Retired Chief General Manager, NABARD, IRMAN Harish Java, alumnus PRM 2, Sadgati.
Goa, a Portuguese colony for 456 years till 1961. Konkan region. India’s smallest state by area and fourth-smallest by population. 1.6M. Hindu majority state. Panaji [Panjim] is the state’s capital; Vasco da Gama is the largest city. Konkani is the chief language of the people. More than 50% have settled in from outside the state. 2nd highest GDP per capita among all Indian states. The best quality of life in India. Second-highest ranking in the human development index.
Tobacco. Mostly Nicotiana tabacum, or Nicotiana rustica. Mostly used for smoking; also consumed as snuff, chewing tobacco, dipping tobacco, snus, etc. Tobacco contains alkaloid nicotine as well as harmala alkaloids. Tobacco use is considered as the world’s single greatest preventable cause of death. China produces most of the tobacco (30%+), with India as a distant second (12%), and Brazil third (11%). India’s Tobacco Board is headquartered in Guntur in Andhra Pradesh. At least 100,000 families are farming tobacco. It uses just about 0.25% of India’s cultivated land. More than a billion people, 20% of the world’s population, use tobacco in some form or the other. Tobacco is ranked the fifth most harmful drug, after alcohol, heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine. Considerable amount is spent on tobacco consumption. Poor households are spending more than 10% on it. Tobacco products have to say mandatorily: consuming tobacco is injurious to health.
Inflection point(s): some 125 years ago, the US emerged as the world’s largest economy, surpassing the UK. 25 years ago, China jump-climbed to second position, displacing Japan. India just crossed Japan to reach fourth position. Maybe in 1-2 years, it could cross Germany to reach the third position. India could cross China and then the US, if it grows at 8-9% year-on-year for the next 25 years. India also needs to ‘up’ its per capita GDP dramatically, multi-fold, in this period. This could happen if farming in India moves from subsistence to surplus, transcending grains to high-value produce, fragmented holdings to new virtual cooperatives/collectives. This could also happen if nutrient intensive, diverse chemical free ‘food’ becomes the need of the world, and consumers pay for this increasing producer’s share in the consumer rupee to more than 50%. India is going ‘the natural way’ in farming, with highly resilient multi-layered multiple cropping 365-day green cover, in natural living and in local value-chains. Rural India needs to move away from being a consumption recipient. It needs to ride the digital wave.
India needs to increase its production and services availability meeting its own internal needs. It needs to offer surpluses in products and services to the parts of the world that want these surpluses. It needs to attract the world to come to India for education, medicine, tourism, entertainment et al. It needs to be energy-sufficient and secure. India’s spending on public education, health should exceed 10% of GDP. With 10+2 compulsory education to all. With free primary-secondary health access to all. Skilling all our young ones in the schools, in a big way. India should ensure social, accident security to all; and access to collateral free minimum of million rupee credit availability to all livelihoods practitioners including workers, self-employed, entrepreneurs, nano-micro-enterprises, firms et al. Government is getting out of business.
We need a smooth tax regime. Maybe just one tax. Governments should become half by becoming lean, efficient, and effective. Redundancies of governance have to go. For example, one individual/family – one card. 3-tiers of governance with function-fund autonomy has to be a reality quickly. Indian revenue, budgets and expenditure should be distributed: maybe 50/60 local, 25/30 state, and 10/20 centre. We need smaller administration units – 20,000+ blocks, 1,000+ districts, and 50+ states. We may need some city states too. Equity, inclusion, and resilience intact. We need teachers, mentors, and influencers to take charge of this agenda.
Transitions into, in and out of Gurukulams demonstrated inner calling of sorts. First – going to tuition, before taking admission in the school in Gundrampally. Followed by reluctant school-going. Second – schoolless before joining high school at Choutuppal, followed by getting the call from Sarvail Gurukulam to join. Third – losing a younger brother and coping with that loss. Fourth – missing Entrance for Sagar Gurukulam, followed by a special call to take admission there. Fifth – suffering severe ragging, and running away, followed by an anti-ragging committee crusade in NIT Warangal residential system. Sixth – figuring out what to do next, and maybe in life, taking a teaching assignment in an engineering college, seeing the field realities, followed by joining IRMA/K-school at Anand residential system.
Abraham Verghese, 70. Alumnus of Madras Medical College. Bestselling author – Cutting for Stone; My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story; The Tennis Partner; A Story of Friendship and Loss; The Covenant of Water. Stanford Professor of Medicine, infectious disease doctor. His ‘The Stanford 25’ initiative showcases and teaches 25 fundamental physical examination skills and their diagnostic benefits.
His commencement address at Harvard: Please read. Read fiction. Make decisions worthy of the value of what we accomplished and what we want to accomplish. Please love. Love trumps bigotry. Love trumps ideology. The answer to the question – what is the meaning of life, compressed, shortened or otherwise – is not in fame, power, reputation, acquisitions, good looks. The answer is in relationships, successful relationships forged in the lifetime. The heaven, kaivalya is there in them. Slow down and be in them. Make good use of time. Usefully. Relevantly. Always, more or less.
The ones at home, the family, the parents, siblings, children, grandparents, grandchildren, and co-living cousins. The co-livers, partners. School, classmates. Seniors, juniors. Alumni. Friends. Associates. Colleagues. Teams, groups. Co-workers. Neighbours. Co-networkers. The co-travellers. The co-connects. Teachers, Students. Mentors, Mentees. Gurus, Sishyas. Guides. Followed, followers. In our feelings, memories, hearts, minds, conversations, lessons, learnings, actions, flashes, and smiles, eternally. Can we be in them?
Jayadev’s Asthapadi. Radhika Krsna Radhika Kesava. How can they be separate? If separated, they become very weak at heart. They cannot bear any weight, burden on themselves. They get temperature, fever. They feel poisoned. They are no longer calm and quiet. They gasp, with difficulty breathing. There is blazing fire inside. They are drowned, drenched in water. They cry a lot. They search themselves in every direction. It appears they are sleeping on a ‘bed of fire’. They become pale, motionless, staring at the ground, staring nowhere. They surrender or die soon. Maybe to find bliss, kaivalya together. Can they attain themselves soon? Can we attain true ourselves soon?
Can we remain together, connected, engaged in think, talk, walk, and work, deep inside?
Yes, we can. If we coexist, flowing. In sync with true ourselves. In N? ekagratayoga for 7L.