tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29220649995610710572024-03-05T22:10:43.069-08:00Numerous narrativesAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886752165897277194noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2922064999561071057.post-54787590616311850932018-02-16T04:20:00.000-08:002018-02-16T04:22:02.866-08:00State-backed Media, World Politics & India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #365f91; font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: 700;">The Soft Power of State-backed Media and Why India Needs
to be Active in Global Media Space</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 16.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Manan Rathore
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<span style="color: rgb(21.176470% , 37.254900% , 56.862750%); font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">JSIA ID No 20120493
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<span style="color: #365f91; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 14pt;">May, 2014</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 16.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Abstract
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Numerous global indicators point towards a transition in the international system which is acquiring
multi-polar attributes as the American-led order experiences a decline. This study reflects the same
while examining and analysing the origins and political value of globally active state-backed media
actors. It employs Joseph Nye’s notion of ‘soft power’ to understand the latent power of state-media
in world politics and enumerates the direct and indirect functions globally active state-media performs
in world politics while informing global/regional public opinion and reducing information
asymmetries. I attempt to view this rise in globally active state-backed media actors not just as a
‘clash of media voice’ but also as a reflection of the multi-polar world in a constructive environment.
While contextualising the origins of certain state-backed media actors, it attempts to question the
political-economic environment that existed when these actors were established. Thereon, I also argue
for the establishment or increased global activeness of an Indian state-backed media house while
enlisting the incentives this holds for the Indian state.
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 16.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Acknowledgements
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">I wish to thank Professor Rajdeep Pakanati, the academic advisor for my study, for the
guidance he provided that has helped me from the time of assessing the possible research
questions to the final submission of my report. I also wish to express my most sincere
gratitude to Professor Sreeram Chaulia, Dean, Jindal School of International Affairs and all
faculty members for being the inspiration that they are and for their guidance over the course
of the entire MA (DLB) programme, for it is the knowledge acquired through other courses
as well that has culminated into this dissertation. Lastly, I also wish to thank my family and
friends for their support that ensured that I remained constantly motivated to sincerely and
honestly complete my study.
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 16.000000pt;">Table of Contents
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Chapter One: Introduction......................................................................................................2 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Chapter Two: Decoding State Media: Is there a Right Approach?........................................4 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Information, Public Opinion and World Politics................................................................4 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Media as ‘Soft Power’........................................................................................................6 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Clash of Media Voices?......................................................................................................8 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Decoding State-backed Media............................................................................................9 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Versatility of State-backed Media ....................................................................................14 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Chapter Three: Power and Impact of State-backed Media ..................................................16 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">State-backed Media and the New Power Equation ..........................................................16
Contextualising the Origins of Certain State-backed Media............................................19 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Appraising their Political Value .......................................................................................23 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Chapter Four: Bringing the World to India or Taking India to the World?.........................28 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">India’s Voice, Globally.....................................................................................................29 </span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Still the ‘Dark Continent’ – Pseudo Perceptions of/on Africa </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">.........................................30 </span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Supplementary Impetus</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">....................................................................................................33 </span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Is There a Right Time? </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">.....................................................................................................37 </span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">India and Global Media</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">....................................................................................................42 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Chapter Five: Conclusion.....................................................................................................43 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Bibliography ............................................................................................................................45
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">List of tables:
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Table 4.1 Economic indicators for the years when the media houses were established........38 </span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Table 4.2 Political-economic environment when the media houses were established..........40
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 16.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Introduction
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">By every indication, the world, and human society that inhabits it, has been going through
numerous different-paced transitions with the advent of what is sometimes called the
communications or information age or the post-industrial age or the post-modern era in what
is often called the new world (economic or otherwise) order. In this intrinsically
interdependent world, which is in the “process of becoming a single great mass” (Hatchen,
1996) there are still strong national, religious or cultural identities or groupings that resist
homogenisation and reshape global systems and are also reshaped themselves, as global
cosmopolitan spirits appear to gain momentum.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Among the numerous global entities that are influencing human society – by shaping or
informing public discourse – is state-backed media. In the following chapters, I present my
understanding and analysis as I attempt to decrypt the role and functions of globally active
state-backed media – as a ‘soft power’ resource – in world politics. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">I</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">n this era of multi-
layered and multi-faceted globalisation, my arguments are based around an understanding
that the rise of globally active state-backed media must not be seen as a counter measure to
oppose globalisation; rather it must be profoundly examined as a voice in world politics that
may or may not disseminate biased information and a certain set of norms that, collectively,
influence global or regional public opinion for “media can be tools of conflict and
instruments of peace” (Seib, 2008). It is this understanding that, I believe, warrants my
investigation and subsequent arguments into the interplay of globally active state-backed
media and world politics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">I invoke notions about ‘imagined communities’, to present my tentative thesis, while stating
that to use states as a unit of analysis while appraising the political value of state-backed
media may only yield superficial observations, just as the examination of the subject through
a realist lens would. Further, while enlisting the functions of a globally active state-backed
media, I trace the origins of certain internationally active state-backed media and proceed to
assess their political value, especially in terms of informing public opinion and leveraging the
soft power it incorporates. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The study looks at four specific globally active state-backed media
agencies that operate in various languages. By underscoring their relevance, the study aims to
highlight (and elevate the understanding about) the political value and importance of state-
backed media in contemporary world politics because it is understood that soft power
resources and global/regional public opinion are two growing parameters to adjudge the
power, clout and influence of a state, and that these hold grave value in world politics.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The research, however, primarily revolves around state-backed media agencies and does not
cover the spread or international activeness of private networks globally or the domestic role
of state-media. While it does cover the targeted global or regional audiences of these
networks, the study does not comment in detail about the quality of content that these actors
project.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">While reiterating the importance of a globally active state-backed media in the contemporary
scenario, I argue that India must actively participate in this global media space as, “in
immediate terms, the media flow of information may have a greater impact than education”
(Hatchen, 1996) on the direction(s) the world takes. I enumerate the various incentives for
India to take such state actions and further question if there may be a ‘right time’ for India to
do so and conclude by noting that, given the contemporary political-economic environment,
the state must urgently be represented in the global media space.
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: 700;">Chapter Two</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 16.000000pt; font-weight: 700;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 16.000000pt; font-weight: 700;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Decoding State Media: Is there a Right Approach?</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 16.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">As some regions across the globe grow closer and stronger through increased dependencies
as well as freedom of movement and free-flow of information, others appear to be distancing
and isolating themselves by restricting and reshaping information flows. States are also
increasingly employing media actors to achieve numerous objectives such as to influence
global and regional public opinion and to spread a respective set of norms. This chapter
attempts to probe the global role and functions of state-backed media while projecting it as a
versatile instrument of ‘soft power’. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Thereon, I discuss the alternate understandings with
which one can approach the task of decoding state-backed media’s role globally and assert
that while it is imperative to note an apparent fracas between global state-backed media
actors, these developments must not be just viewed as a mere race or competition in this age
of information.
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 14.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Information, Public Opinion and World Politics
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">In the contemporary times, when globalisation is more than an increasingly recognised and
expected adage, the structure of the international system is acquiring far more dynamic
attributes than ever before. While most states seek to build upon and subsequently take the
treaty of Westphalia forward, some, and at many times conflicting, transnational actors
ferment together a force that resists and often influences state action. Just as the “lure of </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">global markets” (Seib, Media and Conflict in the Twenty-first Century, 2005) attempts to
homogenise the world in some ways and the global recognition of human rights promises
peace and prosperity, nationalist or regional philosophies strive to maintain and spread the
clout of the nation-state.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">It is amidst such various evolving processes that public opinion is also shaped, especially
through increased exposure to media, both, domestic and foreign, as well as public and
private. Traditionally, in the study of international relations the emphasis on military or hard
power would overshadow any other factors, but in a precariously interdependent and
interconnected world, the ascertained value of “soft power” (Nye, 1990) has also risen. And
public opinion falls under that umbrella of soft power. As Joseph Nye elucidated, the
changing nature of world politics has and is making the “intangible forms of power more
important” (Nye, 1990).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Among those various intangible forms of power, one of them is information and subsequently
a public opinion that the access of information shapes. Information, therefore, becomes
unarguably extremely critical to “the premise of the discourse” (Herman & Chomsky, 1988).
Consequently, it is because of the increasing power of information and public opinion that
media, while subject to certain biases, becomes a significant player in global political
economies. In recent years, the international system has been increasingly acquiring multi-
polar attributes. As another manifestation of such multi-polarisation, even state-backed media
have begun echoing diverse and at times opposing voices or perspectives.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">“Competing for control of internationally available information and idea pools is a proven
expansionist tendency of world powers” (Chaulia, 2010). To a realist this would be a race, a
competition of some sort, one which has clearly been subject to the “oligopoly of western
</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">media” (Chaulia, 2010) for far too long. Since the early 2000s, however, the world has seen </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">the emergence of Qatar-backed </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">, the rejuvenation of </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Russia Today </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">and the creation
of China’s </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">CCTV </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">and </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Global Times </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">among other state-funded media giants that are
constantly striving to echo Arab, Russia or Chinese perspectives respectively and infuse their
respective regional values to the world through reportage on the global events with their
corresponding tilts while observing journalistic virtues.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">To a liberal, this must mean more than just a race. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">To view the emergence of these
aforementioned actors as merely a different manifestation of the “clash of civilisations”
(Seib, Media and Conflict in the Twenty-first Century, 2005) would undermine the potential
impact the existence of all these voices can have together. By providing alternative
perspectives and narratives, which certainly acts as disseminators of the respective state’s soft
power, these voices are only adding to the information that is out in the open, thereby
reducing information asymmetries that threaten sustainable and peaceful progress in world
societies by providing level playing fields. In that respect, these alternative voices must also
be seen as elements that can, at varied levels, feed into a model for global governance.
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 14.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Media as ‘Soft Power’
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The public space that media occupies and the functions it performs make it an invaluable
resource for the state. As Walter Lippmann annotated in the chapter ‘The world outside and
pictures in our heads’ that since the world is a large place where information is growing
exponentially every second, a lot of the information remains “out of reach, out of sight and
out of mind,” (Lippmann, 1922) for a large volume of people. It is this attribute of the media
from where it derives the power to influence or rather set agendas by influencing or even
limiting the avenues for public discourse. And when that media marries nationalist sentiments </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">through financial infusions from the state and develops political affiliations due to
overpowering ideologies of nationalism, it assumes the role of the voice of a state. When that
happens, the media becomes closer to being an agenda setter on the global stage as well, for
the state. It must again be noted that here, it is the international presence of the state
sponsored media that is being studied and not the role state media plays domestically.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Joseph Nye had quite critically articulated about two decades ago, that, “power is a
relationship” (Nye, 1990) in the international system and that the </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">“fungibility” </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">(Nye, 1990)
between the different associations between the resources of power has diminished in the
increasingly connected and interdependent world. Nye went onto question the need for this
power. The purpose this power, quite simplistically, serves is that it allows the powerful
states to influence the actions of others (Nye, 1990).
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">In consistency with the above definition of power one must implicitly note that, since even as
the realisations or forms of values and norms and even power evolve over time, certain
fundamental or traditional structures that define the international system remain intact and
resist absolute change. Therefore, while the need and power of military resources or ‘hard
power’ continues to be stressed and is arguably significant, the real mix of power resources
changes with the addition of ‘soft power’ resources that thrive on reduction in information
asymmetries and the increase in international interdependencies. And increasingly, state
media is fitting into that mix as a soft power resource along with growing economic
interdependencies and a spurt in the rise of global institutions. Together, these not only
provide the state (or regionalisms which in instances assume supranational identities in
today’s world) with the option to get other “states to want what that state (or regionalism)
wants” (Nye, 1990) rather than to ‘order’ them into doing what the state (or regionalism)
wants.
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">How states or increasingly regionalisms acquire that power to influence state action then also
depends on the other state’s or region’s perception about the former. Such influence may be
desired to strengthen hegemonies or to attract economic engagements in forms of aid or
investment. Just as Philip Seib notes, when the emir of Qatar touts “Qatar as a progressive
Islamic state that welcomes Western investment, he can showcase </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">as evidence of
his commitment to reform” (Seib, Media and Conflict in the Twenty-first Century, 2005). But
such a function of the media, as in the case of </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">, is not the only one it was
envisioned to perform when established, as the network also serves as a strong purveyor of
the Arab perspective while adding polarity to once uni-polar or Western hegemony in the
global media space.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 14.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Clash of Media Voices?
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">“Clashes between civilisations can occur in ways other than armed conflict. There can be
clashes of perspective, the beginning and outcomes of which are affected by information
flows” (Seib, Media and Conflict in the Twenty-first Century, 2005). This aforementioned
observation by Philip Seib is critical to understanding the rise in the presence and activeness
of different media voices in the world, but the statement must not be taken as an engraved
and accurate description of the dynamic global media landscape. This must, however, serve
as a point of discussion to analyse the actual extent to which national media are confronting
one-another and the level to which they are enriching and informing global public opinion
and perhaps state action.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The debate around Samuel Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilisations’ theory continues to engage
researchers, policy makers and analysts the world over. As Seib noted, this debate holds great </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">“value for policy makers and journalists” (Seib, Media and Conflict in the Twenty-first
Century, 2005), for the manner in which the media house understands its own presence
among other global media influences the way in which it portrays itself, expresses
information and spreads norms. There certainly appears to be a clash of media voices – for
instance the American stories and the Russian headlines on the developments in Crimea
displayed absolutely contradicting facts and stances while presenting their own definitions
and understandings of international law and norms – but these must not be looked at as
attempts to monopolise information only. </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">While a constructive approach to understanding the
relevance and impact of state-backed media is understood to be paramount, the existence and
need for such voices and what they stand for cannot be overlooked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">In continuity, it must be noted that, just as there are alternative narratives about similar
events, there are and can be alternative approaches to understanding the role and impact of
state media in contemporary world politics. Therefore, while acknowledging the influence of
ontological origins on such approaches, it is imperative to convey that this tentative thesis too
may appear to be subject to certain biases. The proposal to work towards a constructive
approach to decode the role and impact of state-backed media in contemporary world politics
may appear naïve, but that is this thesis’ aims: to provide another alternative to analysing
these developments while arguing for the need for an Indian voice in the global media
landscape. An Indian voice which is ‘home grown’ in realpolitik and is not borrowed of
academic ideologies, but that which is authentic. Questioning this ‘authenticity’ may of
course subsequently generate many debates, but that is yet another scenario.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 14.000000pt; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 14.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Decoding State-backed Media</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">This manifestation of perceivably approaching muli-polarisation in the global media space
which is already established in certain forms demands greater attention and deeper
interrogations, for the traditional theories of realism and liberalism have disparate ontological
tracts and may not be able to read through such developments in isolation. While Thomas
Friedman’s </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">The World is Flat </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">and Samuel Huntington’s </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Clash of Civilisations </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">are great
examples to observe how the same global system can be understood to be shaped in distinct
ways, these theories tend to portray specific developments and assume some attributes of the
world will overshadow the other. Though such deductions seem plausible, to abnegate others
and to isolate numerous global dynamics only provides limited understanding.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Perhaps, global politics, in general, and the global media space, in particular, require the
scope of the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">weltanschauung </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">to be broadened to accommodate the evolving relationship
between the realist and liberal world views. Such an understanding is consistent with Imre
Lakatos’ development of the research programme where he moderates down the
revolutionary sentiments of Karl Popper’s “falsification” and mixes it with Thomas Kuhn’s
ideas of “paradigm shift”. Lakatos observed that all theories are subject to “oceans of
anomalies” but they cannot not be “governed by rules of reason” (Lazarus, 2009). </span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Contemporarily, the United States of America or the West have seen a fraction of their power
to influence the world erode and this has simultaneously been accompanied with the
economic and political rise of other states like China and Russia among others in the
international system that are closing in on filling that power vacuum – even in the global
media space. This progressively multi-polar world is very different from the one where
unipolarity seemed an accepted system after the break-up of the Soviet Union. But while
examining such transformations and not merely a falsification, one must resist the urge to
term them as an absolute paradigm shift and must not look at them as breaks or ruptures in
</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">history, for history is closer to being a linear space where all stories, at least in modern times </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">and if sufficient patience is observed, can be traced and be brought under the ambit where
they are “governed by rules of reason” while being subject to “oceans of anomalies”
(Lazarus, 2009). The application of such an understanding to interrogate the contemporary
global media space may, however, appear guileless. But as the contemporary world system
appears to be experiencing a thrust towards a liberal-pluralistic ambivalence, it is understood
that while studying this system traditional lenses may provide an understanding that may not
account for all the actors and forces at work in the real world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">When sifting this apparent outward burst of state-supported media, careful attention needs to
be paid to the varied direct and indirect functions these media perform. The primary objective
they are established with remains to be to compete in the global media space to control the
“</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">internationally available information and idea pools” (Chaulia, 2010)</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">, to propagate the
national perspective on issues and events and to spread its inherent values and norms across
the world, for instance as the official website of French media house explains the purpose of
the channel is to “c</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">over international current events from a French perspective and to convey
French values throughout the world” (France 24, 2006). But </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">these state-backed media houses
perform other functions as well as discussed below.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Firstly, and importantly, providing a mix and therefore alternatives (also read as challenges)
to the Western hegemony in the media space. The emergence of regional voices in this
manner is not only important to disallow the particular powers to dominate or direct the flow
of information and ideas, but also to, in a positive tone, let regional or national perspectives
be broadcasted and their stories narrated by themselves. This is also essential because, while
some states have shared histories and experiences, others subscribe to disparate cultural or
ontological understandings. This only illustrates that the same issue may be differently
observed or understood or reacted at by different actors, given their distinct political, </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">historical, cultural or societal affiliations that also shape public discourse within the state. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">In </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">certain ways, such state behaviour is comparable to the notions of individuation (McNeely,
2010) developed by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. It may be naive and incorrect to directly
extrapolate the ideas of psychiatry with that of state behaviour in terms of the state media’s
stance, but there have to be definitive links between individuation and how it translates
through societies and states into imagined communities that then constitute nations that voice
out opinion through media.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">In that context, there is also a need to employ nations – </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">that are large ‘individuated’ bodies of
people united by common history or culture inhabiting particular territories – as units of
analysis when studying the impact and role of media in international relations and not just
states.
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">In context to that, secondly, for these nations (or individuated identities) therefore, state-
sponsored media also performs another significant function. This is to allow the nation-state’s
story to be narrated by the state itself, especially for the diaspora that is spread across the
globe. While, states compete for soft-power, it are these media voices that pull people
together and “create a certain affection for that society” (Mustafi, 2013) while reflecting the
country’s values. In consonant with Benedict Anderson’s ‘Imagined Communities’ state-
sponsored media through its portrayal then, also broadcasts “national imagination... through
a sociological landscape of a fixity that fuses” (Anderson, 1982) the nation and the world. In
that respect, such media acts as a catalyst that binds the ‘national imagination’ and socially
strengthens and constructs a community. The extent of this national affiliation and the ardour
of nationalism that it ignites, subsequently, also contribute to the fabric of soft power.
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Thirdly, another function these state-backed media voices perform is to act as a specimen of
the state’s commitment to democratic values of freedom of speech and of support to a liberal
</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">society. As in the case of the emir of Qatar who “can showcase </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">as evidence of his </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">commitment to reform” when he touts “Qatar as a progressive Islamic state that welcomes
Western investment” (Seib, Media and Conflict in the Twenty-first Century, 2005).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Fourthly, and arguably an under-stated purpose for such media, is how it can and does
indirectly feed into the architecture of global governance by broadcasting alternative views
and perspectives and by divulging information that another state-backed media house may
withhold. Where such a function gives rise to certain complexities is when the information it
gathers and broadcasts appear to be meddling with (or as alleged by certain actors
undermining) the sovereignty of the other states. Such complexities may/shall not arise, for
journalists must not act as spies, but the divulging of information can increase tensions
between states as was observed after Julian Assange through Wikileaks shared certain
Afghanistan war-logs with certain media houses. Though all the media-houses that uploaded
the information gathered from Assange were not state-backed actors, such instances only
illustrate how the politics of what (and when) media chooses to (especially state-sponsored
media) broadcast can impact world affairs.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">A scholar described that “Assange had taken the view that re-formation of global power and
politics is vested primarily in a pure fourth estate model” (Lewis, 2013). As the level of
absolute openness of state-backed media is assumed to be not high, this puts limits on the
impact it can have through such ‘re-formation’, but the possibility of a state’s employing
these resources in the new-age information war cannot be ruled out. In consistency with that
understanding, it is believed that, while assessing the political value of information in the
contemporary world, state-backed media could perhaps purvey refuge to certain
whistleblowers while acting as conduits to share information. While, in isolation, such
incidents may affect certain relations in world politics; in totality, these instances will only
put a greater share of the information out in public domain.
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 14.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Versatility of State-backed Media
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">In his recently released book </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Maxwell’s Demon and the Golden Apple, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Randall L Schweller
theorises about the breaking down of the international system, which then moves from “an
American-led era of order to chaotic disorder” (Ikenberry, 2014). My view of the future of
the international system is not very different from Schweller’s. However, where I differ is on
the direction that Schweller thinks the international system will take – becoming “a
decentralised and disorganised affair in which there are no leaders, no followers, and no
states capable of generating cooperation” (Ikenberry, 2014) in the absence of a preponderant
power. I view this gradual dissolution or the shift from unipolarity to be accompanied by a
certain rise in multi-polarity – which given its pristine form, may appear to be chaotic in the
initial stages – that will provide for substantial and warranted representation of stakeholders
in the international system. I believe that is one area where these new state-backed media
voices fit in as well, for they not only echo a states’ norms and opinions while delivering
news, but they also feed into a global public opinion that is seeing a drift towards
strengthening the institutions of; global governance.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">In this chapter, I attempted to introduce that state-backed media as an entity with high latent
power that influences public discourse and can feed into the global architecture of global
governance. While using Nye’s ‘soft power’ hypothesis to discuss the role that state-backed
media plays and to illustrate how it acquires power in world politics, I enumerated the various
direct and indirect functions that a globally active state-media performs. Additionally, I have
argued that in order to constructively decode the significance of state-media in a global </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">scenario, there is need to go beyond the realist argument that would view the global media
space merely as a ‘clash of media voices’, however, I have reiterated that while doing so, the
global tussle to control and shape the information out in the public domain cannot be
overlooked. While invoking Anderson’s notions about ‘imagined communities’ and asserting
that state-media feeds into a global public opinion I have attempted to enlist how state-backed
media, collectively, shapes the boundaries of public discourse while strengthening the
cohesion among the diaspora.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: 700;">Chapter Three</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 16.000000pt; font-weight: 700;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 16.000000pt; font-weight: 700;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Power and Impact of State-backed Media</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 16.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">State-backed Media and the New Power Equation</span></div>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The ultimate yardstick of national power is military capability (McPherson, Layne, Bially, &
Tellis, 2000). That is what the authors of a report titled </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Measuring National Power in the
Post-industrial Age </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">observed while adding that the “</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">post-industrial world requires new ways
to assess national power” (Cohen, 2001). As stated earlier, there are now a greater number of
constituents that make up national power – military to economic and other forms of soft
power. Since the premise of this research is centred on the impact of state-backed media – a
soft power – in world politics, this chapter aims to establish the impact or influence of these
organisations that are intangible sources of power while tracing their origins and objectives.
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">To assess the military power of states may appear to be a straight forward task which may be
completed by accounting for the size of the military and its capabilities – soldiers in the
infantry, war ships in seas, fighter jets, submarines and even nuclear warheads. But an
assessment of hard power based on such a comparison would be insufficient, for it ignores
the varying human capabilities and trainings of the military officers and omits the different
response times states would require to legislate to take military action and to mobilise troops
among other factors. It also assumes that the battlefield would not favour or disfavour any
side in anyway, in terms of geography or demographics.
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Clearly, an assessment of military power is not that simple to make. And in today’s power
mix where other forms of power are a crucial part of a state’s influence, such assessment of
power becomes even more complex and illusively perplexing. Further, “</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">power is so
contextual that all-encompassing indices and the hubris they may breed can mislead as much
as they inform” (Cohen, 2001).
