, regulatory bodiesregulatories bodies like CAG, TRAI, RBI arestruggling to perform their in this similar nexus. InIndia the wars are in different form, oftenundeclared, financed by banks from hunger tosanitation, big dams to mining. While dams arefinanced by one bank, the rehabilitation andhousing by taxpayer's money. Whose money isgoing where? Banks are also involved in financingboth sides of war, creating artificial developmentprojects and manufacturing dissents.

Regulatory bodies must stand strongeragainst the nexus between corporates, bankand government. Their recommendations andreport can get a push from civil societyorganisation. The reports from these bodiesare usually less higlighted by media.

The recent example is Khullar committee report,which questiones the cross media ownership inmedia itself. Most of the coporate media made it aattack on media and asked TRAI to mind its ownbusiness. The UPA government did not go aheadwith fear of general election approaching.

Bank And War Facts:JP Morgan purchased control over America'sleading newspapers in order to propogandize USpublic opnion in favor of US entry into World WarI.Barclays Bank paid $3.6m to Jews whose assetswere seized from French branches of the British-based bank during World War II.

BANKs who sold their f ERR aris