Comparing India and China - some interesting maps

The Economist has a very interesting map which puts the progress of India in some global perspective

Comparing Indian states and territories with countries

An Indian summary

Which countries match the GDP and population of India's states and territories?

How big is Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state? One way of answering the question is to take its total area: 95,000 square miles (246,000 sq km). Another way is to think of it as a country. If Uttar Pradesh were to declare independence, it would be the world’s fifth most populous country (as the map below shows, it has about the same number of residents as Brazil). Yet its economy would only be the size of Qatar, a tiny oil-rich state of fewer than 2m people. That makes it poor on a per person basis. Despite India’s two decades of rapid growth, Uttar Pradesh’s GDP per head is close to that of Kenya. The map below presents country equivalents for India’s states and territories in terms of GDP, GDP per person (in PPP terms) and population. 

It also has one on China which merits a scrutiny.

Comparing Chinese provinces with countries

Which countries match the GDP, population and exports of Chinese provinces?

China is now the world’s second-biggest economy, but some of its provinces by themselves would rank fairly high in the global league. Our map shows the nearest equivalent country. For example, Guangdong's GDP (at market exchange rates) is almost as big as Indonesia's; the output of both Jiangsu and Shandong exceeds Switzerland’s. Some provinces may exaggerate their output: the sum of their reported GDPs is 10% higher than the national total. But over time the latter has consistently been revised up, suggesting that any overstatement is modest.

What about other economic yardsticks? Guangdong exports as much as South Korea, Jiangsu as much as Taiwan. Shanghai’s GDP per person is as high as Saudi Arabia’s (at purchasing-power parity), though still well below that in China’s special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macau. At the other extreme, the poorest province, Guizhou, has an income per head close to that of India. Note that these figures use the same PPP conversion rate for the whole of China, but prices are likely to be lower in poorer provinces than in richer ones, slightly reducing regional inequality.

Poems for the ages

Some years ago, Robert Pinsky started a Poem Project soliciting views from the readers about their favorite poems. He received a huge response and he spent some time sorting through the videos, comments etc to arrive at this list of all time popular poems:

1. The road not taken by Robert Frost
2. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
3, Stopping by the woods a snowy evening by Robert Frost
4. Sick by Shel Silverstein
5. If by Rudyard Kipling

Here they are for your reading pleasure:

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

"Sick" By Shel Silverstein

'I cannot go to school today, '

Said little Peggy Ann McKay.

'I have the measles and the mumps,

A gash, a rash and purple bumps.

My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,

I'm going blind in my right eye.

My tonsils are as big as rocks,

I've counted sixteen chicken pox

And there's one more-that's seventeen,

And don't you think my face looks green?

My leg is cut-my eyes are blue-

It might be instamatic flu.

I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,

I'm sure that my left leg is broke-

My hip hurts when I move my chin,

My belly button's caving in,

My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,

My 'pendix pains each time it rains.

My nose is cold, my toes are numb.

I have a sliver in my thumb.

My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,

I hardly whisper when I speak.

My tongue is filling up my mouth,

I think my hair is falling out.

My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,

My temperature is one-o-eight.

My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,

There is a hole inside my ear.

I have a hangnail, and my heart is-what?

What's that? What's that you say?

You say today is...Saturday?

G'bye, I'm going out to play! '

IF by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;

If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!

The last of the Aryans- a new tourist attraction

Once in a while you come across truly bizarre reports. Here is one about women searching for pure Aryan seed so that they can have children that belong to the 'Master race." And where has their search led them- to some Indian villages- Dha, Hanu, Darchik, Garkon and other closeby villages in Kargil district in the Himalayas ! 

In 2007, filmmaker Sanjeev Sivan released his documentary Achtung Baby: In Search of Purity on the phenomenon of German women travelling to Indian villages by the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir to get impregnated by men they believe to be racially pure Aryans. These villages are inhabited by a tribe called Brokpas, who are rumoured to be the ‘last pure specimens’ of the Aryan race. While Brokpa folklore says that the community arrived here from Gilgit in Pakistan just across the LoC, there is a view that they are actually descendants of Alexander the Great’s army, whose Genghis Khan-like sexual profligacy is a matter of legend.