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">There can be no denying, however, that soft power now accounts for a significant portion of
the power equation. Assessments of and about soft power, therefore, become progressively
difficult to complete given the intangible nature of soft power and the social fabric it operates
in. How can the impact and value of such intangibles be ascertained objectively? Media and
more importantly state-backed media function in the same manner. Therefore even though
there is little debate on the potential impact of media, there are limited indicators and
numerous uncertainties, a combination of which complicates the methodology to assess the
impact of state-backed media.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Before delving into the impact or influence of state-backed media, it is equally imperative to
enlist the primary function of media as an entity. The agenda-setting theory encapsulates that
function best. While first-level agenda setting “focuses on the amount of coverage of an
issue,” (Coleman & Wu, 2009) second-level agenda-setting theory “examines the influence
of attribute salience, characteristics and tone of that coverage” (Coleman & Wu, 2009). The
media effects or influence theory, then, which talks about the sociological and psychological
impacts of media, serves as a pertinent tool to attempt to study any such influences.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Since this research aims to study the impact of state-backed in world politics, from here on it
focuses on some specific state-backed media organisations, namely, Qatar-funded </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">,
UK-backed </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">BBC</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">, </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">CCTV/Global Times </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">which are made in China and Russia’s response to
Western dominance in the global media space – </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Russia Today</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">. I shall, however, enumerate </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">and briefly discuss certain other channels of news as well. The common reasons for choosing
these media houses is the global reach they have and the large audiences they serve while
adhering to their respective national slants. </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">CCTV, Global Times, Russia Today and Al
Jazeera </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">have also been chosen because they share relatively close birth-years and partially
similar origins – that they were all conceived as disseminators of news, views and norms of
the nation-state while showcasing the state’s evolving culture through journalistic ventures.
Alternatively, </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">BBC </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">has been chosen because it remains the earliest such international voice of
a nation-state in the world. No major </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">US media houses have been included because they are
mostly private-held organisations barring media-agencies like the </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Voice of America </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">which
have seen a decline in state-funding over the last few decades in the post-Cold War era and
due to budgetary cuts. However, the influence of a channel such as </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">CNN </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">can serve as a
starting point for discussion. Also, though most major media in the US is privately held, I
believe that this also only projects the values and norms in American society that favour
private enterprise.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">If academic discussions around the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">‘CNN </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">effect</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">’ </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">and subsequently the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">‘Al Jazeera </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">effect’ are
any indicators, then the significance and impact of these actors is beyond debate. When
</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali noted, “</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">CNN </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">is the sixteenth member of
the Security Council” (Gilboa, 2005, p. 28), he was not referring to </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">CNN </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">as a member that
votes in the Security Council, but one which actively participates in setting the agenda for
discussion. The Secretary General’s observation could have been a complaint against or an
optimistic acceptance of the significance and activeness of media houses, but either way, it
only underlines the impact news providers have around the world. </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">Statements such as these would outweigh empirical evidence for or against the global impact
of media. Therefore, taking note of the relevance of such above mentioned qualitative </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">evidence when judging the impact of state-backed media, similar oblique evidences have
been further sought whilst assessing the impact of the state-backed media.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 14.000000pt; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 14.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Contextualising the Origins of Certain State-backed Media
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">United Kingdom’s </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">British Broadcasting Corporation </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">(</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">BBC</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">) has grown into a major media
house that airs all sorts of programmes – from news to drama and sports. What this
dissertation is concerned about is just its news services, which may not have gotten the
publicised appreciation that </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">CNN </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">boasts off, but it has remained a benchmark setter for media
agencies, especially state-backed media the world over. Off all the already established state-
backed media agencies, </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">BBC </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">was also the first to acknowledge the rise of </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">and
</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Russia Today </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">among others. In 2013, accepting that it is also facing “competition for
international audiences in a battle for soft power,” (Tryhorn, 2013) the director general of the
corporation Tony Hall said he wants the corporation to double its reach by 2022.
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Having commenced operations in 1922 on the order of the government, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">BBC </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">has only grown
exponentially, attracting global audiences through journalistic ventures such as the
precariously honest and poking interviews on ‘Hard Talk’ or the succinct yet wholesome
news bulletins. Simultaneously, there have been numerous allegations of the bias some news
stories are presented with, as is the case with most such media. The spending of over
$200,000 in a “legal battle to block the publication of a report into an alleged bias in its
reporting of Middle East affairs” (Mail, 2012) or the questions raised about its apparent Left-
wing bias (West, 2012) illustrate the same. Commenting on any particular bias of state-
backed media or its slant is not the objective of this paper. What, however, is its aim is to
</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">trace the purpose and external impact of state-backed media.
</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">In that respect, the public purposes of the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">BBC</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">, as set out by the Royal Charter and
Agreement, the constitutional basis for the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">BBC </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">as presented to Parliament, which have
remained the same, are revealing. These include to “bring UK to the world and the world to
UK” (BBC, 2011) and “to represent the UK, its nations, regions and communities” (BBC,
2011). The significance </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">BBC </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">has for the UK may be hard to illustrate empirically, but what
the service and its news broadcasts do for the state cannot be overlooked. As Peter Horrocks,
the media house’s director of global news noted, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">BBC </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">“creates influence for the UK through
taking a long-term approach to representing the best of British values around the world, but
what it does not do is represent short-term UK government interests” (Tryhorn, 2013).
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Qatar-funded </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">serves a similar purpose. Established in November 1996, this news
revered provider has been admired by viewers and has even been approbated by other media
houses across the world. It has echoed an Arab voice on lots of issues, has caused
disagreements among members of the Gulf Co-operation Council and has also been voted
among the top five most influential global brands (Brook, 2005) while attempting to provide
all sides of a news story. Its, is a story that has been written about by scholars and journalists
alike, some of who have extrapolated the suffix ‘effect’ from </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">CNN </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">and have crowned </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al
Jazeera </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">with it. As a </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">New York Times </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">piece noted in 2011, “it is </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera’s </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">moment</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">not
only because of the role it has played, but also because the channel has helped to shape a
narrative of popular rage against oppressive American-backed Arab governments (and
against Israel)” (Kirkpatrick & Worth, 2011).
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">While it remains a highly credible and followed broadcaster across the world, especially in
the Gulf region, it is only prudent to read through </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">while accepting it’s certain
biases or tilts. Where these become apparent is when news representation from different
sources is compared. For instance, when </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al Arabiya </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">(Saudi Arabia-backed broadcaster) and </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">comment on Syrian affairs, they tend to reflect the political positions of their </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">backers. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">While a few are able to recognise any such bias, others abide by the broadcaster’s position
and echo a similar voice.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Another state-supported broadcaster that has enjoyed similar popularity and faced directed
criticism as that of </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">is Russia’s state broadcaster </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">RT </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">or </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Russia Today</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">. This media
house is in its first decade, but it has rapidly established itself as a serious presenter of “an
alternative perspective on major global events” (</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Russia Today</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">, 2005) and as conduit that
“acquaints international audience with the Russian viewpoint” (</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Russia Today</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">, 2005). It has
since its inception in 2005 served as another voice in the global media space that has
provoked rights criticism because of certain orthodox stances of the Russian government but
has also at the same time journalistically covered some important world events.
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">In all fairness, it appears to be a direct reaction to the Western dominance in the media space
with most of its stories directed against the West’s actions and its resources aimed at showing
the West in a sombre shade. On occasions, it appears as if it "has made itself a strident critic
of US policy” (Walker, 2012). Simultaneously, it has grown into a voice that cannot be
ignored, especially with interviews hosted by Julian Assange. Therefore, despite this Russian
broadcaster’s alleged usage of “a chaotic mixture of conspiracy theories and crude
propaganda" (Bidder, 2013) on occasions, it has become one of the most successful foreign
broadcaster in many states and appears to be “outperforming its peers worldwide” (Bidder,
2013). </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Russia Today </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">is perhaps one of those state-broadcasters where a strong national
sentiment forms the base for any approach, which is why it remains one of the few media
channels that are closely tied to the state. From, Russian President Putin’s visit to its
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">headquarters in 2013 (RT, History, 2013) to Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov’s
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">described as the biggest non-violent instigator
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">against the Syrian regime’ (Qassemi, 2012).
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">vehement support for it, the organisation reeks of Russian sentiment and does not even
attempt to masquerade itself as an absolutely objective disseminator of information.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Perceivably, state-broadcasters that appear to have a relatively similar strong voice as that of
Russia Today, that on occasions seems to overshadow journalistic neutrality are the ones
from China. The external presence of Chinese state-funded media – </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Global Times </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">(the
newspaper and news website) and </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">CCTV </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">(the television channel) among others – may be the
youngest with the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Global Times’ </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">English version being launched in 2009 and </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">CCTV </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">adapting
to delivering news internationally 2007 onwards, but with huge monetary infusions they are
</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">“extending Chinese media's global reach” which is partially aimed at reducing the “</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">big gap
between China's image among foreign people and its idea of itself" (MacMurchy, 2009).
</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Global Times </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">has become an “essential read for every China-watcher” (Times, 2009). As
Mexico’s ambassador to China, Jorge Guajardo, noted </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Global Times </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">is “a must read for
anyone wanting to understand China” (Times, 2009).
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">While these outlets present a Chinese perspective on certain issues, the manner in which they
run only reflects the strong state-control in China with “Chinese intellectuals calling for a
boycott of such media” (Chen, 2009) because of their openly biased stances. Editorial
independence remains precarious territory for a Chinese broadcaster, but while being critical
of the editorial positions of </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">CCTV </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">and the </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Global Times</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">, it needs to be widely acknowledged
that these channels of information are now serving millions of people around the world.
</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">CCTV </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">has since 2009 been operating channels in Arabic and Russian to serve a wider net of
international audiences and Global Times prints an English edition in the US as well. Further,
China has taken the lead with the establishment of </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">CCTV Africa </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">which is beginning to serve a
big African audience especially in the absence of most other state-media actors on a continent
that promises to be writing the next big story. However, t</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">here may be “little impartial </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">evidence that this is attracting significant audiences” but what must be noted is that “China is </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">playing a long game” (Tryhorn, 2013) and is promoting its soft power in this way. These
measures, while projecting the Chinese perspective on issues also serve as culverts to transfer
political knowledge.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 14.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Appraising their Political Value
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The origins of the respective state-backed media have evident influence on the perspective
they choose to view a development from and that perspective morphs itself into a bias that
informs the agenda setting function of the actor. In the state-backed media agencies discussed
above, it is clear that the first and second degrees of agenda setting are active in terms of the
amount of space given to and the portrayal of issues by the agency. But these organisations
are just another set of influencers in the public space/domain and the impact they have
depends on other factors as well like the degree of exposure to media, the local socio-political
and economic scenarios among other things.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Just as there will always be apprehensions about any quantitative method that attempts to
appraise the eminence of national imagination when it comes to its contribution to the power
of a state, there may perhaps, not be a fixed criteria or set of parameters that could be applied
to evaluate the value and political contributions of the aforementioned state-backed media to
world politics. Since these media organisations are individuated actors that operate under
different conditions, it may also not be pertinent to use common criteria to evaluate their
global impact. Application of quantitative criteria increases the risks of only reflecting a
superficial assessment, especially in the contemporary socio-political environment where
people in different regions/states are subject to disparate cultural understandings, state laws,
religious and market influences. Before arguing for or against any statement, it is also </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">imperative to note that “people who are exposed to media already possess a fund of
knowledge and attitudes which they bring to bear on new information. Since we do not know
precisely what this information is, nor the rules by which it is combined with incoming
information, we cannot pinpoint the exact contribution which that media make to the
individual's cognitions, feelings, and actions” (Bartels, 1993).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Though, it is prudent to question the significance of numbers when foraging for empirical
evidence to suggest the public impact of state-backed media, yet these figures must not be
dismissed. In this age of the Internet and information, facts that </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">BBC </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">is the most re-tweeted
source, that </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Russia Today </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">became the first news provider to reach a billion views on
YouTube and that </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera’s </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">English website has over 20 million hits every month resonate
the impacts these broadcasters have (</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Jazeera</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">, 2013) (RT, History, 2013). These big digit
numbers symbolise not just the reach of these media but also capture the global thirst for
information. By extension of that argument, therefore, this multiplies the value of the media
organisation, for it holds the power to influence, direct and even curtail some avenues of
public discourse and opinion by virtue of the capacity to quench or not quench that thirst for
information.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">But what quite spectacularly illustrates the political leverage of these state-backed media
operators is the acknowledgement by the masses and leaders across the world that these
organisations are fuelling or subduing political frustrations in their pursuit of journalism.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">In 2011, the then Secretary of State of the United States of America Hillary Clinton noted
that the US was losing the “information war”. Such statements coming from world leaders
only elevate the significance of these actors and illustrate their impact. Clinton added that </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al
Jazeera </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">was “literally changing people’s minds and attitudes. And like it or hate it, it is really
</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">effective” (Radia, 2011). The impact </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">had earlier that year in 2011 in Egypt </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">requires no exclusively quantitative evidence, for the vociferous chants of “Long live </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Al
Jazeera</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">” by thousands of protesters at Tehrir Square in Cairo speak for themselves (Miles,
2011). Following that phase of the Arab Spring, the Egyptian state incarcerated three
journalists of </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">who continue to remain on trial in Egypt (Kingsley, 2014). Until a
few years back, the US had also detained and allegedly tortured </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">journalists under
counterterrorism policies (Ali, 2014). To add to the animosity the American government
appeared to develop towards </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera’s</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">, especially after its broadcasts of tapes from/of
Osama bin Laden, there were reports of President Bush telling UK’s Prime Minister Tony
Blair that he wanted to bomb </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera’s </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">headquarters in Doha (Huffington Post, 2011).
Such actions by states on foreign journalists and media only illustrate the importance attached
with global media and the political and social impact it has and is capable of.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Rozina Ali at the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Cairo Review of Global Affairs </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">has attempted to link the two
aforementioned incidents of detainments of journalists while noting that “as the War on
Terror diffuses into support for an increasing number of local – and secret – wars on
terrorism, the tactic of imprisoning journalists seems to be catching on” (Ali, 2014). She
notes that Egypt is only doing what the US had been doing for over a decade. Such
observations and deductions in consonance with the facts may seem pre-mature, but at the
risk of sounding that it is important to acknowledge, through these possible linkages and
understandings, the political weight that these media agencies carry, which other actors strive
to gain the control of or manipulate or derail.
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Russia Today </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">is another giant in this global media space which disseminates information that
comes with a Russian identity and holds great value in terms of the number of people it
reaches and informs. On many occasions, it even takes the form of a “propaganda machine
that is no less destructive than military marching in Crimea” (Linkevicius, 2014) as
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Linus Linkevicius tweeted in March, 2014. Such </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">statements demonstrate that these state-backed media actors can at times, be to soft power
what ammunition is to the military. In the increasingly interconnected world, while some of
these media agencies take offensive routes to restrict or re-inform the premise of public
discourse, others appear to be more defensive and reformative in their approach. Comparing
</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Russia Today’s </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">truculent approach to the aggressive intent of China’s </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">CCTV</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">, there have been
suggestions that call </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">CCTV’s </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">explosive expansion an attempt to “buy world opinion”
(Ken’ichi, 2010). What this acutely again underlines is the impact of active state-backed
media on public opinion and the corresponding power of ‘informed’ public opinion.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">These speculations about “buying world opinion” may or may not be true, but they are flawed
at a technical level, for they assume that the public or all the targeted subscribers across the
world would respond in the same manner to the broadcasts. The argument erringly
presupposes and pictures homogenised world populations, undermining disparate cultural and
social understandings spread across different regions in varying time zones. Therefore, while
it is understood that state-backed media is reaching out to the world, it must also be noted that
it is doing so at varied levels in different regions, quite like separate yet over-lapping spheres
of influence. While </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Russia Today </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">and </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">CCTV </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">are available 24X7 in different languages across
the globe, there are still some particular regions that these actors work to tighten their grip on
and spread through to influence opinion. While for </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Russia Today</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">, the immediate neighbours
– the masses in states that once formed the Soviet Union – remain a primary audience, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">CCTV
</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">is more active in countries in Southeast Asia and Africa where it complements the aid and
investment flowing in from China. Similarly, for </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">, which has recently expanded
across the Atlantic, the Arab audience remains the most sought target. Just as the density of
these spheres of influence becomes thinner beyond certain points, even the impact these
actors have reduces in farfetched regions where another state-backed media may have a
</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">stronger hold.
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">There are numerous other examples as well, like Saudi Arabia funded </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al Arabiya </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">that
competes with </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">for media space in the Arab region; </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">TeleSUR</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">, the network jointly
established and promoted by some Latin American states that is aimed to accelerate and
catalyse the integration of Latin America; Iran’s </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Press TV </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">which aims to serve as a distributor
of “the often neglected voices and perspectives of a great portion of the world” (Press TV,
2009), especially in the Gulf region among others.
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">This urge of some states to influence global public opinion; and of others to constructively
build on their soft power through state-media indicates towards the ebbing of the traditional
system of </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">realpolitik. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">That system is morphing itself into a new one which increasingly
acknowledges the political value of public opinion and subsequently of state-backed media.
In this constantly refashioning global system, state-backed media is not only functioning as
the purveyor of a particular national or regional voice that attempts to integrate the region
further and counter other global voices, but is also adding complexity to the system itself. By
virtue of what journalism explicates, these developments also raise questions about the
evolving definitions of sovereignty, power and units of analysis in world politics.
Nonetheless, they contribute towards diversity of views and provide multiple sources of
information that feed a growing cosmopolitan spirit.
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: 700;">Chapter Four</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 16.000000pt; font-weight: 700;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 16.000000pt; font-weight: 700;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Bringing the World to India or Taking India to the World?</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 16.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">During the last quarter of 2013 large blue hoardings suddenly came up across various parts of
New Delhi, especially at metro stations, with a visible symbol of </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">France 24</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">, the French
government owned news channel, and a catchphrase that read, “World news, Made in
France”. The hoarding appeared to justify every bit of the intention that the media agency
France 24 was established with a few years back – “to c</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">over international current events from
a French perspective and to convey French values throughout the world” (France 24, 2006).
Now why would a foreign media feel the intense need to advertise in India’s capital city?
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">This is not just another manifestation of globalisation but is also an instance that shows how
states are vying to add to the media narratives around the world and also trying to accumulate
soft power through those perspectives and values. While the French perspective through
active media is now reaching India and the world and is adding to the other voices from
British, Arab or Russian media houses, the Indian voice has remained lethargically placid.
Not only has the India story been told to the world by foreign journalists and broadcasters
(Mustafi, 2013) but audiences, globally, have also been devoid of an Indian perspective on
issues of global significance. In this section I argue for active participation of India in the
global media space while questioning whether/if there is a need of so many disparate voices
in global media and subsequently if there should be an Indian voice as well.
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 14.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">India’s Voice, Globally
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Ever since its launch in March, 1995, </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">DD (Doordarshan) India </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">has been the sole public
broadcaster of India that is available internationally. At first, it would appear that with the
establishment of a separate channel to “</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">build bridges of communication with Indians living
abroad and to showcase the real India, its culture, its modernity to the entire world” (Prasar
Bharti, 2002), India had taken the lead among other state-backed broadcasters (</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera
</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">was launched in 1996). But with the uninteresting/unwholesome content that it provided – as
news bulletins, films, music and dance, children’s programmes, events and tourism – the
channel remained just another apathetic state entity rather than an instrument of soft power.
In the context of the media space as being discussed in this dissertation, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">DD India </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">does not
fall in to that definition given its diverse and scattered television content and the dwindling
space of news content on it.
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Therefore, the establishment of an active media service by India that journalistically
competes with the best media houses globally is looked at as an optimistic and promising
venture for the nation-state. Such an establishment would disseminate news, views and values
through an Indian lens and would contribute towards the countries power equation. However,
at this juncture, it is also imperative to question if there is need for an Indian voice, or more
media voices from other states.
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Until the late 1990s or early 2000s, Western media outlets and their hegemony defined the
global media space but with the establishment of other state-backed media organisations, as
discussed, that hegemony has not only been challenged but is has now been distributed across
channels. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">These channels of news offer multiple perspectives thereby enriching global media
and reducing global information asymmetries. Irrespective of the national tilt these media </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">houses may carry, the presence of such multiple voices also works towards fulfilling one of </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">the fundamental functions of media – providing all sides of a story. However, it is the extent
of exposure to particular outlets that may ultimately affect public discourse over time. Thus,
the establishment of an Indian channel, by the state, to constructively compete with growing
behemoths in the media space from different regions so as to reflect the country’s values and
create certain affection for the society while presenting global news (Mustafi, 2013) is an
idea that must be implemented. The encouragement of the establishment of such media
houses must be seen as a development that complements globalisation and not just as a mere
reaction to it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 14.000000pt; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 14.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Still the ‘Dark Continent’ – Pseudo Perceptions of/on Africa
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The creation of an active media outlet backed by the Indian state would be sagacious not only
because that would contribute to the soft power of the growing country but also as it would
assist in making the environment more conducive and constructive towards internal
development and external dialogues about India. An illustration that quite fundamentally
rationalises the need for a globally active Indian media voice is the infelicitous evidence
about the majority global public opinion about the continent of Africa – considered
incorrigibly poor, aid dependent and a perpetually famine affected conflict-zone with an
occasional glimmer of hope and a lot of noise about some of its natural resources.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The primary explanation for this is the absence of globally active African media outlets
which means that the African stories are always narrated by foreign, especially Western
media which projects the continent in a relatively negative light. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">With the stroke of a
journalist's pen, the African continent and its descendants are pejoratively reduced to a
</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">bastion of disease, war, famine, primitivism, and ubiquitous images of children, flies in their </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">food and faces, their stomachs distended (Chavis, 1998). “These powerfully subliminal
message units, beamed at global television audiences” (Chavis, 1998), connote something
deplorable and shape global public opinion or at least limit the discourse around Africa.
These pseudo-perceptions that are created around African nations, which have become deeply
entrenched within society, feed into racist sentiments, hinder the flow of equal opportunities
for all and perpetually keep the African nations caught in web where they are subject to the
world’s opinion of them rather than being able to demystify these anomalies. Africa, here is
the "other" and the “other designation works always to the advantage of its creator” (Chavis,
1998). </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">Tracing the contours of this media discrimination to further understand in detail the
reasons for such portrayal of the ‘Dark Continent’ are beyond the scope of this dissertation
but it must be noted that there are shades of external imperialist, political, and economic
dynamics at play behind these portrayals. Inherently, another significant reason is that “bad
news sells well” as people feel better about their lives when they hear others have bigger
problems (Adekoya, 2013). Of late, the discourse around Africa has seen a positive shift with
global media being more responsive and responsible in its portrayal of the continent and with
there being a rise in media outlets based in Africa that are furnished by African states or
people and also by media organisations from other states. These propitious developments
have, however, been paralleled with the world’s eyes being set on Africa for political and
economic gains as states around the world realise the power of Africa’s young population and
the magnitude of its natural resources just as they exhaust their own. Surely, a connection
between these must exist.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">My argument here is that, had there been an active bearer of the African voice (at the risk of
homogenising the continent) or of any African state’s perspective, then those foreign
portrayals of Africa would have not had the impact they have had. Also, the efficacy in that
</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">respect of an African state-media actor would appear to be higher than that of a private
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">African media enterprise since the state-backed outlet would be a voice of the state and
would appear to have a clear and defined agenda to tackle such partial portrayal of the state
while the private media enterprise may focus more on society than on the states’
representation. The argument by no means undervalues private media, but only points to the
advantage state-backed media have in terms of a set long-term agenda and assurance of
funding to achieve that. This example, however, must serve as an illustration to understand
the importance of an active global peripheral voice of the state that echoes and binds national
sentiments in an increasingly post-national, globalised yet traditional world. This, therefore,
also validates the thrust for establishment of an Indian state-backed media outlet that will be
active globally as was also discussed in the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Report of the Committee on Prasar Bharti
</span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">(India’s state broadcaster) that was released in late January, 2014.
