I ended up having this brief conversation. It was pointless. I didn’t want to. But, I did!
Someone: I think the world is loosing human connection. We should stop connecting in much more humane ways and stop connecting in plastic artificial ways. We are connecting in ways, which are disconnecting people and taking human connection away. People are loosing touch.
Me: Oh! I see. I speak to my friends on facebook. I met up with friends who I haven’t met since I left school. I speak to people who work for me, I see them, I speak to my family and I see them in real time – all for free. If I want to speak to someone in India, America, Canada, Africa, I do that – almost for free. I think its great. And I don’t think technology is the culprit. It is just a tool. It depends on how people use it.
Someone: People are loosing human connection. Everything is just so plastic. There is no sense of community. Everything is driven by these capitalist corporations who are trying to take over the control of everything in life – There is so much information now that - wisdom has lost itself in this excess of Knowledge - Corrupting the values in society. We have become so dependent on technology. Everything comes down to what you own and what you have. Money money money! The corruption of our value system by this corporatized promotion and pushing of culture down our throats is making our society very disconnected to the values in life. What we need is more humanity. Not more technology!
Me: Really? You seem to be so divorced from reality. Please try to know the disjuncture between reality and rhetoric. Provide some real life solutions and not some idealized romantic notions of this human connection. Stop this irrelevant bull s**t
Someone: Oh Ok.. I was just expressing my opinion. I am passionate about this you know. I don’t thin k we should loose the human connection and get carried away by corporate capitalism!
Thankfully, the discussion stopped. I was looking for some information and I ask….
“I have to get to Grosvenor Road from Holborn. Do you know how long its going to take me to get to Grosvenor Court?“
Someone: “You can check it online actually ! Go to www.tfl.gov.uk !”
The BBC World Service had broadcast a story about my experiences as a film maker in Zimbabwe. It was broadcast on the 22nd October 2007. You can listen to the interview here. Questions about how I got access to film in Zimbabwe, how I got access to interview such high profile people as the Vice-presidents of Zimbabwe, the leaders of the opposition party, the controversial former Arch Bishop of Bulawayo etc. They were interested in knowing what my perceptions of life and political situation in Zimbabwe was.
It was an interesting discussion with fred Cove, the presenter and I found that to be a stimulating conversation. One question was particularly interesting - What do you think will be the response from the people who participated in the making of the film? I wondered what and how they would respond after viewing the film. it would be interesting to know what they think of the film.
Finally, the UK premiere of my documentary - 'Denied-This Bit of Truth', which reflects about the political and economic situation in Zimbabwe took place at the London School of Economics on the 22nd of October at U8. This event was organized by POLIS, a new journalism and society think-tank based at the LSE.
I got some remarkable feedback and many of the guests posed some really interesting questions. I was flooded with lot of questions - many of the guests who were invited by POLIS asked me why I did the film, what it was like to be in Zimbabwe and film there, how I got access to the most inaccessible people in Zimbabwe. I wrote a guest blog on Charlie Beckett's blog. Please find the link here.
There will be a podcast of the panel discussion which will be made available on the POLIS website.
I want to Thank you all for taking an interest in my work.
This is the text of the lecture that I had delivered at a national symposium titled “Only HR – Driving Global Competitiveness”. Organized by Insignia.
“When I was a young boy at school, I read about the British historian E.P. Thompson’s prophecy, which claimed that India would be ‘the most important country for the future of the world’. I was a bit sceptical and perhaps a bit confused back then. And today, as we speak, Indians constitute a whopping 16.7% of the world’s population and I have no doubt in my mind that the choices that a billion individuals make will surely resonate around the world.
When Insignia asked me to talk about Demographic Dividends and asked me to examine whether it is a myth or a reality, I thought it would be a great opportunity to empirically verify the truth in Thompson’s prophecy. And so, this lecture is a rather personalized attempt at such verification. It is very subjective and I hope you find it informed and interesting.
In the recent past, the debate about the relation between population change and economic growth has taken an added importance, especially in the developing world. Experts have been debating about this issue and there are a multitude of interesting perspectives that one can gather. But broadly speaking, there are two schools of thought.
On the one hand there are those – the ‘population pessimists’ - who argued that high fertility and rapid population growth will inhibit economic progress. And this was primarily the thought process that had provided the rational for funding the family planning programmes in India in the 60’s and seventies. And on the other hand, there are those – the ‘population optimists’ – who argue that demography provides a window of opportunity to increase output per capita. Their argument is based on the fundamental premise that a large population size promotes economic growth by furnishing abundant human and intellectual capital and also by increasing the market size. The most quoted examples in favour of this argument are the economic miracles of the East Asian Tigers and the economic boom in Ireland.
However, a working paper presented By David Canning at the Harvard’s Centre for International development has argued that population size in isolation from other factors has little impact on economic performance. And today I would like to adopt this argument to the Indian context and examine the issue of demographic dividends vis-à-vis its socio economic indicators. But, as Shashi Tharoor says “any truism about India can be immediately contradicted by another truism about India”.
So, I wondered how I could present a synergistic perspective of this country, which has educated the world’s second largest pool of trained scientists and engineers but still has 36% of its population illiterate? I wondered how I could present a synergistic perspective of this country, which invents a greater quantity of software for the U.S. computer manufacturers than any other country in the world, but has four out of five citizens scratching a living from the soil? I wondered how I could present a synergistic perspective of a country which is the tenth Industrialized nation in the world and the sixth nation to have gone into outer space but yet does not have clean drinking water for many of those who live in its villages?
Today, when the macroeconomic indicators indicate an progressive India, economic growth seems to be a given. In a scenario where national income and the per capita income have shown a steady increase in the past few years, I am tempted to conclude that Demographic dividends are a reality. But, the more pertinent question, I feel we all need to ask is not whether an emergent India can reap these demographic dividends. Rather, WHO is reaping these demographic dividends?
Sixty years after Independence, macro economic growth, led by economic liberalization has shown a positive trend. But, its benefits are not reaching everyone. Growth has not been inclusive. There has been an enormous churn, brought about by faster economic growth, globalization and technology, but inequitable distribution of income and wealth has widened the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
At a time when the economy has become more open and more competitive, we have to care, we have to belong and we have to be involved, because “an India that denies itself to some Indians could end up being denied to all Indians” And therefore, it is in the interest of all stakeholders - The Government, Private enterprise, NGO’s, Civil society and the Media to work towards ensuring that the benefits of an economically emergent India are equally distributed so that growth becomes equitable and therefore sustainable.
To make growth sustainable, I believe that it is important to go back to the basics. Primary focus should be on strengthening the core sectors – Education, Agriculture Public health and Infrastructure in rural areas, because that is where the majority of the work force is. This will also ensure that it have its gains in terms of job creation and applicable skill development in rural areas.
It is also imperative that benefits in Education are equally distributed among men and women. Special emphasis should be given towards bridging the gap between the male and female literacy rate. And providing adequate organizational, managerial, and technical support is an imperative. And last but not the least, demographic dividends can be reaped by everyone in an equitable manner only if a good delivery system can be ensured by effective governance and proper planning.
It was not long ago that the French Nobel Laureate Romain Rolland (1866-1944) said “if there is one place on the face of the earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India”. I am glad we are moving in that direction. However, it must be inclusive. Lets work towards it together.”
