Thought for the day
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of
times."
-
Charles Dickens (English, 1812-1870)
Word for the day
Commensal (adj)
Eating together at the same table.
(Source: Dictionary.com)
Teaser for the day
Who should be most worried about the massive
anti-corruption, secular, class agnostic mandate in Delhi:
(a) BJP, SAD, SS
(b) Janta Parivar
(c) TMC, NCP, NC, DMK
(d) INC
Finding
the disconnect
I always believed that the potential impact of "global
crisis" should be assessed in terms of likely human suffering such crisis
would cause.
Regardless of the media coverage, financial market volatility
and political rhetoric - a geo-political, economic, natural, medical or
financial crisis which does not cause large scale human suffering usually does
not leave any lasting impact on global order and is forgotten soon.
I would put Y2K, 2008-09 global financial crisis, Nuclear
accident in Japan, Storms in US, Ebola breakout etc. in this category.
Remember, the crisis in Iceland, Ireland, Portugal, Greece etc.
caused havoc in global financial markets during 2008-2010. But considering the
miniscule population of these nations, the impact of that crisis lasted just
for a while and caused little change in the global order.
On the other hand, a crisis that causes large scale human
suffering have deeper repercussions and usually catalyze lasting changes in
global order.
I would put the two big wars, AIDS, struggle in middle east,
etc. in this category. These crisis have inflicted serious suffering upon
humanity and therefore led to lasting changes in the world order.
The ongoing global crisis qualifies, in my view, to be placed in
the second category. The rising unemployment in Europe and most commodity
dependent economies in Asia, Africa and Latin America, declining growth in
China, rising inequality in developed countries especially USA, substantial cut
in developmental aid to least developed nations due to fiscal pressure, rise in
incidence of terror related violence is causing widespread human suffering that
is likely to only exacerbate in next few years.
Actually I would readily agree, if someone wants to argue that
the current crisis is just an extension of the events in 2008-09. This changes
nothing in the basic premise; given that during 2008-2011 the emerging markets
(which also happen to be the most populated countries of the world) actually
did well, the human suffering quotient of the crisis has risen only recently.
I have no doubts in my mind that this will cause material
changes in global order in next couple of decades.
If I may take the liberty of applying this ratio to the India's
internal conditions, historically the rise in human suffering has caused
dramatic changes in the political milieu of the country. We had experienced
this in 1970s and 1990s. We are witnessing something similar now.
I would like to examine the loss of TDP in Andhra and NDA at
center in 2004, and victories of BJP in 2014 and AAP in 2015 under this light.
Remember Chandrababu Naidu (Andhra, 2004) and A. B. Vajpayee (National, 2004)
and BJP (Delhi, 2015) went into election as widely acknowledged champions of
development and good governance but lost poorly.
Prima facie, their development agenda did not connect properly
with the index of human suffering.
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