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Another illustration for the argument could be the untoward verity that in the last few months,
especially “</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">since the gang rape of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi, India
has become the world’s rape capital” (Bhowmick, 2013). Despite evidence that the number of
reported rapes in other parts of the world outnumbers the number of reported rapes in India –
Sweden reported 63.5 rapes per 100,000 population while India reported 1.8 per 100,000
population or reports saying that one in five women in the US is raped at least once in her
lifetime – there have been jokes about rape festivals in India, floating on news websites
(UNODC, 2011) (The Times of India, 2014) (Report, 2013). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Before further presenting my
argument, it is imperative to note that I, by no means, attempt or wish to understate the
seriousness of the matter, and that these figures, though official, may only present a partial
picture. It may also be noted that there may be differences in number of actual rapes and
reported rapes and that data collection about sexual violence by itself is a complex task.
Further elucidation, however, on that will be beyond the scope of this dissertation. My
argument here briefly revolves around the impact such international reportage has had not </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">only on international tourism in India but also on the adverse ‘imaging’ of the nation. For
instance, following reports titled as ‘A Rape Map of India’ (Malhotra & Dutta, 2013) on
reputed news websites like the Wall Street Journal, not discounting the actual impact of the
occurrences, “</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">visits to India by female tourists dropped 35 percent in the first three months
of” 2014 compared with the same period in 2013 (Bagri & Timmons, 2013). </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">It is unfeasible
to appropriately and empirically attribute that fall in incoming female tourists to the impact of
the actual incident(s) or to the psychological impact of media (domestic and international)
coverage about the issue on individuals and societies. To do so could also lead to
misconstrued understandings, but yet the presence of a link between these is undeniable.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">While lasting solutions to such social evils lie in mass social awakenings, efforts to provide
better security in the interregnum are essential. As for the decline in foreign tourists, as
the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">tourism industry officials say, “India also needs to carefully rebuild its image” (Bagri &
Timmons, 2013). </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">An India state-backed media house, in such a scenario, could tell true
stories to the world about the safety levels in its cities while not being overly critical and
alarming, unless required, or being too subtle – something that Africa was unable to achieve
in the past, over different subjects and was therefore, unfortunately poorly presented in the
media globally.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 14.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Supplementary Impetus
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Soft Power Politics in Africa: </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">As discussed above, contemporarily, the media discourse
around Africa has seen a positive shift with less focus on negative portrayal of the continent
and with there being a rise in media outlets based in Africa that are furnished by African
</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">states or non-African states. One significant example here is that of </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">CCTV </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">from China which </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">has strongly established itself as a media organisation that cannot be ignored. It has not only
been a source of information while showing the world, and particularly African people a
positive side of Africa and China but has also been attempting to induce a particular affinity
towards China. This goes hand-in-hand with China’s growing presence in the region in terms
of aid and investment in various forms. In this strategically important continent for the world
in the future, through </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">CCTV </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">China is “taking space that might belong to another rising Asian
superpower in the future” (Tryhorn, 2013). </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">India’s indolent and scruple approach to actively
participate in the global media space, especially in Africa is not only giving China a head-
start towards acquiring the soft-power that is arguably China’s weak links but is also robbing
the African people of a choice for partners for its economic growth. A study visit to Ethiopia
in January 2014, allowed me to observe at first hand this spectacular reach/spread of Chinese
media in Africa as well. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">CCTV Africa </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">already seemed to become a major media player in
Ethiopia and copies of the state run </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">China Daily </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">could be seen in hotel lobbies. China has
been and is perhaps “laying down the ground space that will be useful not right now but in
five or ten years" (Tryhorn, 2013). Therefore, even if world politics is seen to have entirely
and inherently realist characteristics, it is in India’s self-interest to establish such a media
outlet. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">Those traditional dimensions of </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">realpolitik </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">do not apply in the same way today. In
such an intertwined international system, there is desideratum for India to build on its power
through its own media or else growing powers may leverage that contact through media and
the softness of the norms they spread to their advantage while India may be not have such an
option. These advantages could be in terms of business contracts, investments, resources or
simple support at the international level among others.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">The Permanent UNSC Seat: </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">What further adds to the legitimisation of this need of an
Indian state-backed media are the other long-term ambitions of India, especially about
</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">securing a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). India, as an </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">economy and a regional power and potentially a global one, has been registering significant
growth and has shown visible desire for inclusion as a permanent member of the council, but
neither this growth or this desire has been reflected in the global media space by Indian
actors. Nor has any Indian state media channel informed the world or even its neighbours
about its opinion on major world issues, let alone spreading Indian norms and values through
delivery of world news. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">I must here, underline that to adjudge the sanctity and the pertinence
of this ambition of acquiring a permanent UNSC seat is not aim of this argument and falls
beyond scope. My argument is premised around the factors that influence such an argument,
especially the global activeness of Indian state-backed media. “If any country has a right to
be on the Security Council, India does,'' AP Venkateswaran, a former foreign secretary of the
country had noted once (Monitor, 2007). The former foreign secretary, along with others who
make the case for India permanently being on the UNSC, has lots of parameters to base their
argument on – from India being the largest democracy in the world to being among the top
ten states with the highest spending on defence. The only element that seems evasive in that
equation is India’s representation in the global media space and the absence of an Indian
perspective on global issues. How then, does India, without expressing opinion on major
international or regional issues, hope to assimilate support to push for reforms at the UNSC?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">What further makes this question demand an urgent answer and subsequent action is the
certitude that all of the five permanent members of the UNSC, contemporarily, have strong
presence in the global media space. This may not have been a necessary condition for such an
inclusion in the council or reformation in its structure when China became a part of the
permanent set up in 1971 or France in 1958, as these states were not represented as actively
in the global media space then, as they are now. But in the contemporary scenario of world
politics, a lot has changed and the soft power that state media may internationally accumulate
</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">may well be the missing ingredient to seal the argument for a permanent seat for India at the </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">council. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">China’s </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">CCTV </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">and France’s </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">France 24 </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">have been vehemently active globally over
the past few years; so has Russia’s </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">RT</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">; UK’s </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">BBC </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">has always been a sort of benchmark for
global media actors and US’ </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Voice of America </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">and </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">CNN </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">among other actors have never
allowed America to be under represented in global media. With so many disparate voices in
the global media, an Indian state-backed voice may face competition, but it will also only
furnish the ground-work in terms of global and regional public opinion that needs to be
urgently addressed in order for India to strongly pitch for a UNSC seat, if it is really desired/
aimed to be sought.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Diaspora and Beyond: </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">As mentioned in chapter one while defining the core functions of
these media platforms, a channel such as the one this will only increase any affinity towards
Indian culture and society (Mustafi, 2013). This function, perhaps, assumes a more
significant role when the state’s diaspora is part of the target audience as it strengthens
national imaginations and binds imagined communities (Anderson, 1982). In India’s case, the
revered engineers, doctors and businessmen around the world of Indian origin not only form
a component of India’s soft power, but it is then the adhesive of affinity and affiliation that is
delivered through media (especially state-backed media) that may further strengthen that
bond thereby enhancing India’s soft power while delivering soft power.
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">But the soft power of state-backed media does not limit itself to just knitting together the
Indian diaspora, as it extends far beyond in terms the number of lives it touches and viewers,
readers or listeners it informs. With an understanding that such an Indian state-backed media
outlet will disseminate balanced information and news and will not be employed as tool for
propaganda, it is arguably fair to consider that that media will be diffusing Indian norms and
values of plurality in society that have over time enhanced India’s soft power (Tharoor,
2009). That fabric of soft power, as former UN diplomat and now an active Indian politician </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">Shashi Tharoor notes, is what attracts and will attract the world to India since India may well </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">be chronicled as the “nationalism of an idea that is sustained by pluralist democracy”
(Tharoor, 2009) that accommodates all diverse opinions. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">If India revolves around such an
idea, it becomes imperative to feed into the binding forces to strengthen the idea through soft
power that may be spread using the pluralist values the country echoes, to the diaspora and to
the ‘other’. Perhaps, India’s presence in the global media space can be shaped in such a way
that it taps into “India's multi-cultural and multi-religious society and the long history of
peaceful coexistence of religions that make India automatically best positioned to throw up
solutions that will help the West and Islamic world understand each other better” (Sen, 2014). </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">This is of course notwithstanding India's internal contradictions that on occasions threaten to
shake its very foundations. It has been argued multiple times that India derives soft power
from Buddhism to Bollywood, but India must build on that basis of soft power and add to
these variables to bolster its soft power and to hasten its spread and increase its reach –
functions that an Indian state-backed media shall perform. Correspondingly, the constructive
concomitant of playing the role of a balanced news provider and a possible bridging catalyst
between contradicting sub-sections of identities and cultures around the world should be
another incentive for the sub-continent state to actively participate in the global media space.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 14.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Is There a Right Time?
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Given this increasing multipolar media landscape and considering that India is to become a
part of it, the immediate question that arises is when Indian state-backed media should take
the plunge. Are there specific conditions that guide such state actions or are these actions not
subject to any political or economic factors? In other words, is there a right time for India, or
any other state, to establish globally active state-backed media?
</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">To examine the economic and political environment prevalent in the aforementioned states, I
looked at economic parameters such as the Real Gross Domestic Product ( GDP per capita at
1990 international base value) and their respective military spending as a percentage of GDP
in the years that their respective media outlets were established (Bolt & van Zanden, 2013)
(SIPRI, 2013). Though the GDP per capita is compared with 1990 as the reference year, these
figures can still not be directly used to assess the existence, if any, of economic conditions
that are necessary when a state sets-up or funds a globally active media house because the
political and economic environment when </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">BBC </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">was established in 1922 was very different
from the one in the 1990s or 2000s when other state-backed channels were created. However,
these figures must not be overlooked for these indicators could provide a tentative
understanding about a certain level of economic advancement that may be a required to allow
such state action.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHWNC5iNHL036VbAuh9OT1Zxfk8i2Awfb4bY1Uk1OASP0zS5wUk6Q8ghGCf785IXFoPbTYLjDaNl3auV0pQpH8d-cRUdeLu4bqIuXR1Y7FrscRlZ4Nk8YDuUKF417fQMRxpMNi1jwE_YOu/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-02-16+at+5.42.04+PM.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHWNC5iNHL036VbAuh9OT1Zxfk8i2Awfb4bY1Uk1OASP0zS5wUk6Q8ghGCf785IXFoPbTYLjDaNl3auV0pQpH8d-cRUdeLu4bqIuXR1Y7FrscRlZ4Nk8YDuUKF417fQMRxpMNi1jwE_YOu/s640/Screen+Shot+2018-02-16+at+5.42.04+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">As the table above shows, there are big differences in the GDP per capita of the four states in
the years when each of them respectively established their media houses. This may imply that
</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">there are no specific economic windows that may be drawn to project when the time is apt, in </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">terms of economic health, to set up such media houses. However, the need for a certain level
of economic growth cannot be mitigated. Further, India with a GDP per capita of $3,372
(1990 as the reference year) appears to qualify for any such economic conditions given its
positive growth trend over the last few years. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">Additionally, the cost of establishing an Indian
state-backed media house must not be major issue for the state given that the allocated budget
for the financial year 2014-15 for India’s state broadcaster </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Prasar Bharti </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">was Rs 2,180 crore
(over $350 million), which to put into perspective is more than double the financial infusion
($137 million) with which </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Al Jazeera </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">was established by the Emir of Qatar in 1996 (Mustafi,
2013). Even after the adjusting these figures for inflation and using the same reference year
would imply that the cost of establishing a global media actor should not be a major worry
for the Indian state.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Further, in coherence with the argument that state-backed media contributes significantly to
soft power, I looked at a measure of hard power – military spending as a percentage of GDP
to examine how similar or dissimilar these indicators are for the respective states in the
corresponding years. The figures for the United Kingdom have be omitted for the
establishment of the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">BBC </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">came in 1922, a few years after the Great War which had seen
UK’s military expenditure increase manifold. That was clearly a special condition and a
variable that did not exist when the other states initiated their media houses. These indicators
too, like GDP per capita, do not appear to have a lot in similar and would falsify the claim
that there are set economic pre-requisites for establishing state-backed media houses.
However, it must be noted here that, India’s military spending in 2013 was 2.5% of its GDP
and that figure would fall within the range of the military spending of the states in the
relevant years discussed above.
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">When discussing the political environments prevailing in the years when the aforementioned
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">state-backed media houses were established it is imperative to note the political environments </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">that existed globally or regionally and also to point out the domestic structure of the political
systems in the respective states. The observations are presented in a simplified manner in the
following table.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">There are two primary observations that this table suggests. Firstly, the internal political
structure or the governance system of the state does not have any significant impact on the
establishment of state-backed media, as is evident – UK established </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">BBC </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">while being a
constitutional monarchy (democracy) while China initiated the expansion of </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">CCTV </span><span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">being an
authoritative state. However, the internal political structure may have an impact on the
method of operation, agenda setting and functioning of the media house, further elucidation
on which is be beyond the scope of this study.
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">Secondly, an overview of the global/regional political environment that existed during the
time propounds that while there are no stark similarities in the political conditions that existed
when the respective state-backed media were formed, there are still certain political-
economic currents that are at play that appear to provide thrust/incentives to/for these actions.
These incentives are perceived to be the power to influence public opinion, especially during
the time of conflict and at regional levels – scilicet, the political value of state-backed media.
A very recent example for this would be the getting together of the Baltic States to “mull
joint channel to counter Kremlin’s line” (Collier, 2014). Economic growth appears to be a
necessary condition for such developments – UK (despite the increased debt due to the Great
War) Russia, Qatar and China were all registering economic growth in the respective years
they established their media in – but it is still not a sufficient condition. There may perhaps,
be no sufficient conditions since the aforementioned states had been registering stable
economic growth even during the preceding years, but did not choose to initiate any media
operations.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">My argument here is that, states are drawn to encourage the establishment or increased global
activeness of state-backed media only after the significance and power of such a conduit of
information is understood in totality. However, the acknowledgement of that understanding
must also be accompanied by continued stable economic growth and may also be catalysed
by regional or global power politics. This implies that there may not be a ‘right time’ for the
establishment of such a state-backed media or rather that there may be no ‘wrong time’ to do
so. The subsequent argument is that India must actively participate and be represented in the
global media space for the aforementioned reasons and that, now would be a good time to do
so.
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<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 14.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">India and Global Media
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgb(100.000000% , 100.000000% , 100.000000%); font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">This section propounded that with negligible presence in the global media space India has
been and is losing out in terms of soft power in the information age where “the personal is the
political” (Hanisch, 1970) and global or regional public opinion embodies great political
value. Further I enlisted the incentives for India to actively participate in the global media
while stating that this will feed into the country’s long term visions of having strategic
presence in Africa, strengthening its credentials for a permanent UNSC seat and will also
help keep the diaspora engaged and informed while spreading the state’s norms and
mitigating global information asymmetries. Additionally, I also argued that there may be no
‘right time’ for states, barring perhaps the need to be registering stable economic growth, to
take such action and therefore India must not delay its entry and increased activeness in
global media.
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 16.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Conclusion
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">While we participate and witness what Schweller calls the breaking down of the international
system into a decentralised affair, the increasingly globalising world is acquiring multi-polar
characteristics which manifest themselves in various ways. In my study, I have argued that
one of those manifestations is the increased global activeness of state-backed media. Arguing
that these state-backed media – such as </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">BBC, CCTV, Al Jazeera </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">and </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Russia Today </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">– are
instruments of soft power I have attempted to illustrate the manner in which they inform and
at times limit global/regional public opinion. I have further enlisted the numerous direct and
indirect functions that these actors perform in world politics by spreading a nation’s norms
and by collectively reducing information asymmetries.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Subsequently, while tracing the origins of certain globally active state-backed media I have
argued that the rise of numerous state media outlets in the global media space must not be
just looked as a ‘clash of media voices’. Further, I have attempted to assess the political value
these instruments of soft power hold in this age where information is a key resource and ‘the
personal is political’.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Thereon, while arguing that India must take measures to actively participate in this global
media space, I have enlisted the incentives for the state to establish a globally active media
entity – which include building thrust towards fulfilling the apparent desire of getting a
permanent UNSC seat and knitting together the diaspora among others. In the end, I have
argued that, barring the need for stable economic growth, there may not be a specific set of
factors that indicate if there is a ‘right time’ to take such state action and establish a media
entity. That is, while certain economic parameters point towards a necessary condition that
must be sufficed for such state measures, there are no sufficient conditions, upon fulfilling of </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;">which states take such action – apart from the moment when the long-term significance of
globally active state-media is realised by states in terms of their value as instruments of soft-
power and tools for constructive dialogues. Arriving at that moment, however, may depend
on how national identities or psyches are shaped over time and on the regional/global
political and economic environment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The subject of the thesis further merits profound examination, especially since the scope of
this study was limited to the global activeness and impact of state-backed media. Elements
that may further be studied include the interplay between private media houses and other state
and non-state actors in world politics as well as the quality of journalism or presentation of
opinion on these private or state-backed conduits of information.
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Linkevicius, L. (2014, March 9). Official Tweet. </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Linus Linkevicius' Twitter account </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">.
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indias-soft-power-b.html</span></li>
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International Peace Research Institute.
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Tharoor, S. (2009, November ). Why nations should pursue soft power. </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Ted Talk </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">.
Mysore, India: http://www.ted.com/talks/shashi_tharoor.
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Times, G. (2009). </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanps"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">About the Global Times</span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">. Retrieved March 2014, from Global
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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/One-in-five-women-raped-in-US-says-
White-House-report/articleshow/29274360.cms
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http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2013/nov/13/bbc-broadcasters-tony-
hall-worldwide-audience-cctv-al-jazeera
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statefunded-russian-tv-6294553.html
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886752165897277194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2922064999561071057.post-12830357156048936802018-01-24T00:55:00.000-08:002018-01-24T09:47:32.017-08:00Padmaavat, Davos & An Indian Tragedy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUI2FNfZI_QXn7zXbaHmDwojKrwOq6PNtDh0B93iXhl7z4-NSMyAhUE-EbXy-BybmTnRGLCKl2lh27By7xFay0A4UF-rQTxJvkIiSrS3c74RzELXoxQRHbvGlH6pGvKjYRIMpm321pxaoC/s1600/jaipur-city-walk-1600x900.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUI2FNfZI_QXn7zXbaHmDwojKrwOq6PNtDh0B93iXhl7z4-NSMyAhUE-EbXy-BybmTnRGLCKl2lh27By7xFay0A4UF-rQTxJvkIiSrS3c74RzELXoxQRHbvGlH6pGvKjYRIMpm321pxaoC/s640/jaipur-city-walk-1600x900.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It’s been a rather
bittersweet week in the story for India. And as we come to celebrate our 69</span><sup style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman";">th</sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Republic
Day, such weeks have become quite regular as we continue to be a land of
gigantic contradictions.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The violent ruckus over the movie Padmaavat
and the celebration of the Indian story at the World Economic Forum, Davos, are
more than testament to those contradictions that continue to hurt India. The
story of our economic growth needs to be juxtaposed against the state of our
society, politics and culture. Neither can thrive alone and one cannot be at
the cost of the other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The irony of the week is that as we rooted for
our Prime Minister to give the keynote at Davos for the first time, at home we
also had to deal with vandalism from a splintered fringe group demanding a ban
on a movie while the state remained rather silent as freedom of expression was
compromised at the hands of people who seem to have no respect for our apex
court.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As we sought to attract billions in foreign
investment, we’ve had masked men causing great economic, social and cultural
setbacks to the nation and its people. While economic inequality is a
recognised problem, what do we do about the inequality in our minds?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">While the unrecognized and self-declared
custodians of Rajput pride have the right to peaceful protest, their acts of
vandalism and calls for beheading must be met with strong legal and police
action. The episode is rather symptomatic of India. Here’s a community (a part of
it at least), not in sync with modernity and consumed by its complex past,
reluctant to adapt to the new world around it. Yes, cultural nuances must be respected, but they cannot be made tools to mislead and extort some form mileage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And while some recalcitrant elements of this
community held the country to ransom, a popular Indian Prime Minister addressed
the world about India’s growth story. Is the ruling party’s silence a nod to
the fringe or is Prime Minister Narendra Modi, despite his well-placed
intentions, unable to control the mighty Indian cultural right and the fringe?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But it would be shortsighted to blame the
government of the day alone, the previous ones, dominated by a decadent
Congress that attempts to reinvent, let us down as well, especially with poor
education standards and lack of commitment towards corrupt-free and strong
institutions, or else wouldn’t we have had more developed minds that dealt with
the graver challenges of the day?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It’s a tragic story that’s been in the making
for years now, as the grip of capitalistic pursuit blinds us and is fostered
further by the undercurrents of rising inequality and poor education that
fringe exploits to their utmost.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Informed education and collective memory are
crucial to build imaginations and strengthen norms that stitch together
communities, and promote social cohesion while also providing rehabilitation.
But perhaps an educated India is not in the interest of the political elite or
why else would the standard of government schools be as low or why would there
be little space for disparate narratives to co-exist and too few public spaces
that are testament to social unity. For like George Orwell simplified it for
us, “Those who control the past, control the future. And those who control the
present, control the past.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now from the collective memory perspective,
getting back to the Padmaavat conundrum. In the absence of any facts about the
existence of such legends as being depicted, (not that the existence of such an
story would validate the ruckus) it’s crucial to attempt to understand how
these legends come into existence, are strengthened in articulation and used to
influence actions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There are multiple purposes such legends serve
as academics have talked about. For instance here, the story helps create a
narrative of Rajput valour via which it attempts to reclaim the glory after a
complex past of triumph and failure. The legends then permeate across the
community and serve as a tool to imagine a feminine space by creating an idol
woman figure in the mind of the man, and thus society. And well, the political
weight that these legends carry along with and their not so nonchalant
believers is a story we are all quite familiar with.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Meanwhile, at Davos as world leaders got
together, each carrying within them the desire to attract investment and chase
economic growth, they also had to camouflage and confront the political baggage
they carried. The contradictions that face them couldn’t have been mirrored
more with talks focused around building a “shared future in a fractured world”;
a world fractured not only across at a macro level; but one with fissures
running deep on the micro level as well. Attitudes towards women, parochial
mindsets, overreaching corruption and the resultant unfulfilled aspirations and
communal harm to name a few; all elements that affect our world globally, as
much as locally.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And when it comes to mending those fissures
and healing global fractures to secure inclusive growth, freedom and social
cohesion, the impact of the merging strokes of the numerous episodes like
Padmavati around the world, the consuming chases of economic growth at the
Davoses of the world, and everything in between becomes visible on the world we
paint. The Indian Prime Minister warned against the perils of protectionism at
Davos. To go further if there’s any protectionism world leaders seek, may that
be in form of protection against those fissures and fractures of the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">These fractures, that have already hurt many
in the past, threaten to hurt even more by holding us back. That is the
tragedy: Unfulfilled potential, unaccomplished aspirations and greater visible
divides rarely promise peace as we fall short as a collective and hurt the
future generations. In that context, the apparent cowing down of the state to
vandalism, it’s longstanding failing to rehabilitate communities and provide
quality education will be judged with the same vigour with which we praise the
Prime Minister’s speech and the unprecedented Indian presence at Davos.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The valour that the fringe talks about is in
working towards meeting those challenges as we attempt to avert those tragedies.
In the modern times of today, there’s no valour in suppression of expressions;
that indeed is a sign of fear and regression. There’s no bravery in vandalism
with masked faces; it’s only in accepting new narratives and challenging them
via words, if at all. Valour in civilized society is in freedom of the mind,
dialogue and in upholding democratic values and constitutional veracity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In a misplaced attempt to cause alarm, the
fringe also called for locking down of tourist sites in the state of Rajasthan.
While this has gotten them momentary fame and some gain, it causes long-term
harm to the state and it’s people. Who’ll come to a regressive state where law
and order aren’t guaranteed? Which filmmaker will bring in her caravans to
shoot at and showcase the magnificent forts that reek with Rajput pride? In the
world of forever breaking news and instantaneous social media, rather negative
perceptions still stick on longer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Rather than forcing the shutting down of forts
and palaces for tourists, we need to build new ones for the residents of the
state. We need Museums of Harmony, Museums of Unity, Museums of Our Mistakes
and Museums of Memory to constantly remind and educate ourselves about our
glorious yet not unscarred past. It’s only with the maturing of collective
memory and creation of inclusive public spaces that we can continue to reap the
benefits of the economic prosperity that beckons us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We can overturn things together and our
leaders must show the way. We all, including our political, economic and
societal leaders, must introspect about what we stand for and what we want to
be. Let’s avert the tragedy.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
</div>
</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886752165897277194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2922064999561071057.post-60363128801185196132017-05-18T12:41:00.000-07:002017-05-19T04:15:02.906-07:00Delinking God: Can technology help answer the ultimate question?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqQnUxbb-CGphFb0DvNFI2092L25Kp5i0IDggAbkfjx-S5hQtBHoCUl8G3oo1U-TWBi0s85nhfWg5vbOvspI_5pO_TKYSlWsnRbwT5AzwveL61_Cu-uvJbLX4DOz5gCWUn6GqLF7UBoXHK/s1600/63-science-refutes-god-debate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqQnUxbb-CGphFb0DvNFI2092L25Kp5i0IDggAbkfjx-S5hQtBHoCUl8G3oo1U-TWBi0s85nhfWg5vbOvspI_5pO_TKYSlWsnRbwT5AzwveL61_Cu-uvJbLX4DOz5gCWUn6GqLF7UBoXHK/s640/63-science-refutes-god-debate.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Technology is creating new interactions around us, and as it develops further, will science change the way we interact will God? Picture courtesy: IntelligenceSquaredUs</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt;">S</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt;">cience, by its very nature, has always been known
to contest the presence of God. Facts and laws rock its world, and not so much
mythologies and prayers. It’s like no amount of praying can change the result
of scientific experiments, but even a slight change in pressure can lead to
vast variations. That’s just how it is. However, faith is a different emotion/instrument
altogether. And even though while science doesn’t directly question</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt;"> the faith
individuals repose in what is often termed divine, it argues that a supposed power
that assumes command over the universe may not exist, that there isn’t any
evidence. And it’s often in that mass-scale invisibility of any such evidence,
on either or all sides, that the argument is often lost.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">But that evidence, in some form, may soon be upon
us; if it’s needed or desired is a different questions altogether. With
constant acceleration in the speed of scientific and technological innovation, sparked
by the mind’s curiousness and the heart’s desires that are nudged by our
political-economic systems and amplified by our personal stories, a new space
is being unlocked; a space of infinite possibilities that’s never been seen
before, but perhaps only imagined. And that space may lead us to an answer then
at best, or a reformed question at the least.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Of the many such technological advancements, two
are of particular interest – the progress in the field of cryonics and the
announcement of setting up of a company to ‘increase the brain’s bandwidth’ by
implanting electrodes in it and connecting it to the Internet. While we can
debate if the latter will lead to mechanised humans or a humanised Internet,
both of these developments promise to take us from humans, as we know
ourselves, to super-humans, as we sometimes imagine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">A Brain
Booster<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Let’s start with </span><a href="http://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Neuralink</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";">. The company
(the </span><a href="https://neuralink.com/"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">homepage</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> for which is already up) is popular entrepreneur Elon
Musk’s brainchild and aims to make humans smarter by implanting electrodes in
the brain via surgeries to enable faster communication and internet-enabled
brains – like a merger of artificial intelligence with human intelligence. To
talk purely in terms of speed of communication, Musk envisions increasing the
speed of human-to-human communication from about 1 byte per second (yes,
they’ve calculated that too) to at least 1,000 bytes per second (the speed at
which your pen drive transfers data to your computer). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcBSFiIa_hTlP_qxcLLyHzSD2HyYFGZuQFUp8PdX6_92Wh0W-D_DkThtgNwuxi1l32HLlYfQj-43z9GhsWkucTkHsJ2k-AvSPQsTvMHjvSi40d6e5r3CHLhMkhz6Gg3gpBGXP2CcduQ53I/s1600/ELON-MUSKS-TRANSHUMANISM-AGENDA-WITH-NEURALINK-TO-CREATE-CYBORGS.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcBSFiIa_hTlP_qxcLLyHzSD2HyYFGZuQFUp8PdX6_92Wh0W-D_DkThtgNwuxi1l32HLlYfQj-43z9GhsWkucTkHsJ2k-AvSPQsTvMHjvSi40d6e5r3CHLhMkhz6Gg3gpBGXP2CcduQ53I/s400/ELON-MUSKS-TRANSHUMANISM-AGENDA-WITH-NEURALINK-TO-CREATE-CYBORGS.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Musk and his company Neuralink aim to merge human and artificial <br />
intelligence. So will AI change the current human understanding of a God?<br />
Picture credit: WeCanChange</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Neuralink literally imagines a world so integrally
connected via the Internet and these implanted chips that’d give our spiritual
gurus a complex. In a post where he elaborates on the vision, Musk says we
could then open car doors just by thinking about them and communicate emotions
just by feeling them. Magic, as we may have called such events, may finally be
a mass realisation, but via the route of science.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">So humans would be thinking faster, communicating
faster and building faster too. For the tools that we build, build us over time
as well. Musk sees this as an inevitable step to mitigate the scope of
artificial intelligence overtaking human intelligence as he preps to give the human
mind new powers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">And while there are huge ethical and moral
questions that this raises altogether (that this essay does not engage with),
while bearing a danger warning as well, the idea of imaginations like Neuralink
becoming plausible points towards a future where humans are god-like too many.
Some may still argue that this is part of God’s plan or that humans are
over-reaching themselves, but the fact that we are closing that gap is a
crucial takeaway here. It’s a gap that has always existed (created) in our
minds about what is humanly possible and what is in God’s powers. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For else, how else can define God as something
other than human without that gap?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">While ideas of technologies like these close those
gaps, they’ll coax us to question the existence of God even more. Many may then
tilt towards what many rationalists term atheism. But given the power and
realms of human creativity, it could, of course, lead to a recalibration in our
imagination of God and it’s powers, because a powerless God has never excited,
supported or divided the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Powerful,
Yet Perishable?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQUHNH32ztC7jy7832TI1LUuGI85x6Z5btu1O_OeDrwY0nIjdpK0a6Zxblq0N0v8lC7N4cEkQx7LVuUOZwcjMRlAsJHiSdWk3NbGs-jNKE0qrh7eA1ooy1NlJdrsw8fK6eotNva8AmL4F0/s1600/1727251.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQUHNH32ztC7jy7832TI1LUuGI85x6Z5btu1O_OeDrwY0nIjdpK0a6Zxblq0N0v8lC7N4cEkQx7LVuUOZwcjMRlAsJHiSdWk3NbGs-jNKE0qrh7eA1ooy1NlJdrsw8fK6eotNva8AmL4F0/s400/1727251.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the Cryonics Institute, human bodies are frozen<br />
in these cylinders with the hope of technology<br />
advancing to revive life in the future. <br />
Picture credit: Cryonics Institute</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Now that humans are on track to become smarter,
much faster than nature intended, let’s also talk about how other technologies push
boundaries to make humans immortal. That’s where </span><a href="http://www.cryonics.org/"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">cryonics</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> has us enthralled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">We’ve seen a lot of this in science fiction, but
what we may have missed is the real progress that’s been made in this space.
Scientists and innovators have frozen over </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/nov/18/the-cryonics-dilemma-will-deep-frozen-bodies-be-fit-for-new-life"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">350 bodies</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";">
and brains in the last few years with the aim of reviving them or placing the
brains in new bodies (or carriers as they can be thus called) in the coming decades. We've heard that story before, of God coming back from the dead. The concept of Cryonics has long been used in movies - most popularly in the from of cryo-sleeping in Avatar. But it's being practiced now with children as young as seven asking for their bodies to be <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/child-seven-one-four-five-9298169">frozen after their death</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">And Neuralink-enabled humans will get us there
faster too, won’t they? And along the way, medical science is also making big breakthroughs
by curing life threatening diseases and developing bionics – </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk1NkWl_W2Y"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">artificially created human limbs</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> to be used on our bodies that our chip-ed brains will be able to control.
And then creating and growing human tissue cannot be far away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">In effect, such technological advancements where we
repair and replace humans limbs and tissues in ways that they never reach an
expiry date will make us immortal. After all, it is a question of time against our
physical abilities when it comes to survival. Plus we’ll have the options of </span><a href="http://hipporeads.com/the_immortality_diet_how_diet_and_age_intersect/"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">tailored diets</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> to keep the immune system strong and limb replacements to ensure the
carrier remains fit. And just in case an illness or old-age get the better off
us, cryonics will rescue us and keep the brain alive, a smartened one at that, and
get us a new carrier too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Meanwhile, we’ll also be tampering with climate
control to have the best weather conditions to live in a pleasant environment,
and live longer as well. Aren’t the experiments with </span><a href="https://qz.com/976659/its-time-to-start-considering-what-a-north-korean-refugee-crisis-would-look-like/"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">creating artificial rain</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> a big sign of that? Mythologically we’ve believed
in stories of a God who can make it rain, divide seas or create storms in an
instant, and now science and technology are unlocking those powers for us, literally making humans the new 'rain gods'. As
things progress here too, they’ll make extreme heat conditions bearable and
pleasant, and could wipe out the fear of droughts and famines. All under human
control, aren’t those magical powers too now?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Superhuman
Syndrome<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">While we may be decades, even centuries, away from
such realities at mass scale, there are certain signs that humans will not let
that objective go. And when they become real, they’ll toy with our norms. Our
bodies may not be as central to the human experience, as they are to us now.
They may just be carriers, the shape and look of which could perhaps be
influenced or even tailored to our content. Will everyone look the same way
then or will we lose the emphasis on external beauty? In such a reality,
fairness creams will have no place, and brain implants may be mainstay, and
also a concern. In a world where humans are smarter and immortal, nothing would
be beyond them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">And while those norms are toyed with, our
understanding of God will face a tough test as well, especially with humans
having not much to fear. While understanding the meaning of God still requires
greater study and is something that’s highly subjective to religions, regions,
cultures and individuals, let’s look at a broader understanding at the risk of
over-simplifying God. No offence meant to anyone in the course of this brief investigation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjchlFbo3kSU_2KMsFMbnn5VyM4phbd1U7jVuVRf_1xKjfRrWfFlPXN_LUceTn4wZJdEjbmn1Vp-HKhXlPIcwl6iGlnKuLiI1FIk7MGmzmQjAhDCfm_A6eC2pn4lXpVbSZODNAkgQw26l2Z/s1600/f6642739c.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjchlFbo3kSU_2KMsFMbnn5VyM4phbd1U7jVuVRf_1xKjfRrWfFlPXN_LUceTn4wZJdEjbmn1Vp-HKhXlPIcwl6iGlnKuLiI1FIk7MGmzmQjAhDCfm_A6eC2pn4lXpVbSZODNAkgQw26l2Z/s320/f6642739c.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We can be omnipresent too, as the use of 3D holograms by<br />
Turkish President Erdogan (above) and Indian PM Modi<br />
to address rallies has shown. Picture courtesy: Youtube</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">As most our religions tell us, isn’t God smarter
than all of us and immortal too? Well, technology may soon have that covered. Can’t
God do magic and be omnipresent and all-aware? The Internet already has us
broadcasting ourselves all over and we may soon begin </span><a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/602529/Human-teleportation-is-possible-and-your-great-GRANDCHILDREN-will-do-it-claims-scientist"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">teleporting</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> too while controlling objects with our thoughts and the Internet of
Things, so that’s on the menu as well. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Further, isn’t fear an emotion that generally
invokes and reminds us mortals of God, with the fear of death and health being
supreme? Well, with that fear gone, what reminders may we have?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">And then, in
our subjectively shaped understandings, there’s more to God. Kindness,
forgiveness and the notion of wisdom – now those are still beyond being
guaranteed by technology as of now. While all knowledge can be put in our
minds, how we use them may sill be different and subject to interpretation,
unless it can all be computer coded as technology would have us believe. And
that’s a big enough void that may still give God space to survive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">And as all those understandings come together, we
may be closer to a renewed understanding of God. Many will question the idea on
grounds of there being no gap that remains between God and the new immortal, powerful
humans, while others may stick to the idea of the wisdom still evading mankind,
perhaps for we continue to question God. Perhaps as norms evolve and there are
global nudges, we may have a new kind of God, or none at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";"><o:p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis53r-YoCcFcSFEJ0jEE3qqaAOlpkrlyEDzVy4YIN5EGKP9gdg57gNi9N80mKGYu_LUpbDFThosA4VQwv-AN0DodGlccWZJ3NIHo91Hp_20sj19edrTygTieoJ0WNVVfZWKC6gygODwQCD/s1600/Major-Religious-Sites-of-Orissa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis53r-YoCcFcSFEJ0jEE3qqaAOlpkrlyEDzVy4YIN5EGKP9gdg57gNi9N80mKGYu_LUpbDFThosA4VQwv-AN0DodGlccWZJ3NIHo91Hp_20sj19edrTygTieoJ0WNVVfZWKC6gygODwQCD/s400/Major-Religious-Sites-of-Orissa.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not that this is a big indicator of our faith in God, but when was<br />
the last time you voluntarily visited a religious centre like a <br />
temple, mosque or a church? Picture credit: TourMyIndia</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia";">And as we’ll recontextualise God in
that reality, there’s likely to be greater faith in science than in the
almighty. While the use of technology and the connected and consumer-led nature
of our lifestyles today are already making people busier and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/religious-participation-survey/496940/">less
likely to go to religious centers</a> (not that this can be treated as a sign
of faith in God alone), in that future then, where will our God reside? Will we
link to God or delink? This is a question that’ll continue to challenge our
ideas even then. But would it even matter? </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia";">However, the possibility of machines and artificial intelligence taking over a lot of human jobs could mean a lot of free time for humans - more so due to high unemployability than choice; regardless though, a lot more free time then could see an enlargement of the idea of God for the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2013/12/22/religion-is-good-for-all-of-us-even-those-who-dont-follow-one/#7e276a8364d7">benefits that religion</a> <a href="http://www.biographyonline.net/spiritual/articles/benefits-religion.html">has to offer</a>. </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia";">This superhuman of the future would
also redefine our world, but what definition it gives would be shaped by the
worldviews that the creators and owners of such technologies embrace. Given
that such technology would not come cheap and may take time to reach everyone
(if at all), would constructivist ideas prosper or will the global battles of
today literally play out in our mind spaces then with a new kind of fear being
invoked? While governments may weaken in the face of ever-rising commercial
interests, there may be insecurity about interception of thoughts as the creators
of such technologies hold the power to our minds and life spans.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: georgia;">Or perhaps will smarter humans work harder to further democratise the use of
technology? There are many ways it could all play out, but in all those
scenarios, it’s our worldviews and beliefs that may still hold weight. So to
keep the promise of a bright future alive, let’s also focus, in our present, on
helping build collective worldviews that put humanity first as we give context
to our connected worlds and continue to imagine the future. And as we adjust to
that reality then, how will you think about God?</span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886752165897277194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2922064999561071057.post-31328066041923843372017-03-02T10:18:00.002-08:002017-03-03T10:10:55.152-08:00Mona Lisa, Adam Smith & The Success Equation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgizzkcV0ZCch05tOmra0lO9ww9_7ao7ZqaCrsRPCl48ZLAgIvVo1uoqktoDyS-MsZGZWjuK_gHpBJ3keKyMDh2609FARWyO2y1a2dLUUzo5cZbbVrccc2lLYBXGBLxkO4tovtBW-jtEttZ/s1600/the-lion-king1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgizzkcV0ZCch05tOmra0lO9ww9_7ao7ZqaCrsRPCl48ZLAgIvVo1uoqktoDyS-MsZGZWjuK_gHpBJ3keKyMDh2609FARWyO2y1a2dLUUzo5cZbbVrccc2lLYBXGBLxkO4tovtBW-jtEttZ/s640/the-lion-king1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Here's an experiment. There's Rafiki holding Simba up above his shoulders. Do you think you'd define success the same way as Rafiki did in the Lion King? Picture credit: The Lion King</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14pt;">“College
di gate de is taraf hum life ko nachate hai… te duji taraf life humko nachati
hai,” said Aamir Khan’s character DJ in the movie Rang De Basanti with his
unkempt hair. While it’s a complex web that forms the amorphous dance floor of
life that forms the stage for DJ’s dialogue, this essay really just focuses on
how capitalism interweaves a major part of that dance floor and affects how ‘successful’
and happy one is.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br />
The Backstory<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">A friend at work prompted this subject
when she was writing about ‘decoding success’. It made me think too - in our capitalistic world, how do we define success? </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14pt;">What
is success and is it the same everywhere and every time? Let’s say everything
about us – professionally and personally – remains constant. Now, would you be
happier if you were in free-market heaven US? And what about tightly controlled North Korea? Would the same professional achievements lead to the
same idea of success? Would the ideological drive override the thirst for
material success?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Or would you be happier if you’d
achieved it all in the blooming 1960s than now? Try this with a few more
questions and you’ll probably agree that what we call success could be so
different in these different times and circumstances. So it’s so much a product
of a varying set of factors that include material success, professional
achievement, ideological drives and more. Perhaps <a href="mailto:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs">Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs</a> would have so much to add here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Anyway, let’s get back to
capitalism for now. There’s little denying, that today, capitalism is the force
that influences our personal lives, professional decisions and more importantly
our political and economic systems. While there’s opposition to it, it mostly
does find a way to call the shots, in part or as a whole. The fact that success
is more often than not defined, or at least described, in terms of material
success and wealth generated is testimony to hoe much capitalism affects our
lives. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGepOoucS0XTFLxoGaV0FSTafGmmvwylD35pH-o0TeSBdZdeQiFE88SjwHAvJe1JK3IwMlthUILP3Hu5H_9yqS3wKrYEeICa41jKx756vsG8qlVY0dgHR9wikh7mBVgYgW_fzYxIB4-mrD/s1600/louvre-portrait-de-lisa-gherardini-epouse-de-francesco-del-giocondo-dite-monna-lisa-la-gioconda-ou-la-jocon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGepOoucS0XTFLxoGaV0FSTafGmmvwylD35pH-o0TeSBdZdeQiFE88SjwHAvJe1JK3IwMlthUILP3Hu5H_9yqS3wKrYEeICa41jKx756vsG8qlVY0dgHR9wikh7mBVgYgW_fzYxIB4-mrD/s320/louvre-portrait-de-lisa-gherardini-epouse-de-francesco-del-giocondo-dite-monna-lisa-la-gioconda-ou-la-jocon.jpg" width="217" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Mona Lisa, perhaps the most<br />
famous painting in the world, was painted<br />
by Leonardo da Vinci in the 1500s. But <br />
do we call Leonardo a gifted,<br />
master artist or a successful artist? </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify;">Think about it. We talk about
great artists who paint or have painted masterpieces, gifted musicians who make
restless souls come alive and beautiful minds of scientists who make astounding
discoveries among other things, but we hardly ever call use the word successful
when talking about them. The usual words reserved for them are gifted, great,
beautiful, unconventional and legendary et al. Successful is, however, mostly
reserved for those who excel in terms of creating businesses, achieving
professional heights and accumulating wealth. Isn’t that capitalism playing on
our minds?</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">So capitalism shapes the world
around us in such a manner that it influences so many of our decisions,
including about our work. Jeff Hammerbacher, the man who’s credited with
coining the word data science, also had another important set of words to say.
In this ‘post-truth’ era though, I really cannot guarantee if he said it, even
after some research. Anyway, what he supposedly said was, “The best minds of
our generation are thinking about how to make people click on ads.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">While not all great minds may be preoccupied
with creating click-baits, that one-liner is really quite telling. Doesn’t that
tell you how much capitalism influences our ideas and our professional choices?
And clearly, what affects our professional decisions is bound to affect our
happiness quotients as well. Quotient! Look it me trying to quantify happiness,
another gift of capitalism maybe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM9MrcMgUZMiQftcqcpg-ZoNmjqBvhNHGkg4rjIWLRMd6cB17J7IxsecpcRs3CuQF3f1m693vZoMDojuDakWHm1JgqMqnBc4aPwk4YbYQ52gnVqpgPdnG4VhuzWS_i1hbhPDZOiczofD84/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-03-02+at+9.59.17+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM9MrcMgUZMiQftcqcpg-ZoNmjqBvhNHGkg4rjIWLRMd6cB17J7IxsecpcRs3CuQF3f1m693vZoMDojuDakWHm1JgqMqnBc4aPwk4YbYQ52gnVqpgPdnG4VhuzWS_i1hbhPDZOiczofD84/s200/Screen+Shot+2017-03-02+at+9.59.17+PM.png" width="185" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Adam Smith was the first to spot <br />
the invisible hand. Aren't invisible <br />
things difficult to regulate? </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">So where does capitalism derive
that power to affect our happiness then? Well what’s inherent to capitalism is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">laissez-faire </i>– the idea of a free
market where private ownership is the boss, where things are left free to take
their own course. Here, it’s the <a href="mailto:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand">invisible hand</a>, as
Adam Smith wrote centuries ago, that runs the show. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">And as this invisible hand pushes
people to maximise profits, it provokes competition. So while it implies that
the quality of products and the costs of production are constantly worked upon
and innovation thrives, it also sparks a fear of missing out (FOMO in our lingo
today) and often kills the idea of taking things slow. (There are other issues
with capitalism too, but this essay doesn’t contend with those.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">An Individual’s Conundrum<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">So while it is good for economic
prosperity and should ideally be self-moderating, capitalism has other by-products
in terms of how it affects individuals professionally, personally and
emotionally. Of course, one may also argue the other way, that it also has its
rewards. Individuals reap the benefits of professional success too then and
amass wealth. But that’s just capitalism’s nature; the price payers always
outnumber the beneficiaries.</span></div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHiwb5HlnEcOybUpH4rNQ_tUHtYYFiUkymlSN9os6fK-wtr86XjGjI9KIlZg0GgHHjGFg8779lfSZn2Ne38BUGhpCoKMz8Dpli_K_R04LKOuPrVVSc15E-rJCY4jKenVijhX9O17j6pDAF/s1600/too-much-work.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHiwb5HlnEcOybUpH4rNQ_tUHtYYFiUkymlSN9os6fK-wtr86XjGjI9KIlZg0GgHHjGFg8779lfSZn2Ne38BUGhpCoKMz8Dpli_K_R04LKOuPrVVSc15E-rJCY4jKenVijhX9O17j6pDAF/s320/too-much-work.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">While desks today look cleaner with the advent of <br />
computers, the work load has perhaps only risen. <br />
Or is your desk still as messy?<br />
Picture credit: Carrotstown</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Professionally, it pushes people
relentlessly and can lead to individuals burning out – physically or mentally –
as they are being driven by their immediate needs, the invisible hand and the
social contexts around them. And like the click-bait example shows, it
literally can make people opt for peculiar yet paying jobs that may not make
one happy. Now tell me, how many times have you sidelined something you loved
to do for a job that paid more?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Personally, it just takes away so
much of your time. It makes you work more. Perhaps one the top economists of
all time, and a ‘successful’ one too given his stock market adventures, <a href="mailto:http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/26/no-time">JM Keynes
had predicted</a> almost a century ago that as our economies develop, our
future generations will have to work less and less and will have more time for
leisure. Well, wonder what happened. Most of us have really just been working
more. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha-OZ22AfxGbA6TJei28Eo0LIgczGise7zVaEJjnC09KyaZlNgE9BpPy2S75I52HL9bKWgvmHOnxDGIcGumtMU4YrNe05nqSud0MzItSnKcp5WQtR2zyuQPB67O_5Y6fHMOtNLWg9Ss3yO/s1600/Dollarphotoclub_57528839.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha-OZ22AfxGbA6TJei28Eo0LIgczGise7zVaEJjnC09KyaZlNgE9BpPy2S75I52HL9bKWgvmHOnxDGIcGumtMU4YrNe05nqSud0MzItSnKcp5WQtR2zyuQPB67O_5Y6fHMOtNLWg9Ss3yO/s320/Dollarphotoclub_57528839.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sacrificing those Saturday night plans with friends for <br />
the work meeting to crack a deal for the company. <br />
How tough is that choice? </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Working more is great when passion and interest are combined, but most
people aren’t that fortunate. And even for the ones who are, work really knows
ways to get the better off them. Haven’t you been forced to call off Saturday
night plans with friends for work? It’s easy to see now where DJ was coming
from with that Rang De dialogue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">And well, we all know how all of
that can play on us emotionally. While some thrive of professional challenges
and entrepreneurial adventures, for many professional burdens can hurt our
state of mind, and our relationships. Professional ups and downs really affect us,
and the feeling of being in a perpetual maze or race can leave us distraught and isolated. And while we all have our coping mechanisms, don’t
we need a little more than those? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">The Success Equation<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">It’s a cost then, which is
attached to the prize. In our individual quests for professional success, we
are often told hard work is the only option. Even so much of the content we
consume suggests the same – let's look at Suits where the Harvey and Mike are always
shown working till late in suits while their personal relationships are underplayed </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 18.6667px;">– </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14pt;">or the exact opposite in form of an escape from it all </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 18.6667px;">–</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14pt;"> for instance Two And A Half Men where work was hardly ever featured.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">And while hard work is not
something to shy away from, it’s important to prioritise amidst our individual
and combined struggles to achieve economic prosperity and emotional happiness,
because aren’t those, in their subjective proportions, crucial conditions of
being 'successful' in life, as we know it today?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha-OZ22AfxGbA6TJei28Eo0LIgczGise7zVaEJjnC09KyaZlNgE9BpPy2S75I52HL9bKWgvmHOnxDGIcGumtMU4YrNe05nqSud0MzItSnKcp5WQtR2zyuQPB67O_5Y6fHMOtNLWg9Ss3yO/s1600/Dollarphotoclub_57528839.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Will I sleep better if I complete
that presentation for office in time or will I be happier if I play with my unperturbed
beagles in the mud for a little while? Such tradeoffs, it’s almost criminal. And
while capitalism will always prioritise profits, shouldn’t we prioritise happiness
as well? And the twain shall only meet in a fine balance, if at all. While they
derive so much from one another, they can also turn on each other.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjisWPobHlfas4kJ3c8GPT_V7a8Du8aUnW04JjuYmnQTt7TtMQCez3DhtnaCudNZLcm6ONUtxmNenSorC4JaVEtW6ErHDFWaoGUZ2s6srp3r8yH1lFcKKDPbfrQXOiSWwAScq2Maejycty-/s1600/all_babies11_custom-dbcf8c713a0feb21b0462df22f7bc16aabe3762d-s900-c85.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjisWPobHlfas4kJ3c8GPT_V7a8Du8aUnW04JjuYmnQTt7TtMQCez3DhtnaCudNZLcm6ONUtxmNenSorC4JaVEtW6ErHDFWaoGUZ2s6srp3r8yH1lFcKKDPbfrQXOiSWwAScq2Maejycty-/s320/all_babies11_custom-dbcf8c713a0feb21b0462df22f7bc16aabe3762d-s900-c85.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We are all born different. So while we can have common<br />
measures to contextualise success, can we really have a <br />
universal set to define it? And more importantly, should we?<br />
Picture credit: Maya Eye Photography</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">So how one defines success may always be a function of our achievements, our emotional wellbeing (those are
so subjective too), the tradeoffs, our ideological inclinations and our
backgrounds. There can be so much too. While to some the achievements may
outweigh the tradeoffs, to others the tradeoffs may be heart wrenching. To many
ideological drives may define their route to success, to others material wealth
may be paramount. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">And while I’ll let you work on your own equation of success,
let’s look at success as a combination of elements and in the
context of the times and ideas that shape our world. Only then perhaps, will we really be able to
answer, how 'successful' we are. And however far or close one may find oneself to that 'success' and its contributors, do keep working, but perhaps in a different way, and maybe even on a different thing, because work still will always remain one of the keys to whatever we call success in the end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;">PS:</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> The essay title itself may have been click-bait here. Couldn't resist. Also, the
use of the words cost, equation and quotient among others in this essay are by
themselves also indications of how our minds (at least mine) have been attuned to evaluate things
in life – in form of (two-way) transactions, even when we have Mastercard ads on loop, reminding us that some moments in life are ‘priceless’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886752165897277194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2922064999561071057.post-12187454354535800552016-11-30T10:26:00.000-08:002016-11-30T10:26:55.369-08:00Lessons For Startups From The Indian Demonetisation Drive<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhja1RxFOPUpxNeEsGEdBv9clgMEtpDeLBWK-3LoOrVFqnp01Lbe6Th0H9SEEVE2sjvAAwpn1F2t-VHSrV7z3ZNdiIh3jnZox7yHCV5lGIgIBpRv0vc0QGBMlW-sa-yErE4GHzMnjeg-cd/s1600/180202742.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: 18.6667px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhja1RxFOPUpxNeEsGEdBv9clgMEtpDeLBWK-3LoOrVFqnp01Lbe6Th0H9SEEVE2sjvAAwpn1F2t-VHSrV7z3ZNdiIh3jnZox7yHCV5lGIgIBpRv0vc0QGBMlW-sa-yErE4GHzMnjeg-cd/s640/180202742.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Should startups be only learning from startups, or do lessons from all walks of life apply? Well, at least those lessons can't hurt to study. Photo credit: Creative Orange</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">To many the world over
November reminds of ‘No Shave November’, but this time around in India it’s
come to be dubbed as ‘No Cash November’. While that’s said to be a short-term
affect of a massiv<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">e demonetisation move initiated by the government, it’s led
to a lot of talk. Some hail it, and some trash it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Whatever side you are on, we
think there are a lot of lessons that young entrepreneurs and startups can
derive from it. And while the size of the move is mammoth, it’s nature
permanent and the force behind it is equally overpowering, here’s what it
taught and reminded us about:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Don’t Shy Away, Be Bold<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In startup
language: Do Epic Shit<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">While all of us get ideas
all the time, we don’t execute all of them. Sometimes we even reject them
before giving them some thought. But this move by the government reminds us
that no idea should be rejected straight away without much ado. Can you imagine
what this idea may have sounded like when first mooted? Could even have been
ridiculed, but it still came through and is now being touted as a big bang
measure. So don’t shy away and think big and fresh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But Do Thorough With
Research</span></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In startup
language: Beta First<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The aftermath of the
announcement showed that the government was found wanting in quite a few areas
– from the recalibration of ATMs to confusion in rural markets – things could
have been done differently. Perhaps some more groundwork could have helped, that’s
what the imperfect execution suggests. While the government can say the
surprise element could not be compromised, startups don’t have that option.
That’s where good research and Beta testing really matter. Let them inform your
decisions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Execution Trumps Idea<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In startup
language: Get Shit Done<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Yup, Trump is everywhere.
Anyway, while we can take time to try and find loopholes in the move, one must
recognise that such a big move really was made. It’s a move that was proposed
even two years back and ignored. It’s something that’s been on the table for
quite sometime, but being on the table doesn’t always cut it. So while there
may be political motivations too, this is a reminder that an idea by itself is
nothing unless executed. Have an idea? Then get to work! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Team Work Is Crucial<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In startup
language: Great Teams Win<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There are multiple ways of
looking at it. Let’s take these two – the move is a success in terms of how the
government, bankers and bureaucrats together are keeping things going while
mitigating chances of a mass protest. The other is that it’s a failure with
long queues, deaths, and some protests. Either way, this underscores the
importance of a team. Ultimately, it’s the team executing the idea and that’s
what defines how it performs. So always work on building a strong and diverse
team while keeping everyone involved. Internal communication is key too. Can
you imagine this move with the Prime Minister not taking the RBI Governor into
confidence? It also, in the same breath, underlines the role of a good leader.
So take note.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So Is Getting Word Out<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In startup
language: Buzz & Hustle<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Ever since November 8, the
day the move was announced, many faces from the government and the party have
been out there – speaking at conferences, TV shows, writing articles or even
addressing the music concerts. There’ve had ads informing about the scheme in
papers and ads praising it on radio. There’s always been buzz around it and
that’s what every startup craves. Understand the importance of the various
channels of communication and use the well. Move around, hustle because getting
things done is important, but conveying that it’s done and that it’s good is
equally important.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Capacity Building &
Using It<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In startup
language: Scalability Is Core<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Now here’s something that is
very different in this case when compared to startups. The state is huge and
has at its disposal machinery it can use to take actions at all levels. A
startup, however, is not as equipped in terms of physical assets. But both have
different assets too. While the state has spent time building that capacity to
enact such decisions, a startup has spent time ideating and hustling too.
Either way, building those capacities that help you play the long innings must always
be a priority because scalability shall always remain crucial to startups. It
matters in the long run, like the team.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Seek Expert Opinion<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In startup
language: Validate The Idea<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Some say that the government
did not consult enough experts or that it consulted only those it agreed with.
Others say many experts were spoken to and suggestions noted. However, names of
no venerable economists have been cited to say they were consulted. Whatever
the case, this is another reminder that opinion from experts in that space or
industry and the immediate users must be sought to try and validate the idea.
But then the secrecy of the project and the need for opinion do make for a fine
balance to look for. And that’s what you must seek. It’s also important to know
who to take opinion from, how to use it and when to stop seeking it because you
don’t want too much of it, but only the right kind. Let’s say the jury is still
out on this government move and if the idea was or should have been validated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Don’t Stop Making
Corrections<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In startup
language: Fix Those Bugs<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">One thing the government has
constantly shown ever since the move was announced is that there have been new
relief measures coming out everyday. Some days those with weddings in the house
had some respite, other days the government said farmers could use old notes to
buy seeds. These were cases that were left out in the initial plan and are only
being considered now given that grievances caused and inability to suffice
them. While many call it confused policy making, there’s one important lesson
here for startups – never stop learning, identifying bugs (albeit through the
help of a competitor) and fixing them because that’s what will keep the product
running and attuned to the market. While we can argue the government should
have been more considerate and careful, let’s promise that we’ll be, at least.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886752165897277194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2922064999561071057.post-84916303939872113622016-10-23T23:40:00.003-07:002016-10-23T23:40:47.261-07:00Comparative Conversations <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886752165897277194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2922064999561071057.post-38463898197526153432016-07-15T07:23:00.000-07:002016-07-15T07:26:43.317-07:00Nightmares Of A Dating Platform Co-Founder<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIrhSbHkBF2mpSkC4uEpZ4wlWip0rxLhWkgeCUCBQTh6y-wjnvtBq5sbi54L-lv2n21B2lzFEXypSPAnwdD4wfyyiId5gW6LAMnWDafq9S8vXFgIYOC014aCP20JwWvBSvqBP05aD2KxTM/s1600/5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="408" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIrhSbHkBF2mpSkC4uEpZ4wlWip0rxLhWkgeCUCBQTh6y-wjnvtBq5sbi54L-lv2n21B2lzFEXypSPAnwdD4wfyyiId5gW6LAMnWDafq9S8vXFgIYOC014aCP20JwWvBSvqBP05aD2KxTM/s640/5.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A picture from the first event of the Pop Culture Panchayat Series we hosted in New Delhi. Connecting people, does Nokia still hold a copyright to that tagline? Picture Credit: MYOLO</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">India is growing and it is growing fast. At least
that’s the narrative the Indian government wants you to swear by. While I see
some of that economic growth happening, I also think the </span><a href="http://scroll.in/article/809818/these-charts-explain-why-many-people-are-sceptical-about-indias-amazing-growth-figures"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">we should look at the growth digits with a pinch of
salt</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";">. But it’s some non-economic activities
and events that tend to throw me back to a Thursday that I’ve never lived.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">The Bollywood movie </span><a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news/Courts-put-an-end-to-Udta-Punjab-controversy-film-to-be-released-on-Friday/articleshow/52781590.cms"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">‘Udta Punjab’ and the drama</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> around its clearance and censor board chief’s
medieval whims is one such socio-cultural piece in the larger painting, which
to me was open-sourced earlier, but now appears to be more restricted. There
are many such examples, people will tell you. Some will also tell you most of
these are futile. So it depends who you choose to believe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Without getting into the argument of why art
demands, deserves and needs freedom and why the state is better focusing on
poverty alleviation, I want to declare that I write this article as an Indian co-founder
at a startup called </span><a href="http://www.myolo.in/"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">MYOLO</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> where
we are building an online/offline socialising and dating platform.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">It’s a platform we are building for the urban
Indian man who is as much of a feminist as he is a lover of Virat Kohli’s
straight drive. It’s for the young woman who is as much aware about Raghuram
Rajan and his refusal of extending his term, as she is aware of the latest
maroon lipstick shade from Mac. It’s as much for the queer person who marched
at JNU for the Orlando massacre victims as it is for the </span><a href="http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/transgender-community-in-mumbai-gear-up-for-international-yoga-day-116062100074_1.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">transgender who practiced yoga</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> who practiced yoga on the International Day of
Yoga in Mumbai. It’s for everyone who fits some of these super stereotypes and
for everyone who doesn’t. Essentially, it’s for the young independent thinker on
the move, for the intelligent Indian.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Dating
Platforms and Urban India<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: georgia;">See, to us and our startup, the openness of the
young Indian mind matters as much as the accommodativeness of society. By
accommodative I don’t mean to give society an upper hand, it’s only to indicate
the evolutionary nature of it all, among others, the nature of relationships,
the mediums of realising it and of course the idea of marriage. And to be
honest, while we believe we’ve got our target audience sorted, I think that
audience is only growing by the day, especially with exposure to education, information
on the Internet and the works of artists, authors and the likes from around the
world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Education is playing a key role. So is economic
growth. No, not the forcing of </span><a href="http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/akbar-demoted-rana-pratap-is-great-in-rajasthan-textbooks-755526"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Rana Pratap in Rajasthan history textbooks</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> kind of education, but the kind of liberal
education that is coaxing people to question that move. For instance, I think, (while
both are welcome) today an article from the </span><a href="http://www.spoiltmodernwoman.com/"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Spoilt
Modern Indian Woman</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> contributes
more to advancing the cause of feminism than a lecture at a school function.
Not only that, and you don’t need a genius to know this, with increased
economic growth, there’s increased exposure and access to private education,
the Internet and books and what not, and that in itself feeds into that cycle
of more liberal students coming out as well. See, it’s not because joint
families are breaking, but it’s because more families are getting educated too.
So while we target higher economic growth, we shouldn’t try to paint and then
chain our values. No, the time of Asian values is gone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">While societies are progressing (yes, we can argue
about how we define progress), there are social elements that are going primitive
too. Just so complex is India; actually the entire world. So many divides. For
every stereotype-breaking campaign by a dating app (yes, I think the </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/trulymadly/videos/1046420695393902/"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">new Truly Madly AIB video song</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> is great), there are thousands of Bhai fans who
cannot see why his “raped woman” comment was wrong. And that’s just the unfortunate
disparity of thought in the urban space. The rural has even more shades.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLTCI1jj7d_guUSvgpk2l0vcjkXwX87FXD0VpA9p_wCtZ1Sr_serQH53zHcU3Th4it0odAiO2N1yl5MWFikIhWWT9nihT5SfNWYYlZxqAvKO70yzS4zexLf2_ijVtIz8LRfZLWdbsNhUrq/s1600/_89386389_launch_image_original.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLTCI1jj7d_guUSvgpk2l0vcjkXwX87FXD0VpA9p_wCtZ1Sr_serQH53zHcU3Th4it0odAiO2N1yl5MWFikIhWWT9nihT5SfNWYYlZxqAvKO70yzS4zexLf2_ijVtIz8LRfZLWdbsNhUrq/s640/_89386389_launch_image_original.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;"><div style="margin: 0px;">
Online dating is perhaps in a need for correction, correction to nudge it back towards keeping things real. Why just stay stuck on messengers when technology can also lead you interesting events? Picture credit: BBC </div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Okay, so let’s get to what prompted this post. It
was this – </span><a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/relationships/man-woman/Indian-women-dont-date-What-Women-react-to-ICCR-travellers-guide/articleshow/52724250.cms"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">this report</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> claiming that the </span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia"; mso-bidi-font-family: ProximaNova-Regular;">ninth edition of the travellers' guide and
scholars' manual released by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) </span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">says that Indian women are still conservative, that
they don’t really date. This one apparently even goes on to say, “</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">The modern
Indian woman is traditional in some ways. She may refuse politely if a man asks
her out for a film or an outing. </span><a href="http://www.scoopwhoop.com/Dear-Indian-Women-This-Is-What-The-Govt-Is-Saying-About-You-In-Advisory-To-Foreign-Visitors/"><span style="font-family: "georgia"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Dating is not
common in India</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">” So what’s the
deal? No, I’m not an Indian woman, but I’ve dated one for seven years. And I
know now you are judging her and me, but the sourness in that analysis may lower
if I tell you we got married after that dating period too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Forget that though, why that statement? Why should
we want to distance ourselves from dating? Even if it were foreign concept,
it’s a concept we love and have embraced. It’s empowering to choose your
partner. It’s fulfilling to love them. It’s more. Doesn’t even have to be
eternal love, it could be a summer fling too where neither party was hurt or
cheated. So it’s also nothing we are ashamed of. Meanwhile we should also
remember that India is also now home to it’s own take on love hotels with </span><a href="http://www.stayuncle.com/home"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Stay
Uncle</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> coming to the rescue of
“couples that need a room, not judgment”. A much needed venture. And so, while the
ICCR statement isn’t true of urban India, let’s say if it were true. Let’s say
most Indian women didn’t date, but then the men do. Nothing saying there that
they don’t. So are we saying that most Indian men are gay? Well, yes, I want a
government body to acknowledge and embrace homosexuality in India, but don’t do
that like a hypocrite now? I want you the state to embrace heterosexuality as
much too. In fact, embrace the entire sexual revolution that we are so shy to
admit and never talk about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">An
Entrepreneur’s Nightmares<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">While this just squeezes my Indian soul, it also
scares me as an entrepreneur. See, dating is core to the platform we are
building, and the ICCR says most Indian women don’t date. A government body
saying that is always scary. Now let’s connect some dots. Maybe there are none,
but that’s how a scared entrepreneur’s mind works. Look at </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv=hcRxFRgNpns"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">this video and listen to Google’s Eric Schmidt</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> where he says one of the most important things for
a company is to know what does the next five years look like. And you don’t
even need Schmidt to tell you that, we are always thinking about the
sustainability of the business anyway. And to me it all looked promising. More
economic activity and more education mean more busy, young professionals
looking for friends, love and experiences to share. And that’s a business
opportunity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">But then I read that ICCR report. It scared me.
Why, well because only a couple of days before reading it I’d read this – the
government had just come out with </span><a href="http://www.livemint.com/Politics/1PFh6Uakl1mhEaQTxzGZuK/No-casual-hookups-on-matrimonial-sites-as-government-lays-do.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">an advisory for matrimonial websites</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> asking them to take identity proofs from all users
and to ensure they are not used for dating, but only for marriages. Yes, I’d
welcomed that move of ID proofs and tracking the ISP because there’ve been
reports of frauds being committed using these sites, that people were duped and
cheated via the medium. So, I was happy. Good move. But no dating? Why say they
can’t date and they must only be there if they want to marry. A declaration is
a little too much now, isn’t it? Is courtship not a thing? Is the government
paying for the accounts? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Anyway, so this advisory along with the ICCR report
that followed got together to scare me. How do I begin to answer that five-year
question then if I fear random government advisories and manuals? Yes, online
dating is still a new space and it needs some corrections, perhaps guidance too.
Yes, we know safety and privacy are paramount which is why we are working on
profile verification and already had an ID upload feature even before the
advisory was issued to matrimonial websites, but how do I know the right-slanting
government of the Republic of India will not ban dating? What’s even scary is
that how do I know that the single-majority government of India will protect
entrepreneurs and individuals like me when there’s a violent backlash against
dating by fringe elements? We remember the “</span><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/shiv-sena-terrorises-couples/article355411.ece"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Shiv Sena terrorising couples in Mumbai</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";">”, don’t we? So will the government maintain
silence or will it be progressive enough to engage with the community and work
on policies, a little like it did with the Startup India plan?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Security
in Young Indians<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: georgia;">Either way, it’s not in the government that I find
a sense of security for now, but in the many individuals we are building this platform
for. We don’t know how many people there are, but we know there are many. It’s
that young Mumbai thinker that gives me confidence as much as the ziddi
party-going Delhi lad who takes the cab back home to avoid drunk driving.
Again, to go beyond the stereotyping, essentially every young Indian gives us the
courage to keep doing what we’ve started and to take pride in what we are
building. That intelligent Indian motivates us! And while they scare away my business
nightmares, I sometimes worry about the nightmares of so many others. May be the
monsoon will shoo some away and the state others. Meanwhile, thank you Young
India.</span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886752165897277194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2922064999561071057.post-21309825616517052742016-03-31T04:49:00.001-07:002016-04-10T01:58:09.711-07:00Do the Panama Papers dwarf the Panama Canal?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGM-zQXM3mXubtY3I1wa_sKSapCF1WfJUVwf1hyGbetz3Xwiywyh5Fq5MFRMHD73PVUJZdGLdgzMlPF0sL7uRyuZn5m_wZBXikrNlrpU1wkFYeS19e2POoTzr2S932XhrkcZVoppVaEscI/s1600/Panama-Canal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGM-zQXM3mXubtY3I1wa_sKSapCF1WfJUVwf1hyGbetz3Xwiywyh5Fq5MFRMHD73PVUJZdGLdgzMlPF0sL7uRyuZn5m_wZBXikrNlrpU1wkFYeS19e2POoTzr2S932XhrkcZVoppVaEscI/s640/Panama-Canal.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Panama Canal was launched in 1914 and has helped trade grow. But over the last few years, law firm Mossack Fonseca may have helped built another canal via Panama, one that's punctured the global response to shadow financing and tax evasion. This one needs to be plugged. Photo credit: Cnet</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Until
a few weeks ago, the Panama Canal was the only thing that defined the country
for a lot of people, but today people are likely to know more about it –
unfortunately not so much about it’s beaches or music, but a lot more about
Mossack Fonseca, a law firm based in Panama, and its murky deals. This firm
seems to have drawn a lot of inspiration from the canal as it built another
kind of a canal through which it helped many rich and powerful people hide
money (read tax evasion) and also contributed to and shielded the world of
shadow financing. Here’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://panamapapers.icij.org/stairway_tax_heaven_game/">a game to show
how easy they made tax evasion appear</a>. There goes a lot of your
not-there-yet soft power Panama!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So,
Panama Papers! Why is this important now? Haven’t we known that these
activities have been happening? Here are some thoughts on why the leak, the
thorough investigation and the timing may well be a game-changer. And here’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://panamapapers.icij.org/">more information from the direct source</a>.
All put together, it helps deconstruct the (secret) global phenomena of shell
companies, tax evasion and war financing and to then publicly construct and
prove the links between them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Proof is Power</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">: Well, yes we have
known about the existence of shadow financing, but we’ve never had so much data
and information about who these people are, who is helping them and how is the
money trail being developed. Knowing something exists and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-35954224">having proof</a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>about its existence are two different
things, and without the latter, the former cannot translate into sustainable
impact. It’s significant because not only does it again blow the lid off on the
world of shadow financing and tax evasion, but also because it helps build
strong legal cases to nail culprits.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2922064999561071057" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2922064999561071057" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Another Wake-up Call:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s also another warning that the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/04/05/heres-the-question-behind-the-panama-leak-why-international-rules-arent-stopping-offshore-tax-evasion/">current
domestic and global system are not really working well</a>. It’s a reminder to
push for further domestic tax reforms and for greater global collaboration on
exchange of related information. It’s a strong nudge towards signing more
treaties on tax transparency and enforcing them because the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">existing institutions for information
exchange are caught up in too much of red tape as well. Perhaps, the
bureaucracy is what’s adding to the inefficiency. Also, it’s reminder that
secrecy is far more valued in monetary terms than transparency – that
capitalism tends to side with secrecy until regulated.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Tip of the Iceberg:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There’s a graph that’s popular on
social media. This is what it looks like.</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2922064999561071057" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2922064999561071057" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4s8pz-e8jYnvpSRJR4khnOwduuBrmmDYj5ldf5gk-1J1XD6lEMMgz-GS4PK_DfzYKh-LXZZic0wez8rRbw5tK7IS8R2QGM37C6nfe5iKW2OGB-OIe1Ov3vbZ5Ix7zgc85mAgyi59TaQSJ/s1600/tumblr_kxldz31eZQ1qaukck.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4s8pz-e8jYnvpSRJR4khnOwduuBrmmDYj5ldf5gk-1J1XD6lEMMgz-GS4PK_DfzYKh-LXZZic0wez8rRbw5tK7IS8R2QGM37C6nfe5iKW2OGB-OIe1Ov3vbZ5Ix7zgc85mAgyi59TaQSJ/s400/tumblr_kxldz31eZQ1qaukck.png" width="335" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So
clearly, while this revelation is big, we’d do better not to forget that it’s
just be the tip of the iceberg.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/4/8/11371712/panama-papers-tax-haven-zucman">Economist
Gabril Zucman</a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>estimates that
tax losses due to shadow financing and offshore banking and investments total
up to be about $200 billion per year, that’s almost four times Panama’s
national income. "We may only be scratching the surface then," as
Zucman puts it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s an Industry:</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Another thing the size of the leak – over 2,600 GB of data
– confirms is that this isn’t about malpractice by a firm, but it’s about the
hidden industry of shadow finance and tax evasion. This is an industry that
now, like many others, is global. Technology has made things easier for it and
law has just not kept up. It’s an industry that draws large capital too and
this makes states also reluctant to take active and immediate steps to block
it. Political will is not that easy to garner when it comes to cutting off a
serious flow of money. That’s one reason why big states like the US too have
not acted as fast on the issue – that’s why<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://billmoyers.com/story/why-are-there-so-many-anonymous-corporations-in-delaware/">Delaware
has more registered companies than residents</a>. It thrives on secrecy and the
more data that goes public about it, the better. That’s how you beat secrecy,
right? Go public with all the information. Of course, validate that information
too as you take on the industry. That’s why this investigation by the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://panamapapers.icij.org/">International Consortium of Investigative
Journalists</a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>in collaboration
with so many other publications around the world has taken over eight months.
Great work ICIJ! A clear sign that there needs to be planned and collaborative
response to the industry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A Big Link to Peace:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There’s been lots of talk about
stopping financing to warring sides, terrorist organisations and rogue militant
outfits. Well, not all of that has succeeded despite some firms linked to<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://youtu.be/F6XnH_OnpO0">transferring
money to major stakeholders in the Syrian conflict</a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>for instance being blacklisted. Why?
Well the Panama Papers also describe that money trail. It’s all through shadow
financing that money gets delivered to these banned, dangerous entities. It’s a
big-big link then to peace and to ensuring that you hold power when negotiating
peace treaties. With more data going public, more governments can be
pressurised to act on those companies and more governments can come together to
block these money trails and to dry those treasuries. War is an industry and
this is where some of its exchequer is filled. Again, the Panama Papers may
provide the missing evidences that can help legally tie the financiers, the
middlemen and the final culprits to bring them to justice and to curb organised
war and violence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Iron is Hot:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This may well be one of the most
important part about the Panama Papers revelation – its timing. About 15-20
years ago, this may not have created enough noise, but this time perhaps,
there’s hope that it can grow into a silent revolution that forces reform.
What’s changed? Well, since the late 2000s we’ve never really in totality
gotten out of the financial crises. From the US sub-prime collapse to the PIGS
economic downturn that’s still on, there’s more economic inequality in the
world today, then there was before. But now, we have the Internet as a medium
to get information out to people and to mobilise over issues.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
time around, there’s bound to be greater public interest in the revelations
because they care – while many are affected by this economic inequality, others
are losing patience with not insufficient action against tax evaders. In India
there’s the case of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/vijay-mallya-skips-ed-for-the-third-time-seeks-time-till-may/">Vijay
Mallya</a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>who’s fled the country
and is wanted for not paying loans worth billions. Elsewhere, there’s interest
because other big players are involved and black money is a vital issue in all
places, especially with elections in the US this year and poll promises of
fighting corruption in other countries by national leaders like Indian Prime
Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. They are being pushed to
deliver and the boundaries of the discourse are being widened. This time
around, we could certainly see some real impact because<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35975893">tax evasion has become a
real subject in politics</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That’s
why these revelations matter and why the work done by the consortium and other
journalists is highly commendable. If there’s a whistleblower involved, well
thank you. You’ve all helped deconstruct and publicly construct again
the world of shadow financing. It’s a big nudge towards further reform and
action, and this time around, with greater public interest, this may well
change the balance, bit-by-bit and this Panama Canal may be plugged. But how
the others are exposed and handled is another big challenge.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> </span></div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886752165897277194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2922064999561071057.post-84326246530358608342016-02-27T04:03:00.001-08:002016-03-08T11:25:41.422-08:00Imagining nationalism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYgG3GYsdXJAjpZHc9vfQP_ZrPnD_yVigrgnhQ7sYz2frLEEYSBFOVsrjgXWwExXv4gjDXaWbXmDhvTICHDH1JJ11VEuZgTc8ZM_5SyWGXTy7Vs_1-QmypRHs6pzsqeGbCYXDw8gzxyqqc/s1600/jnu-protest_650x400_71455449256.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYgG3GYsdXJAjpZHc9vfQP_ZrPnD_yVigrgnhQ7sYz2frLEEYSBFOVsrjgXWwExXv4gjDXaWbXmDhvTICHDH1JJ11VEuZgTc8ZM_5SyWGXTy7Vs_1-QmypRHs6pzsqeGbCYXDw8gzxyqqc/s640/jnu-protest_650x400_71455449256.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the last one month, different incidents and protests at the Jawaharlal Nehru University have provoked us to question the meaning of nationalism all over again. Photo courtesy: The Quint</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; text-align: justify;">So far, this word and its interpretation had
perhaps been the few words that had instigated and fueled wars across borders,
but in February this year, this very word and its interpretation sparked one on
the same side of the border. While religion can easily be that word, this time
around, however, it was nationalism.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">It’s highly improbable that you’ve missed the
‘anti-national’ label that’s been accorded in plenty in the last one month
after an incident at a government university in the national capital kicked-off
a political war. In case you missed it, </span><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/specials/in-depth/jawaharlal-nehru-university-row-what-is-the-outrage-all-about/article8244872.ece"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">here’s a quick fact-checked backgrounder</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">But what
is nationalism?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Nationalism is not an uncontroversial word. While
it is seen as a derivative of the word nation, there are two schools of thought
about looking at it. The first, the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">primordial
</b>school of thought takes an evolutionary route and looks at nationalism as the
idea that yields the contemporary form of groups or societies that people
subscribe to so as to ensure survival; what adds value to the idea of
nationalism is that it is thought to be emotional and durable, especially
because it draws on a common history, even ancestry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">The second, the so-called <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">modernist </b>idea says nationalism is what is invoked in societies
that have a self-sustaining industrial economy and a central authority that can
ensure unity while employing certain common or central norms or languages. It
essentially looks at it more as an idea used for nation-building. That’s where
the idea of ‘</span><a href="https://books.google.co.in/books?id=4mmoZFtCpuoC"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">imagined communities’</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> as articulated first by Benedict Anderson comes in
for nationalism then is essentially a project that attempts to draw on
individual and societal patriotic currents.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: "georgia"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">So
then, did nation come first or nationalism? To me, right now, these
interpretations tend to suggest that nation is what nationalism results in and
re-enforces. Perhaps one could argue both ways and maybe it is another
chicken-egg conundrum.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Does patriotism
equal nationalism?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">So nationalism wants to draw on patriotism and
build further and patriotism by itself may be re-enforced by nationalism, but
these related words still represent disparate meanings. While patriotism is a
sentiment and has an organic quotient attached to it, nationalism is a
introduced idea that builds on an identity. Nationalism requires instruments
such as a national anthem or a national day to unify people and to keep on
etching the idea of the nation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Patriotism is innate and it just grows on its own.
If it is not entirely selfless, it is certainly unselfish. Nationalism though may
ask for something in return, for it is assumed that the nation-state is also a
purveyor of certain essential things. What further adds to this mix is the
social contract of citizenship in the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_sovereignty"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">post-Westphalian</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> world where sovereignty and self-governance are norms. While sovereignty
promises to promise freedom from foreign interference or intervention, citizenship
means that for all rights and freedoms promised to the individual, there are a
‘reasonable’ number of directive principles as well. Discussing the validity of
these is not the objective of this essay, however, this essay does acknowledge
the need for citizenship in the modern world order and the fact that the idea
of nationalism (and citizenship) may thus be subject to the central authority.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Multiple
realities and the post national<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Perhaps, like in most cases, here too a reality exists
in a complex overlap of it all, since the primordial seems to have merged with
the modernist in an age where the religious, economic and demographic divides
are as evident as you have the patience of observing them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Where an individual like me in an urban setting is
drawn to the idea of post-nationalism (not non-nationalism) in the global yet
local ever-connected world, there are individuals and families in rural regions
who are now beginning to feel the prominence of the nation as they are better
connected with other parts of the country and as they emerge out from regional
or local shadows. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmDLi6FxYl9JK2ChYmyVZ1gpSM2lu7JSJJDBkXVk-T3rJHFGvFKWLpYI2rstv714XSE73JTTa5dZ_uhzi-vI6cNeLHttJ26ow4FGnyHW9-W7iiJINHYr8kCZVJZHkDJKdtbtHzONVzuBFE/s1600/16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmDLi6FxYl9JK2ChYmyVZ1gpSM2lu7JSJJDBkXVk-T3rJHFGvFKWLpYI2rstv714XSE73JTTa5dZ_uhzi-vI6cNeLHttJ26ow4FGnyHW9-W7iiJINHYr8kCZVJZHkDJKdtbtHzONVzuBFE/s640/16.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The university at the backdrop of this particular incident is said to be under a Leftist strong-hold, where as the central Indian government currently tilts to the right. Photo credit: JNU </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">It’s also important here to note that how (divided)
voices from urban or sub-urban spaces on social media appear to get a shot in
the arm from the absence of voices from rural settings on social and mainstream
media. Thus, this makes the premise of the any debate (in this case around nationalism)
appear smaller than it is. Therefore, while the debate may tend to represent
many voices, it still may not represent all voices. We must also note that
there are attempts made to label these debates as only being stirred by
‘pseudo-intellectuals’ while adding that the common population is not concerned
by it; but that argument must always be treated with serious doubts, for in
most instances (especially ones that do not comprise economic factors and
immediate security), the common population is too engrossed in the daily act of
survival that raising debates may not even cross their mind, and if it does it
may come way behind ‘</span><i style="font-family: Georgia;">roti, kapda and
makaan</i><span style="font-family: "georgia";">’ (food, clothes and shelter) in their list of daily priorities. But
then again, haven’t polity and politics been spheres the elites (or at least
the privileged) have always called the shots?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Getting back, when I use the word <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postnationalism">post-national</a>, I in no
way use it as a argument against nationalism, on the contrary I use it in the
context where it may be seen as a probably superlative of nationalism. It to me
describes an idea where while the national is very dear to the individual, its
relevance has merged with the presence of global or supranational entities like
say, the European Union or ASEAN and the deep reach of transnational and
multinational organisations. While domestic politics, the contemporary
international order that celebrates sovereignty and the uneven spread of
education and wealth ensure that the nation-state will remain very relevant,
growing global inter-connections, trade pacts and joint efforts also signify
that other groupings also acquire greater relevance. Perhaps, a supranational
entity like the European Union then could be seen as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism#Primordialist_interpretation">primordial
evolution of the nation</a> into another bigger grouping that then employs
modernist grouping-building techniques. Either way, the significant point to
note for the current context is that India thrives in multiple realities and to
label them all under a particular kind of nationalism is not only a case of
mistaken purpose, but also an unwelcome task. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">The nationalism of a Mini Cooper driving management executive in New Delhi may never be the same as that of a farmer in drought-hit Maharashtra, but then again, neither of those nationalisms may be wrong, and nor their distinct (and perhaps invisible) interpretations and manifestations of it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Distinctions
we must question<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">So, on a bigger stage when talking about more than
one nation, while this debate may also be seen as a burgeoning disagreement between
the idea of nationalism and supra-nationalism in the modern age, it definitely
must be seen as a rub between the varied ideas within the nation about that idea
of nationalism in question. Clearly, it has also grown into one about ‘patents
on nationalism’ to freedom of expression. But some more distinctions that will
help approach the subject better include:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">1. The state is not the same as the government.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">2. Nationalism is not the same as patriotism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">3. Order is not the same as justice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">4. Fiction is not the same as facts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Will this
debate end?</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia;">‘Imagined communities’ have long existed and will
continue to; only the unit of their realisation (or analysis for social
scientists) is expected to change with time. And as long as they exist, debates
around topics such as what nationalism entails will always continue, for no one
can have set of questions to test it. And as long as those debates thrive in
peace, India, or any nation-state (or any other grouping) for that matter will
be making some form of progress. Until then, it may be better off to establish
that while nationalism may cover a similar set of ideals, there may be various
exclusive subsets to that which may co-exist in harmony and that to question
any of them without valid reason may yield nothing of value. </span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886752165897277194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2922064999561071057.post-58296893251369969492016-01-30T07:32:00.001-08:002016-02-14T05:58:49.649-08:00Temples in India to the ‘Joy’ of success: Comparing paths to feminism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_9sRgAOhD1bdrQoE3APdonPnLSLVF5_AAwZY27-Svs1xNDNxvhpmFomGYbsRkksxJbLgy1C2saTdgS5MRkvQU0DdzIuq2ggtL5I1LW6KOK18WkAlUEJEgaBRS1jx4jW9XuSLyhamkwy03/s1600/3c3d26729a2b9db79329512c6384179f.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_9sRgAOhD1bdrQoE3APdonPnLSLVF5_AAwZY27-Svs1xNDNxvhpmFomGYbsRkksxJbLgy1C2saTdgS5MRkvQU0DdzIuq2ggtL5I1LW6KOK18WkAlUEJEgaBRS1jx4jW9XuSLyhamkwy03/s640/3c3d26729a2b9db79329512c6384179f.gif" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the movie Joy, Jennifer Lawrence plays a single mother whose struggles are fueled by the non-recognition of creativity at home and the absence of economic opportunity outside, all subject to the undercurrents of neoliberal individualism that influence her decisions and help her define her road to success. Photo credit: Joy, the movie</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">There are numerous objectives or quests in life, from
individual and societal to national and global, and correspondingly and
arguably there are numerous ways of achieving them. With that in mind, this
essay focuses on understanding the definition of feminism and the various
approaches towards advancing or enforcing it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">The first month of the year highlighted two
approaches to the cause of feminism. While one long unfolding incident in the
Indian state of Maharashtra saw a group of women frame their argument around
the “<a href="http://mashable.com/2016/01/27/indian-women-shani-temple/"><span style="color: windowtext;">right to pray</span></a>” (a socio-political rights approach)
in their quest for practicing feminism, the other was a break from tradition in
Hollywood to depict lone women in their fight for justice with the release of
Joy, a film inspired by the life of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/joy/mangano-miracle-mop-jennifer-lawrence-true-story/"><span style="color: windowtext;">Joy Mangano</span></a> and her struggles as a single mother
as she built her own business empire (an economic rights approach).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">While it is imperative to underline that individual
beliefs, life experiences, immediate needs and larger political social and
economic environments prevalent and dominant in the surroundings have a lot to
contribute towards their actions, it would be a mistake not to see how both
these disparate approaches that sought to achieve different goals fall under
the wider umbrella of realising feminism and advancing the cause of gender
equality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">While as individuals, one may be subject to
limitations in terms of what goal(s) among these (social, political or economic
rights) we are able to focus on and correspondingly what road we take in our
struggles to achieve them, as societies and larger communities it is essential
for us to work towards protecting and ensuring an all-inclusive enforcement of
feministic ideals and to perpetually interrogate and adjust the road we take to
achieve those goals. Because to realise feminism in all it’s earnest, equality
needs to be protected and ensured across all realms (social, political and
economic among others). And what road we take to do that may well define how we
look at feminism it self.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">But who
or what defines feminism?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">For all further references, it is imperative to define
the meaning of feminism as understood and studied by me. Feminism, as its name
suggests, was born as the idea of advocacy of women’s rights. But it has grown into
a bigger idea today. Today it stands for equal rights for all, across all
realms. It’s an all-inclusive understanding and approach towards advocating
equality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">However, as the definition of feminism has itself
evolved and enlarged to encompass more than women’s rights, it will only be
wise to recognise that this definition may further evolve over time. And what
will affect this definition or the realisation of these values are not just
other socio-political or economic factors, but also the approach we take
towards practicing feminism. For the architecture we design, also designs our
perspectives. Since the journey is part of the destination, it holds enough
power to influence the ride and throw up its own set of challenges. In the
words of Professor Nancy Fraser, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">our critique of sexism may “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/14/feminism-capitalist-handmaiden-neoliberal"><span style="color: windowtext;">supply the justification for new forms of inequality
and exploitation</span></a>”.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJFUCjCvF9FW7m9wWWfixec4sw6TexuSldJNezcQ3YbsR57CQTWIA2od9X992CxLKI8wjmAWaUcFyezDDigeynt5qrTvUDKJT6_dXjP9YaZToY3quTUyIqIdVhgIRmBdY81w1UbT3Ws3gn/s1600/shani-temple-759.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJFUCjCvF9FW7m9wWWfixec4sw6TexuSldJNezcQ3YbsR57CQTWIA2od9X992CxLKI8wjmAWaUcFyezDDigeynt5qrTvUDKJT6_dXjP9YaZToY3quTUyIqIdVhgIRmBdY81w1UbT3Ws3gn/s640/shani-temple-759.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;">This<span style="font-family: "georgia"; text-align: justify;"> temple at </span><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Shani Shingnapur, Maharashtra, was the subject of a debate around the equality of rights for women when it comes to praying there. About 1,000 women had together to storm this temple to enforce their rights. Photo credit: The Indian Express</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">The two
approaches<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">So in the two cases described above, while the parent
idea is that of feminism, the goals and approaches to them are part of the
subsets of socio-political and economic rights and opportunity respectively.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Social
solidarity - The </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Shani
Shingnapur</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> temple issue: </span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia";">In brief, this one’s about a 1,000 women led by Trupti Desai gearing
up to storm a temple in </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Shani Shingnapur, a village in western Maharashtra. At this temple,
women were not allowed to set foot on the open platform where the idol is
installed. Men, however, could do so, for a fee. Here’s the <a href="http://scroll.in/article/802721/meet-trupti-desai-the-woman-who-wanted-to-storm-a-shani-temple-in-a-helicopter"><span style="color: windowtext;">full story</span></a>. Though this doesn’t directly
concern the subject of this essay, here’s also a <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/who-cares-about-temple-entry/"><span style="color: windowtext;">take on if we should even care about temple entry</span></a>,
and that even when we do, putting it all under the umbrella of the ‘right to
pray’ is not the best thing to do.</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">So this quest for
demanding equal rights stemmed from the discrimination at a place of worship
and it took a socio-political approach to enforcing it. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Social solidarity</b>, something that has long been a characteristic of
the feminism struggle, is what Desai sought in this path to tackle gender
discrimination. The recent appointment of <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/editorials/women-qazis-is-a-step-towards-of-righting-the-sharia-balance/story-rK2OxuJOD8nPXkrGBDvuDO.html"><span style="color: windowtext;">women qazis in Jaipur</span></a> and their resolve to
bring in a feminine perspective when it comes to pronouncing judgments is
another example of social solidarity being the go to approach to advance
feminism.</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Neoliberal
individualism – Joy, the movie: </span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia";">This
one’s a story inspired by the life of </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Joy Mangano, a single mother entrepreneur whose
home-made mop made her a fortune. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2446980/"><span style="color: windowtext;">Here’s more about the movie</span></a>. So in this
case, Joy’s story draws from her fight for freedom and opportunity while
struggling with the disappointments of a life curtailed by her modest
surroundings, and complicated by the responsibilities of being a single mother
of three, a supporting child to her divorced parents and a lone bread-earner. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">But this story chalks
closer to the path of entrepreneurism, a spirit that’s fostered by the
invisible hand, as Joy earnestly grabs or even creates economic opportunities
that help her build a huge business and rewrite her circumstances. Her quest
for feminism is fueled by the want and need of a better quality of life, and
she sees economic equality and opportunity as the road to it and she fights for
it. This story also goes a long way to show how the quest for feminism and the
path we take to it is also a product of the times we live in. Joy, in the US,
is subject to the undercurrents of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">neoliberal
individualism </b>that influence her decisions and actions, and while hers is a
story of success, it must also be seen as a success story of capitalism feeding
off the ambivalence of feminism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">What road to take: Solidarity or individualism?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">On the onset it may not
seem to matter, but while in the short-term capitalism demands equality in all
respects so as to ensure that the invisible hand thrives, in the long-term
unattended (read: unregulated) capitalism also does have a huge tendency to
fall prey to corruption and thus advancing itself while reshaping what it feeds
off, thereby, in this case perhaps, creating a form of neoliberal feminism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">And while social solidarity may have been the go to
approach for feminists, in contemporary times, the lure of this form of
solidarity has been dominated by the overarching attraction of individual
success stories. It has also been diluted by ideas that exist at the very
peripheries of capitalism and feminism and stand for gender equality but can be
maneuvered to feed capitalism while advancing feminism in the short-term, and
hurting the overall quest for it in the long-term. The “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/14/feminism-capitalist-handmaiden-neoliberal"><span style="color: windowtext;">feminist critique of the family wage” and it’s implications</span></a>
is an example where this complexity can be further observed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">So while in Maharashtra socio-political rights and
social solidary defined their path for gender equality, in the US that quest
was defined by neoliberal individualism for Joy, with each quest being subject
to its context. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Perhaps, another characteristic of feminism then, is
that while it advocates equality, it recognises that there may not be a
particular approach to enforce it and that the quest and the approach may
themselves be defined by the times and the context. And while this definition
evolves, it may not be in a strict solidarity or in naively taking neoliberal
individualism as the approach that feminism may find its best friend, but
perhaps in a new form of balance that may reside between these and perhaps others.</span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886752165897277194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2922064999561071057.post-76214128734234694912015-12-30T10:12:00.001-08:002016-01-12T23:34:10.448-08:00Will Free Basics cost us more?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkVkjK07X5SVH5z1QaAnetodtFsRcjC9rvgr-SBuVN3Br8kBUbLRqguuUHsGsxhr8S8tvcdSm1LfYT_tiI05D-exrEE0tpdKc2HSqoVCXjW2eYcxLaUThykrtP_lgYAnd2jBb7-gCrq0FN/s1600/sdfsdfsdf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkVkjK07X5SVH5z1QaAnetodtFsRcjC9rvgr-SBuVN3Br8kBUbLRqguuUHsGsxhr8S8tvcdSm1LfYT_tiI05D-exrEE0tpdKc2HSqoVCXjW2eYcxLaUThykrtP_lgYAnd2jBb7-gCrq0FN/s640/sdfsdfsdf.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">While Zuckerberg has been trying to hard sell Free Basics like an extension of the free healthcare programmes run by states, it's imperative to question the long-term changes such a programme can lead to. Photo credit: Facebook</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Much
like many other things in the world, the Internet is always subject to debates
about its ownership, usage and regulation. What services can be provided, what
can’t? Can it be free? Should it not? Lot’s of such questions arise. Essentially,
it’s got to be free. That’s all net neutrality is about – the right of anyone
or everyone to access any website or mobile app from anywhere. And then again, while
business solutions to public problems are welcome, other related questions arise:
Does the private sector also have a role in public policy? If yes, then what
kind and how do we go about it in a dynamic setting?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
There
are times this debate seems like the debate around the ownership and regulation
of the polar regions, or the high seas or even outer space. – all public commons
or goods. And so, there are <a href="https://www.asil.org/blogs/increasing-relevance-treaties-case-arctic-agora-end-treaties">treaties
that enshrine the rights to access these spaces</a> and are many of these laws
are a work in progress. But the Internet, in some sense, is much more than
these since it was created by man and because it is in many ways inexhaustible,
and because of what it can do and because it can be accessed from almost anywhere.
Thus, it must be treated like a man-made public good. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
But
trouble arises when it comes to its delivery – when one needs a device and a
telecom connection to access the Internet. Technology is cheaper today, but not
so cheap that this right to access the Internet can be uniformly enforced and
the operations of Internet service providers are often subject to the invisible
hand. And therefore, there are always <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/10/opinion/global-threats-to-net-neutrality.html?_r=0">threats
to net neutrality</a>. These issues are thus the source of many debates and
that’s where the current one comes in from too – Free Basics.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">One step forward, two steps back?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
So
Mark Zuckerberg-led Facebook has big global ambitions of connecting the world
by fast-tracking the reach of the Internet, providing certain free services and
by reaching out more people than ever before. Free Basics is a part of that big
plan that all comes under Facebook’s Internet.org and what it essentially does
is provide a set of online services free of cost to a mobile user. But Facebook
gets to pick these free services that it calls ‘basics’. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Now,
that’s a problem – it divides the Internet into free and not free elements, it overlooks
the notion of net neutrality and it promotes a certain few online services as ‘free’
and ‘basic’. However, Facebook argues that this is like introducing the user to
the online world and later they are free to do anything they want. Zuckerberg
says <a href="http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/free-basics-protects-net-neutrality/">Free
Basics has to be seen like free primary education</a> or free healthcare, as
provided by the state. He argues that something is better than nothing. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Internet.org
also adds that the Free Basics programme is running in many other countries,
but then these are places where the <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/news/523736/around-the-world-net-neutrality-is-not-a-reality/">net
neutrality debate is still far</a>, because the net is still not yet around in
visible entirety. So the debate can only come alive once that understanding is
reached, and than can only happen once a threshold of Internet connectivity and
knowledge is acquired along with support from the civil society. Seeing the
opposition take on Facebook head is also a good sign for the Indian civil
society. But it is the final government or legal call on this debate that’ll
decide if it’s a good sign for the Indian democracy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLF_uDPceB93zNTG1b48aXlBZYbdcbL1ujV1fzifThzDJk_tKg0EotRAu-zHgr1v7EpokwXtIfvqE5aIAQr9z617n0G4A763J7nTFIThg7nE7ESNyiLRffYFiWd85S4W1E_BKVNEegIkYu/s1600/2015-12-25_10-04-41.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLF_uDPceB93zNTG1b48aXlBZYbdcbL1ujV1fzifThzDJk_tKg0EotRAu-zHgr1v7EpokwXtIfvqE5aIAQr9z617n0G4A763J7nTFIThg7nE7ESNyiLRffYFiWd85S4W1E_BKVNEegIkYu/s640/2015-12-25_10-04-41.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Apart from the issue around net neutrality, the idea of Free Basics also raises fundamental questions about looking for business solutions to public problems and the evolving role of the private sector in public policy. Photo credit: Facebook<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
While
there are <a href="http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/features/zuckerbergs-free-basics-draws-a-list-opponents-10-point-guide-783886">lots
of issues</a> people and organisations of all kinds have here, from dividing
the Internet to privacy, that <a href="http://qz.com/583678/indias-entrepreneurs-and-academics-arent-buying-mark-zuckerbergs-free-basics-sales-pitch/">are
being talked about</a>, this is yet another of those indicators that signals a
big shift, towards the evolving nature of capitalism, the changing dynamics of
state responsibilities and action, and world politics in general.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Here’s
a barrage of questions this debate provokes and some considered thoughts on
them: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Who decides what are the basics on the
Internet?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
step by Facebook is a big indicator about how the demarcation between who gets
to take a call on the elementary services in a respective field is changing. Sure
civil societies play a role, but so far, it’s always been states that have
deliberated and acted upon when it came to elementary education or health
services. But can corporations be the primary partakers when it comes to this? With
Free Basics, Facebook has blurred that line on who gets to decide upon what are
the ‘basics’ and what goes ‘free’. And clearly then, when the private sector
gets involved more questions are asked, irrespective of their validity. In this
case, they most certainly are valid. So this essentially marks a shift even in
that model of providing basic infrastructure and services with a corporation calling
the shots.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">So, would it be okay if the government
launched Free Basics?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
makes for an interesting hypothesis. It would have raised questions and may not
have been allowed to reach the stage of execution, but had the state been the
initiator of such a move, it would have lesser resistance. But then, had such a
move come, it would have likely been on the back of some version of crony
capitalism.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Would it work if it was not called Free
Basics?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
that case, Zuckerberg’s argument about clubbing it along with free education or
health programmes may not work, but it could have mitigated the opposition
perhaps. While free may pass, the use of basics is also a problem. Again, who
gives the right to Internet.org to decide what the basics are? Perhaps, had the
name been something else that did not make the service seem like the only
pathway to the Internet, it could have taken off it India already.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Why call it net neutral?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
that case though, like in the current one, the programme wouldn’t be net
neutral. Then why does Facebook insist on calling it that? While there is value
in the short-term for many users in what Free Basics offers, in the long-term
it means more harm for the structure and accessibility of the Internet. So
shouldn’t Facebook just say it isn’t net neutral, and that for now this is a
temporary solution which can be scaled back once other net neutral ones kick
in? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Perhaps
that’d make things easier, because social issues require business solutions,
and to begin with they may incline more towards the private sector, but only
with strong safeguards and timelines in place to not let capitalism run
unregulated in the long=term.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What else can be done then?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Instead
of just labeling some services as Free Basics, Internet.org can always work on
ways to provide free Internet (something it is attempting to so) and educate
new users with other stakeholders to let them choose how they want to use the
Internet. Or they can help build the Internet infrastructure in the state.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Let’s
also look at the issue from different standpoints, without undermining the fact
that irrespective of the number of standpoints or variance in them, these all
co-exist, thereby making things more complex. Nothing exists in isolation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A legal standpoint:</b> Since the Internet
is still young and widely not governed by a common set of laws, this is a legal
gray area. Then there is the matter where states claim <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35109453">cyber sovereignty</a>
and things get murkier further. So these are perhaps the formative years when
it comes to the legal basis for the Internet, and this legal foundation must
enshrine in it laws that ensure net neutrality.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A financial standpoint: </b>Two things are
visible here in terms of what business do or can do. Firstly, business will
always look for innovative (ethically right or wrong is another question) ways
to grow– and to do so they may want to help society in the short-term with an
eye on profits in the long-term. That’s more like a given. The second thing, as
pointed above, is that business solutions are needed for certain social
problems, but they need to be vetted. While in the short-term they may need
nudges and incentives, in the long-term, businesses must never hold the upper
hand when it comes to solving social problems.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A social standpoint: </b>Thus, while this
episode also exemplifies the need for and an endeavor to provide a <a href="http://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/students/other-opportunities/study-group-archive/private-solutions-to-public-problems-the-changing-nature-of-capitalism-and-the-role-of-business-in-creating-social-value">business
solution to social issues</a>, it is also a reminder of the enormous social
challenge that lies ahead globally. Especially in terms of the physical
infrastructure that needs to be developed to ensure connectivity and in terms
of providing balanced education to entrust users with making the ‘right choices’,
even if services like Free Basics exist.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A political standpoint: </b>While this
debate illustrates how the Internet is subject to politics when it comes to
deciding who gets to write its rules, there’s clear politics at play in terms
of designating owners, users and regulators of the Internet because it is
today, more than just a tool that promises power and profits. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But
the biggest takeaway is also the ever so over powering reach of the private
sector when it comes the audacity of private players to not just participate
but lead in matters that were until now unquestionably believed to be
exclusively under the purview of the state. Thus then, is this another manifestation of the post-national?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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While
Free Basics doesn’t seem to be the right move ahead, the programme must<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>not be dismissed without notice and
consideration, for it is only through debates and revisions that will pertinent
solutions to such problems be invented or discovered. While a public private
partnership solution may be best, one may have to remain very wary of that morphing
into a private public partnership solution, or solely a private one.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886752165897277194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2922064999561071057.post-48044210893342217452015-11-30T10:28:00.002-08:002015-11-30T10:40:29.689-08:00Talking tolerance<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-LSnR3ouctiEq8zTskTkHioICM_gc1YHoJPL-0jEOzvGOBf3gVn3fk7OLN4pUWJ0iQCOK9P1n6erUwtq72xKR8TDNY88yctVHgc6NnH3pnI-bPdN0OrsoYDkKJxX_1evWlv77j84C1uRa/s1600/images%257Ccms-image-000005867.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-LSnR3ouctiEq8zTskTkHioICM_gc1YHoJPL-0jEOzvGOBf3gVn3fk7OLN4pUWJ0iQCOK9P1n6erUwtq72xKR8TDNY88yctVHgc6NnH3pnI-bPdN0OrsoYDkKJxX_1evWlv77j84C1uRa/s640/images%257Ccms-image-000005867.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">A sand sculpture in Odisha talks about the #AwardWapsi campaign and the debate around 'intolerance'.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 27px;">
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: medium;">A new Indian government was sworn-in last summer. It had a mammoth mandate. It promised reforms and began revitalising brand India across the world. While for some it has reimposed India’s position as a global player, to others it has only played on perceptions without adequately strengthening the pillars of the economy and society. Some laws have been passed, other major economic reforms are still stuck in logjam. While on a grade scale where green would stand for excellent and yellow for disastrous, the government’s performance is more like a lime green. Some of it’s said work shows, some doesn’t.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">But evaluating the government’s first 18 months in office is not the aim of this essay. An 18-month evaluation could also be as misleading in hindsight in a few years as it may be detailed right now, if attempted. The use of the words tolerance and intolerance and actions that have invoked them is what this essay is about. It was also provoked by the notion of perceptions and how they affect states.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(92, 66, 43); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #5c422b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 8px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia;">
<b><span style="font-size: medium;">Tolerating tolerance</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b>
Tolerance by definition means “the ability or willingness to tolerate the existence of opinions or behaviour that one dislike or disagrees with,” according to the Oxford dictionary. It goes on to say that it originates as late middle English word to denote the, “action of bearing hardship, or the ability to bear pain and hardship.” Tolerate is defined as, “Allowing the existence, occurrence, or practice of something one disagrees with without interference,” by the Oxford dictionary. While the word has now become part of common parlance, such an origin and current usage of the word should be questioned, especially when it is used in lines such as, “India is a tolerant society,” “India culture is all about tolerance,” among many such one-liners.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">When used in such a way, the word by itself, tends to establish or promote a certain power relationship. Viewing the statements mentioned above, is India tolerant because it is more powerful and can allow it? Or is India tolerant because it is less powerful and does not have an option to argue against it? Does that ability or willingness to tolerate not draw from a power relationship again then? And should this act of accepting or rejecting other views be excused on the grounds that the other (again a form of a power relationship) is able to or willing to tolerate or not tolerate the opinions or actions? How does the ubiquitous usage of such a word then impact the freedom of expression or the freedom of choice then? Is it seen as something that is allowed (once again a word that establishes a power relationship) or as something that cannot be allowed or rejected, but just exists? Does it not just change the fundamental meaning of a fundamental right? How is it a right if there’s a power equations involved? The word intolerance uses the same premise, making a call for tolerance seem like a request at times, more than an appeal.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Here, India’s tolerance levels were subject of the questions and thereby the playing field would be international relations. Now, wouldn’t the usage of tolerance propagate a realist ontological view then and impact policy decisions? Change that subject to say the government’s actions or a religious body’s remarks, and they would again re-emphasis on a certain power relationship, where someone is understood to have taken the high horse. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Where’s the room for a constructive approach then? Well, that’s where the constructivism’s inherent optimism comes out. It means that even while using the word tolerance, we can actually move towards a society, a region, religious factions or even states that are more tolerant, and may be while we are attempting to get there, we can think of a newer word, or an older one to describe this attribute as a given and not just something that presupposes the existence of a power relationship.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Now let’s get to the ongoing national discussion. Rising levels of intolerance as decried by some or bogus calls as argued by others. We’ve all got sides and arguments. Choosing a side is not the objective of this essay as that may put the other content of it under a certain bias again. While such discussions strengthen or theoretically should strengthen democracy, acts of ‘intolerance’ harm it, and with it the global flow of capital (or capitalism) which has come to be very closely associated or guided with the values of democracy, political and economic stability and infrastructure among others. That’s where perceptions come in, especially global perceptions about states, their politics and economics. And these influence business.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(92, 66, 43); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #5c422b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 8px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia;">
<b><span style="font-size: medium;">Playing on perceptions</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b>
Perception. It’s a strong word that can make or break relationships, of any kind - from emotional to commercial. It’s also a word that impacts the sway of democracy, capitalism and corresponding debates. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word as “the way in which something is regarded, understood, or interpreted” and as “intuitive understanding and insight”. So, essentially, a perception is how a certain object, action or phenomenon is recognised, irrespective of the actuality of that object, action or phenomenon. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">A perception could therefore be correct, incorrect or in between the two at varying shades. What contributes to this possible change in the actual nature of the object, action or phenomenon and the perception of it could be a stubborn pre-established bias or ontological view, the complexities it exists in and an inability to sieve through them, an apparent attempt to paint it over for whatever reason, or a combination of both. And since a perception impacts the understanding and recognition of the object, action or phenomenon directly, it therefore also directly impacts any discussion on the object, action or phenomenon and the peripheries along which such a discussion is held. Thereafter, impacting any other discussion that it leads to or is invoked in.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">In global politics today, perception holds great value, especially amid the changing nature of the perceived nature and discourse around capitalism, socialism and the likes. The way how a country is perceived, when it comes to political stability affects the inflow of investments, the perception about economic safety affects businesses too, and the perception about societal security affects tourism, among others. We all know the salience of brand value. It is also a great source and indicator of soft power.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">In that respect, and in the current context on tolerance and intolerance, it is the perception about it that may finally seal the deal when it comes to how it affects the image or perception of India, globally, at varied levels - in academia and in regular conversations, in business and in schools as well. While the Indian Prime Minister with his numerous foreign trips is trying to build on positive perceptions of and about India, actions such as <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/poet-vajpeyi-prez-says-award-wapsi-spontaneous-triggered-debate/story-RTYBFJBGgcFoh0ck2sv6QI.html"><span style="color: black;">#AwardWapsi</span></a> or a celebrity being vocal about insecurity about living in the country may have mixed impressions on it for different audiences. This is not to say that the former should be supported and the latter disgraced. Both have different objections and are not part of the same debate too. More importantly, both may only affect short-term perceptions, thereby having economic and cultural impact, only in the short-run. In the long run, those perceptions will only be shaped by the supporting policy measures or their absence that the government takes or does not take and the positive or negative discussions on measures like #AwardWapsi and the impacts of those discussions.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Meanwhile, let’s try and find a power-neutral word for intolerance and tolerance. Illiberality and liberality came to mind first, but I suggest open and closed for now. Simple and direct. Won’t that work? </span></div>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<br /></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886752165897277194noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2922064999561071057.post-38521763401584447562015-10-23T04:59:00.000-07:002015-10-23T04:59:36.403-07:00Whose seat is it anyway and how do we get it?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZXge8cTXxGvo2jKqsLSvPEx07UVbNL1wK4dEU94IDA0zOnj_pKHEtFrceQ1HM4eWJMmjaSRRi82R3ZPeRAyM1aiSV5S54p80gH1pyXcoLJviwvWntaEbAgIzboztCPklDqPAYiAs8CIKA/s1600/UN-Security-Council.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZXge8cTXxGvo2jKqsLSvPEx07UVbNL1wK4dEU94IDA0zOnj_pKHEtFrceQ1HM4eWJMmjaSRRi82R3ZPeRAyM1aiSV5S54p80gH1pyXcoLJviwvWntaEbAgIzboztCPklDqPAYiAs8CIKA/s640/UN-Security-Council.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Can India, without expressing opinion on major global issues, hope to assimilate support to push for reforms at the UNSC? Photo credit: UNGA</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">India has long
had aspirations to get a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council.
Many other states have had to. But who is to get this seat? Who is to give it? Can
there be just one more such seat and not a bigger set of reforms? And how is
this complex yet institutionalised power relationship panning out? These are
just a few questions that come to mind whenever the subject is stirred. It again
came up a few days ago as the United Nations marked its 70<sup>th</sup>
anniversary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The following essay
is an extract from my dissertation that I wrote last year and it argues for the
establishment of a globally active state-backed Indian media house and states
that such an establishment will only aide India’s bid for that permanent UNSC
seat. After all, it’s all about communication, right? And that’s what the media
does. It informs, it communicates. But it is essential for such state-backed media
to have pluralistic and constructive values.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">While over the
course of the past few months, I continue to abide by this argument. However, what
has changed is that the establishment of a new government in India in 2014 and
its rightward tilt has made it primitive to talk about this state-backed media
as a voice of the state, and not the government that is in power.
Institutionalising such a media outlet and recognising the distinction between
the state and the government have never appeared as paramount as they do now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Where’s the global Indian voice?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">India, as an
economy and a regional power and potentially a global one, has been registering
significant growth and has shown visible desire for inclusion as a permanent
member of the council, but neither this growth or this desire has been
reflected in the global media space by Indian actors. Nor has any Indian state
media channel informed the world or even its neighbours about its opinion on
major world issues, let alone spreading Indian norms and values through
delivery of world news. And it is when speaking of norms that the distinction
between state and government becomes even more critical because both, as
entities, may favour a partially overlapping, yet separate set of ideas and
norms.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I must here underline
that to adjudge the sanctity and the pertinence of this ambition of acquiring a
permanent UNSC seat is not the aim of this argument. The argument is premised
around the factors that influence such an argument, especially the global
activeness of Indian state-backed media.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“If any
country has a right to be on the Security Council, India does,'' AP
Venkateswaran, a former foreign secretary of the country had noted once <w:sdt citation="t" id="180093218"><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-element:
field-begin'></span><span lang=EN-US style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US'><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>CITATION CSM07 \l 1033 </span><span
style='mso-element:field-separator'></span><![endif]--><span lang="EN-US">(Monitor, 2007)</span><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span><![endif]--></w:sdt>. The former foreign
secretary, along with others who make the case for India permanently being on
the UNSC, has lots of parameters to base their argument on – from India being
the largest democracy in the world to being among the top ten states with the highest
spending on defence. The only element that seems evasive in that equation is
India’s representation in the global media space and the absence of an Indian
perspective on global issues. How then, does India, without expressing opinion
on major international or regional issues, hope to assimilate support to push
for reforms at the UNSC? Maybe economic and military might may get India there
eventually, but wouldn’t the soft power of media hasten the process? Ever since
taking charge in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his numerous foreign
trips have created a certain global buzz about India, but should he be just the
only public spokesperson for India? And can that buzz really last?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What further
makes these questions demand urgent answers and subsequent actions is the
certitude that all of the five permanent members of the UNSC, contemporarily,
have strong presence in the global media space. This may not have been a
necessary condition for such an inclusion in the council or reformation in its
structure when China became a part of the permanent set up in 1971 or France in
1958, as these states were not represented as actively in the global media
space then, as they are now. But in the contemporary scenario of world
politics, a lot has changed and the soft power that state media may
internationally accumulate may well be the missing ingredient to seal the
argument for a permanent seat for India at the council. China’s <i>CCTV</i> and France’s <i>France 24</i> have been vehemently active globally over the past few
years; so has Russia’s <i>RT</i>; UK’s <i>BBC</i> has always been a sort of benchmark
for global media actors and US’ <i>Voice of
America</i> and <i>CNN</i> among other
actors have never allowed America to be under represented in global media. With
so many disparate voices in the global media, an Indian state-backed voice may
face competition, but it will also only furnish the ground-work in terms of
global and regional public opinion that needs to be urgently addressed in order
for India to strongly pitch for a UNSC seat, if it is really desired/ aimed to
be sought.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Of course, the
establishment of such a voice must not be understood to be an easy route to that
seat, but a factor that could multiply those chances. And who knows, over time this
voice may grow into a regional voice given that the global system is moving
towards a multi-polar structure that’s likely to be influenced more by
regionalisms than individual states. And perhaps, India’s immediate neighbours
could pitch in as well and could this collaborative media in a sense then, lead
to constructive pathways across the most militarised border in the world too? Well,
economic lobbying among all other channels of diplomacy is needed to try and
get that moving, but, one can always hope</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">. Meanwhile, it appears that
the path ahead is certain to be guided in many ways by the construction of
communication and the communication of construction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886752165897277194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2922064999561071057.post-5233371541155859502015-09-06T04:48:00.002-07:002015-09-06T11:36:59.688-07:00The road to Refugia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyiL5bAh1Ig3XerL_kTSjVDf6GuXrSE0PvPocmASS-CI2xxIvdG9nE7mYOtU6VvgO6-WTNurZSbYqSlDqq0KfO-40n_EVGnLxR9Fij2SpfRN4s5FFV9QZlmAfV_0JqN3xyStO8Nj1WGhoX/s1600/yazidi-refugees-flee-iraq.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyiL5bAh1Ig3XerL_kTSjVDf6GuXrSE0PvPocmASS-CI2xxIvdG9nE7mYOtU6VvgO6-WTNurZSbYqSlDqq0KfO-40n_EVGnLxR9Fij2SpfRN4s5FFV9QZlmAfV_0JqN3xyStO8Nj1WGhoX/s640/yazidi-refugees-flee-iraq.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yazidi families fleeing an attack by the Islamic State near the Iraq border. The number of forcibly displaced people today stands at over 59.5 million - roughly equal to the population of Italy. Photo credit: Reuters</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Can we carve out a piece of land
that refugees can call home? That’s a question that many are discussing, thanks
to the buzz created around the idea by real estate millionaire Jason Buzi with
his </span><a href="http://www.refugeenation.org/" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Refugee Nation</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> project. What
makes this discussion so urgent is the fact despite advances in the spheres of
economy, technology, human rights and academics, the number of refugees around
the world has just kept on growing. That </span><a href="http://www.unhcr.org.uk/about-us/key-facts-and-figures.html" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">number of
forcibly displaced people</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> today stands at over </span><a href="http://www.therefugeeproject.org/#/2012" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">59.5 million</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> – roughly equal
to the population of Italy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The immediate demand for
attention and action comes as thousands feel outraged and perhaps helpless as
they see a colossal people crisis unfold in various parts of the world. A substantial
number also feel threatened by the same. The crisis in Europe may have gotten
maximum attention, but similar issues in <a href="http://www.cfr.org/burmamyanmar/rohingya-migrant-crisis/p36651">Southeast
Asia</a> or other <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/8/10/amid-unrest-burundian-refugees-return-to-tanzania.html">parts
of Africa</a> are no less significant or pain-striking. And hence comes forward
the idea of a refugee nation, as Buzi puts it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That idea has perhaps long
existed in fiction. Talk about the <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1118_051118_disaster_refugee.html">eco-refugees</a>
in the movies Mad Max or Water World or the idea of a new-age Noah’s Ark built
by rich nations with tickets sold to the elite in the movie 2012. Well, for all
its purposes, wasn’t the actual idea of Noah’s Ark also to provide refuge in a
time of environmental disaster? These examples, irrespective of their existence
in fiction, point to two types of insights when it comes to a refugee crisis –
temporary and permanent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">While eco-refugees, like the
ones climate change is perhaps creating, need permanent solutions today; the
idea that a safe, temporary solution should be sought in the time of need is
what perhaps guided the creation of Noah’s Ark, either in reality or as a myth.
That’s the approach refugee camps take, don’t’ they? They are meant to serve as
temporary shelters until the refugees can be granted permanent citizenship
elsewhere or until conditions turn favourable for their return to their home
country. But these are desired scenarios that seldom arrive, and often at snail’s
pace, giving those temporary shelters permanent attributes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Where these shelters exist, how
they are sustained and how they evolve to integrate with society as refugees become
citizens are the key questions then. Currently, they exist in recognised states
like Jordan, Italy, Greece, Tanzania among many others. They are supported by
the national governments, international organisations like the United Nations
and non-governmental bodies and charities. The maximum stress, however, is
often on the national government and these resources often don’t match the
demand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A
refugee society-state<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What this idea of a refugee
nation does is that it answers these questions in different ways while also
throwing up possible scenarios. The assumption is, those shelters – now permanent
in nature – must exist on a separate territory that can be used to form a new state.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Further, this territory and the
people should be sustained with the help of donations from the rich – states,
people or companies, while the refugees take up tasks most attuned to their
skills, for refugees are also people with skills and education, and some are
doctors and engineers too. We tend to club them homogenously and often also mistakenly
just call them migrants. So they can work there, earn a living and form a part
of a refugee society that evolves into this accommodating, cosmopolitan society
that takes in refugees with ease, as and when they arrive in the future (ideally
that number will organically go down). Buzi is aiming for a permanent,
sustainable and universal solution with this idea. So, this would be home then.
Essentially, adding to the meaning of the word refugee – for now Refugia (a
term coined by Professor Robin Cohen of the International Migration Institute) is
a permanent home for the refugees. So either, the nature of the way we use the
word changes or its meaning becomes larger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipn4d8y1hv41zromRZKSbywLu010Tpb_ohQHQxoIsy49PGIlH0nKGE8IjIDURhZU1qcXbp4y_jhrmWmP9pfF2YKkX_8Mi8dVW6WE7bm8_lLGnbfzsZRUQwcy_7ftEjOL3BqfLxcIpZ-066/s1600/refugees1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipn4d8y1hv41zromRZKSbywLu010Tpb_ohQHQxoIsy49PGIlH0nKGE8IjIDURhZU1qcXbp4y_jhrmWmP9pfF2YKkX_8Mi8dVW6WE7bm8_lLGnbfzsZRUQwcy_7ftEjOL3BqfLxcIpZ-066/s640/refugees1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">People from the Rohingya community collect water to drink at a refugee camp in Myanmar. While the crisis in Europe has gotten maximum attention, the people's crisis is unfortunately much more universal than it appears. Photo credit: AP </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But
what else changes?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A change in the usage of the
word will more importantly correspondingly change the way we respond to it.
While, the idea of a refugee nation is stimulating, it must grow into much more
than a survivor’s camp. Can it have a permanent structure by itself? Should it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In fact, what is primitively
essential to acknowledge is that, in a lucid form, a nation as such already
exists; for a nation is a large body of people with a shared history or
culture, inhabiting a particular territory. Currently that territory is fluidic
and is dispersed across states around the world. To consolidate that territory
into one mass, and to bring those people to that mass is a legitimate response
to mitigate the crisis, but it seems unlikely to be a long-term solution to it.
There’s need for innovation in responses to this bludgeoning refugee crisis,
and as the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/01/berlin-group-behind-airbnb-for-refugees-overwhelmed-by-offers-of-help">‘Airbnb
for refugees’</a> initiative shows, that innovation is happening. It is
imperative to recognise that these innovations help deal with the crisis, not
solve it at the source. And the problems at that source arise from hardships entrenched
in socio, political and economic grounds, among others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But for immediate responses, I
vote for the creation of a refugee station, rather than a refugee nation. Without
pre-conditions, it should be welcoming and serve as a platform to provide urgent
security of all kinds, support to re-integrate with society and confidence to find
home in the long-term. A station that is born under the <a href="https://nandosigona.wordpress.com/2015/07/30/refugia-the-limits-and-possibilities-of-buzis-refugee-nation/">aegis
of the United Nations</a> rather than as charity of a private kind, as
Professor Cohen suggests. While the funds can come from donations, the efficacy
in its functioning can only be derived from a principled approach embedded in
perhaps a partnership of the public and the private. They’ll need to be a setup
of governance quite akin to the one of federalism for self-governance to
flourish or else this may end up being just another refugee camp. Freedom is what
people are after – political, social and economic – let’s not forget that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Where will this territory be
and how will it be procured? These are questions that need much discussion, to
ensure ease of accessibility and sustainability as well. Also, this Refugia
must not just serve as the mirage of an oasis that attracts refugees, but be a
station to help and assist the ones in need, irrespective of existing state or
creed. Validation would be another major process again, hurting the pace of
settlement. This is an area that needs urgent innovation and rethinking. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Perhaps the United Nations could
finally nail the search and finally become a wholesome, combined nation in
itself. And would that not be tangible proof of a post-national world? It’ll
have to be – post-national and transnational. And when it comes to opening the doors
of this station, it must be important to acknowledge the meaning and <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/editors-blog/2015/08/al-jazeera-mediterranean-migrants-150820082226309.html">difference
in the words migrants and refugees</a> and to recognise that both these words,
at the end of the day, comprise people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
perils of proposal<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/aug/04/refugee-nation-migration-jason-buzi">Alexander
Betts</a> points out, the premise of the idea of a refugee nation is exclusion,
not inclusion. What a blow could that be to the notion of refugee integration
and what signal would it send to the perpetrators? One that they can create
havoc, force people out and be rest-assured they’ll find their way to this
safe, welcoming place? The creation of such a nation/station will have to go
hand-in-hand with that of fighting the causes at their roots, aggressively. For
this station will also serve as the best incubation pad to come up methods to
tackle the crisis at home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There are more threats. Would
the shared experiences of the refugees create harmony and brotherhood, or could
the disparate cultural and religious understandings lead to conflicts that
threaten the existence of this land of peace? Also, would it not create another
class across the world? A class of people that donates and thinks of itself as saviours
of this oppressed refugee class. But this one may not be that big a problem in
the future, for such corrupt attitudes to charity already exist, promoting what
Slavoj Zizek calls <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRvRm19UKdA">cultural
capitalism</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Would
you help form it?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Despite the perils, if an agency
were to ensure the sustainability of such a station to mitigate this people’s crisis,
I would. Would you, as long as you are assured of the transparency and
accountability of the project? Accountability towards refugees, and you, and states
too. For those national governments where these people are coming from shall
continue to have stake in this crisis. But would this idea also not raise
doubts about the promotion of this charity industry? Those questions are as
valid as the search for responses to the crisis, and until we find them, such
innovations must not only be debated but also implemented methodically with
caution, perhaps with institutional help. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For whatever the nature of world
politics, innovation and constructivism are what shall see us through. How we
define and employ them may ultimately seal the deal. For, it’s not possible to
imagine my thought processes if I were a refugee (it may also be a cruel test),
but if I were to attempt to respond to the idea of this refugee station, the
answer would be a definite, “Yes, take me there”. But then, I would still seek
my home, and there are reasonable doubts if Refugia will be able to provide one
in the long-term.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886752165897277194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2922064999561071057.post-14849231477768491982015-08-04T04:47:00.005-07:002015-08-05T00:35:13.540-07:00Not just mirroring development banks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">While
Western values may seem to have been spreading their tentacles everywhere over
the last century, the </span><a href="http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/asian-values.html#INTRODUCTION"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Asian
values</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> syndrome that roped in the
idea of cultural determinism came up in the 1990s as a retort to the West from
the leaders of Malaysia and Singapore, and the idea found widespread acceptance
in China and other Asian countries. It almost illustrates Newton’s Third Law of
Motion – every action has an equal and opposite reaction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The
coinage of the phases was praised by many and denounced by some. Some called it
the perfect answer to Western values, others said it may also be an attempt to
unify the region that was home to varying value systems under different
religions. </span><a href="http://www.nyu.edu/classes/gmoran/SEN.pdf"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
idea this theory pushed for is that from human rights</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> and tolerance to land laws and development,
the definition and applicability of these terms changes with the lens you use to look
at them under. While in the West, human rights were/are made to appear paramount,
under the Asian values lens their understanding was said to be different to
counter allegations about human rights violations, working conditions and
tolerance. The debate around these variations in perspectives and universality of values has been </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/57jqzl.htm" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">highly
informing</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> over the years.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMLGvjvKEpfGsEr7Sgrq7M0F-XjxReijMlJO3fVNm4vm4MP7yS6TGu7-_MLLSPGevJi3ZkuE_qIjmXMSh5gKBZzcmBf45wj9dC87sYcl7P4EIpoZa-1sxcA61tGPX0IhwuFef0XnzO25fL/s1600/thumb_1000_335_20150702050457474.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMLGvjvKEpfGsEr7Sgrq7M0F-XjxReijMlJO3fVNm4vm4MP7yS6TGu7-_MLLSPGevJi3ZkuE_qIjmXMSh5gKBZzcmBf45wj9dC87sYcl7P4EIpoZa-1sxcA61tGPX0IhwuFef0XnzO25fL/s640/thumb_1000_335_20150702050457474.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Founding members of the AIIB. </span>Two institutions that directly take on the World Bank and IMF are taking final shape this year. This may change world politics profoundly. Competition in development funding and economics was long due too. Photo courtesy: AIIB </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But what’s new?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">All
this has been said about a million times before, if not more. What’s new? Well, most significantly it’s the setting-up of the </span><a href="http://ndbbrics.org/agreement.html"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">New Development Bank</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> (NDB) or the BRICS bank and the </span><a href="http://www.aiibank.org/uploadfile/2015/0629/20150629094900288.pdf"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
(AIIB). While these are perhaps the first institutional challenges to the
Bretton Woods system that ushered in the age of the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), what’ll be interesting is to see how they
will function. While both banks appear to have multilateral approaches, they
are being led by China. The NDB is headquartered in Shanghai and AIIB in
Beijing. Will the New Development Bank really embrace a Global South-enriched
approach that’s true to its founding team then or will the framework and working borrow
heavily from the IMF? Will it be true to it’s name – will it work in a new way?
Will AIIB spread an Asian value system then, like the IMF and the World Bank
pushed for liberal democracies (or Western values) through institutional or
structural changes?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Examining the agreements of the banks<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">BRICS Bank or the New Development Bank<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Article 21 of the </span></span><a href="http://ndbbrics.org/agreement.html"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-themecolor: text1;">agreement</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> that was signed on </span></span><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; padding: 0cm;">July
15, 2014, in Fortaleza, Brazil, underlines the operational principles of the
bank. There’s a marked shift in the way it talks about the power of the bank and
there's an absence of any language that would push the member states to make structural
changes. This is what the article says:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Article 21 (ii): </span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Bank shall not finance any undertaking in the
territory of a member if that member objects to such financing.<span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Article 21 (iii):
</span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> In preparing any country program
or strategy and financing<span class="apple-converted-space"> a project… t</span>he
Bank will not deem to have intended to make any judgment as to the legal or
other status of any territory or area.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Article 21 (v)
The Bank shall place no restriction upon the procurement of goods and services
from any country member from the proceeds of any loan, investment or other
financing undertaken in the ordinary or special operations of the Banks.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Article
13 of the </span><a href="http://www.aiibank.org/uploadfile/2015/0629/20150629094900288.pdf"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">AIIB agreement</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> that was singed in Singapore on June 29,
2015, is what deals with the operational principles of the organisation.
Representatives from over 50 states – from the UK and Italy to Australia and
New Zealand – along with other states from the developing world signed it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Article
13(3) of the AIIB agreement uses the exact same words of article
21(ii) of the NDB agreement. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It
says, </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“The Bank shall not finance any
undertaking in the territory of a member if that member objects to such
financing.”</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Article
13(8) also echoes Article 21(v) of the
NDB agreement. <i>“The Bank shall place no
restriction upon the procurement of goods and services from any country from
the proceeds of any financing undertaken in the ordinary or special operations
of the Bank.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Another significant change</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> in the aim and vocabulary of the agreement
is the recognition of the importance of regional cooperation to sustain growth,
that is mentioned under Article 1(1) of the agreement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What did the IMF say then?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The
</span><a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/aa/index.htm#a4s1"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">IMF
agreement</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> was a<span style="background: white;">dopted at the United Nations Monetary and Financial
Conference, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in the US, on July 22, 1944. It’s
been amended a few times since. </span>As per section 1 of Article IV of the
agreement of the IMF, member countries are obligated to: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">(i) endeavour to
direct its economic and financial policies toward the objective of fostering
orderly economic growth with reasonable price stability, with due regard to its
circumstances;</span></i><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.45pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 16.75pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.45pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 16.75pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">(ii) seek to promote stability by fostering orderly
underlying economic and financial conditions and a monetary system that does
not tend to produce erratic disruptions;<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.45pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 16.75pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.45pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 16.75pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">(iii) avoid manipulating exchange rates or the
international monetary system in order to prevent effective balance of payments
adjustment <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">While the wording of the agreement suggests it is an
advisory, what it effectively does is to force nations to alter their monetary and
fiscal policies and annual budgets so as not to promote high debt –
a relative figure decided by the IMF. This essentially leads to budget cuts and
structural changes in terms of a reallocation of resources and a social services overhaul among others, in order to
maintain coherence with the liberal democratic or neoliberal model promoted by
founders of the IMF and the World Bank.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Obligation: 75 vs 23+ 27<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Another
criterion, though abstract, is to judge these agreements on basis of the
occurrences of the word 'obligation' in them. While the word is often used when
talking about authorised and subscribed capital of the members states and the
immunities of the employees of the bank, it was also used in the IMF agreement
to set aside the general obligations of members in terms of policy changes
needed for loans. What also needs to be kept in mind is that, while the IMF
agreement was formed in 1940s, the other two mentioned agreements are products
of evolving world politics in the 21<sup>st</sup> century. But then again,
Google Ngram shows us that the popularity of the word has seen only a </span><a href="https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=7&case_insensitive=on&content=obligation&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cobligation%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bobligation%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BObligation%3B%2Cc0"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">marginal
decline</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> over the last few decades.
So, even with such reservations, it is still useful to count the number of
times the word was used in the three agreements.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNQALvHHUkCqMRJPtzOe2p7_SWBZZqJXdJRWAZqylP6Nxgzx9q8OVXvNN6OjanFVFymgRLjIjGSMCzHNjRl_OV8X2_x5CZlgdG8dmLMsqBdQYolFgVLrnXsOaoOXj4YyyiV94n5Hcqbjbo/s1600/Untitled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNQALvHHUkCqMRJPtzOe2p7_SWBZZqJXdJRWAZqylP6Nxgzx9q8OVXvNN6OjanFVFymgRLjIjGSMCzHNjRl_OV8X2_x5CZlgdG8dmLMsqBdQYolFgVLrnXsOaoOXj4YyyiV94n5Hcqbjbo/s400/Untitled.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So,
essentially, while the World Bank and the IMF funded a lot of development
projects, helping economies grow, they also helped spread neoliberal values.
The aim of this blog is not to criticise and evaluate the good and the bad
these institutions did or do, but to point towards the change the AIIB and NDB appear
to promise.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">However,
it is still imperative to note that, development banks, irrespective to their
operational principles that may or may not demand structural changes from the
countries accepting loans, still do tend to influence the political worldview
of the recipient state. While the world has been edging towards a time when
internal mechanisms of developing countries may be beyond intrusion for major
world powers and developments banks led by them – something that the NDB and
the AIIB agreements illustrate – the evaluation of how these changes affect the
transfer of political knowledge across borders can only be undertaken over the
next few years. The growing influence of transnational companies is another matter though. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A
core principle of Chinese foreign policy is non-intervention in another state’s
internal affairs, and with the Asian giant leading two development banks that
are the first to legitimately counter the established Bretton Woods
institutions, these institutions hold the power to change the
broader narrative around developmental funding and South-South and regional co-operation,
in a constructive way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2KAME3sfQyWngClfS5HUR0g-sjsq0aI0CopJS6tEvnnl-UPc7bUVx9Sxn7Up2P_Ao9zOswfGvJT1s-4MLaWjJhm2TzLcmq1DVq_1u-r96OZrOiqJm2yYAtrXimvWSX1upXY__9nWf00RG/s1600/12345.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2KAME3sfQyWngClfS5HUR0g-sjsq0aI0CopJS6tEvnnl-UPc7bUVx9Sxn7Up2P_Ao9zOswfGvJT1s-4MLaWjJhm2TzLcmq1DVq_1u-r96OZrOiqJm2yYAtrXimvWSX1upXY__9nWf00RG/s400/12345.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333330154419px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;">KV Kamath (L), president of the New Development Bank, with other officials at the official launch of the bank in Shanghai on July 21, 2015. Photo courtesy: NDB BRICS </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Dollar-dollar bills<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Another
aspect these agreements highlight is the acceptability for the US dollar across
regions, irrespective of the US not being a member of any of the two newly
formed institutions. It had in fact opposed the establishment of AIIB. Even though Article 19 of the AIIB agreement says that
there must be no restriction on currencies being used, for all matters, the
primary currency being used is the US dollar. While choosing another currency
would have clearly caused problems across the numerous countries that have become
founding members of the AIIB and NDB, the fact that there was no negotiation also
to push for an alternative highlights the long-term vision of the founding
members and the ability to prioritise development and co-operation over
immediate currency wars.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The
establishment of these development banks may literally be a watershed moment in
world politics, especially if they are able to promote South-South and regional
co-operation while aiding development across developing nations and emerging
markets. It is clearly more than just mirroring the established development
banks in an Asian or South-South setting. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It
could also the precedent global institutions have been looking for to break away
from West-dominated structures and working methods, for good or for worse.
Think about the </span><span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">commotion</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> around the International Criminal Court and it’s </span></span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/06/15/why-so-many-african-leaders-hate-the-international-criminal-court/"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">denunciation
by many African states</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">. Some may see this as the beginning of chaos and disorder with movement away
from established rules, while others, like this blogger, view this as adding to
the multi-polar understanding of the world that needs a new constructive rule
book to play a new game, that’s not zero-sum. How do you see it? Could this be that
special moment in International Relations evolution that the world may have
needed?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886752165897277194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2922064999561071057.post-82966925581676146892015-07-21T06:59:00.004-07:002015-08-05T00:36:11.277-07:00What's the most (ab)used word in foreign policy?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">During the third week of May, while India and China were working
on building their </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://english.cntv.cn/2015/05/13/ARTI1431503760347953.shtml" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“strategic trust”</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">, Mongolia and India issued a joint statement about their </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/25253/Joint+Statement+for+IndiaMongolia+Strategic+Partnership+May+17+2015" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“strategic partnership”</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">,</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> and as Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi concluded his tri-nation tour in South Korea, the countries
agreed on upgrading their relationship status to “</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/25261/India++Republic+of+Korea+Joint+Statement+for+Special+Strategic+Partnership+May+18+2015" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">special strategic partnership</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">”. <span id="goog_1810933213"></span><span id="goog_1810933214"></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Modi became the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Mongolia.
Before visiting the land of Genghis Khan, he was seen </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.mid-day.com/articles/modi-in-china-when-indian-pm-meets-terracotta-warriors-jokes-abound/16213177" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">inspecting the terracotta warriors</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> in China. A day later, he was in South Korea. About a
month before, he flew over the Atlantic to visit Canada, stopping by France and
Germany. He was then in Russia after a visit to some Central Asian states.
There were many visits before, and many more will follow.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Modi, even before the end of his first year in office, had
visited 18 countries, engaging and re-engaging with the world and its leaders –
he may even have ended up topping a </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2015/02/02/modi-breaks-the-internet-with-70000-selfies/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">global list</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> of politicians with </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://scroll.in/article/728073/one-year-of-modi-selfies-with-world-leaders-bollywood-stars-and-many-regular-folk" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">most selfies</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">. However, the chorus on all these foreign trips has a common
word that’s sung, repeatedly, and sometimes out of tune. Strategic. And
while he may have, as many claim, revitalised Indian ties with world, that
s-word has remained.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">From strategic focus
to strategic convergences and strategic dimensions
to strategic perspectives, the s-word had over 500 mentions in a
document outlining India’s foreign relations for the year<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.mea.gov.in/images/pdf/main_2006.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2006</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">. By </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://mea.gov.in/Images/pdf/India-foreign-relation-2012.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2012</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">, the
Indian government had found more words as suffixes,
including strategic co-operative dialogue
and strategic priority. And as Modi and his government ride the wave,
the word refused to give way as Modi’s speech on the India-Germany </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://ibnlive.in.com/news/both-india-and-germany-should-be-permanent-unsc-member-pm-modi-in-joint-statement/539820-3.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">strategic partnership</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> showed.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Talk about stating the obvious. Nobody doubts the emphasis
on strategy when it comes to diplomacy, but haven’t we got enough of
the word? Or have all government decisions, before we stumbled upon the s-word,
not been strategic?<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Well, whatever the answer to that question is,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>strategic is a part of almost all
global bilateral, </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://thediplomat.com/tag/u-s-japan-australia-trilateral-strategic-dialogue/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">trilateral</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> or even </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.oecd.org/site/ctpfta/map-strategic-plan.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">multilateral</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> arrangements.
From the US-Poland </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2010/150364.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">strategic dialogue</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> to the China-Chile strategic partnership. So, is
it not the most abused word in foreign policy or can we wait for the coronation?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Oxford English Dictionary describes strategic as a
word relating to the identification of long-term or overall aims and interests.
Some of its synonyms are calculated and deliberate. So then again, did
diplomacy that pre-dated the love affair with the s-word not take a long-term
view or do we just don’t want to keep it simple enough?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<h3 style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Reinforcing realism?</span></b></h3>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The context the word is always used in also reinforces a global
worldview. It tends to tilt towards realism – a theory that broadly says that,
in terms of international relations, the world is anarchic and states or
countries will take selfish approaches for survival. Certainly, diplomacy
involves hard politics, but the s-word leaves little space for constructive
approaches by ensuring that the state’s interests are defined by default –
‘strategically’. While agreements may be mutually beneficial, they appear to be
made in a realist world. And realism,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 15.5pt; line-height: 115%;">arguably, </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">tends to pollute the debate
around climate change while constructivism struggles to liberate it. Perhaps,
we should sometime discuss the vocabulary of a realist and a liberal among
others.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPFo3dlmH7868cX8NExM5VYOTxAHRKrjPjZaqFzthLrk4P2Rm0iQlhAryhv1iKjT6l1VHG0r03ijnYn3kHfXNBtPnDvyqinotS-zroK_RdvRUatGfqOB6kBr8tznrD1OYm4o1MFzrDZ2CQ/s1600/Chess.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPFo3dlmH7868cX8NExM5VYOTxAHRKrjPjZaqFzthLrk4P2Rm0iQlhAryhv1iKjT6l1VHG0r03ijnYn3kHfXNBtPnDvyqinotS-zroK_RdvRUatGfqOB6kBr8tznrD1OYm4o1MFzrDZ2CQ/s640/Chess.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If you search for images for the word 'strategic' on Google, chess boards and the game is what shows up the most. And chess is a zero-sum game. There can be draws, but it's never win-win. Doesn't that backfire on a constructive approach then, reinforcing realism?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If we consider the history of the
word, strategic appears to be a relatively new find. At the cost of
being termed an armchair historian, it’s still apt to follow the graph on the
popularity or usage of the word as </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=7&case_insensitive=on&content=strategic&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cstrategic%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bstrategic%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BStrategic%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSTRATEGIC%3B%2Cc0#t4%3B%2Cstrate" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">plotted by Google Ngram</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">. Most web information needs to be taken with a pinch of salt,
but even with that this curve is rather steep – and for all you know government
statements and media reports that followed contributed heavily to that climb. Plot
that graph against big global events and you find that the word appears to have
really taken off around the time of World War II. A </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 15.5pt; line-height: 115%;">post-war </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">realist attitude to
diplomacy, especially in a world that saw two poles of power – the US and the
Soviet Union – seems to have given it a boost. And then perhaps, it trickled in
elsewhere too; jargon, it appears, crosses borders quite fast, like ideas that
it can further cement. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">What the
excessive usage of the word does – apart from reducing its meaning to zilch –
is that it also keeps international relations from reaching the masses. Yes,
foreign policy, more or less, continues to be largely informed by an elitist
argument, but what ensures that it fails to be discussed about by many who
could contribute to the debate, is the usage of words like strategic<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>that add complexity to statements, but
little meaning. Strategic to foreign policy may be what, by many
standards, development is to some Indian politicians. Not asking for a ban on
the words, but why not keep it a little simpler, silly?</span> </div>
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