Now lore has it that Aryans as the ‘Master Race were all tall, blue-eyed blondes endowed with superior intelligence and values. But one of the sperm donors mentions that though the women were looking for "tall people with long noses", he was short, without a big nose and pudgy! Nevertheless he was in Leh on assignment with a German woman to give her an Aryan child with racially superior intelligence.

In their search for a Master Race, pregnancy tourists and other curious visitors from all over the world have given the Brokpa not only a great boost to their self-esteem but also a new economic boom in the sale of sperm!

Here is a summary that is quite hilarious unintenationally-

Dont Give Up

Here is an inspirational essay on not giving up by Niloufer Merchant. Even more interesting are the comments (88)  on this article by others.


The moral of her story: "While your story of wanting to quit will certainly differ from mine, I want to share this: just because you stop doing something doesn't mean you are quitting. Sometimes it's bravery to know it's time to stop and walk away. Experiencing failure isn't the same thing as failing. Letting go doesn't mean you're giving up. And stopping isn't quitting; it is just a pause that lets you sort out where you'll turn next. In our black-and-white, win-or-lose society, we admonish quitters and we celebrate survivors. But life is more nuanced than that.

When might it be your time to "quit"? I can't answer that for you, but I can give you this as a guideline: You can quit things like businesses or projects if you know they are merely one means to your passion. You know if you've done your very best to make it work. But what you can't quit is fighting for your purpose, and living, and finding new, more effective ways to bring forth your passions in the world. We can quit things, but what we can't quit is fighting for our dreams."

In defense of a few good men

The last few months have seen a continuous attack on two good men from either side of the globe- Obama in the U.S and Manmohan Singh in India. Obama has been battered by his critics and even by some of his own supporters, for his weakness and lack of leadership in dealing with the Republicans on the debt ceiling debate while on the other side of the globe Manmohan singh is similarly lambasted for his spinelessness in combating corruption among his colleagues. Yet the public in both countries continues to hold both of these leaders in high regard for their honesty and uprightness. Lost in all this cacophony is the fact that both these good men have achieved a great deal in their respective countries against tremendous odds and their failings, such as they are, should really pale in insignificance if weighed against their achievements.

In the atmosphere of Obama bashing that is all the fashion today, it is well to remember what he has achieved in the past two years: he won passage of a stimulus bill that prevented a 1930’ type depression in the U.S and a severe downturn in the world economy, passed a landmark healthcare bill that Democrats had been trying to pass for the better part of a century, signed a financial reform bill, and much needed reform of student loans. And more, he was responsible for a firm end to the Bush torture regime, the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a hate crimes bill, a successful rescue of the American car industry, and resuscitation of the NLRB. We might also throw in new regulation of the credit card industry, new regulation of the tobacco industry, a national service bill, expanded stem-cell research, the most sweeping land-protection act in 15 years, and the confirmation of two Supreme Court justices, both women.

Even in the case of the much maligned accord on the debt ceiling, the obvious thing Obama could have done differently was to insist that it be included as part of the lame duck deal last year. But for all the grief he’s gotten over this, it’s worth keeping in mind that Obama got a lot out of that deal. In the end, he got a food safety bill, passage of the START treaty, a stimulus package, repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and a 9/11 first Responders bill. Maybe it would have been worth risking all that over inclusion of a debt ceiling increase, but that’s hardly an open-and-shut case.

Oh, and he killed Osama bin Laden too.

The fact is that in two years Obama has done more to enact a liberal agenda than George Bush did for the conservative agenda in eight. A conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan notes “given his inheritance, this has been the most substantive first term since Ronald Reagan's. And given Obama's long-game mentality, that is setting us up for a hell of a second one.”

Manmohan Singh on the other side of the globe has presided over the longest peacetime economic development of India.  He has been the key architect of India's reforms program. In 1991, when he became the finance minister, India was on the brink of bankruptcy. Its fiscal deficit was close to 8.5 per cent of the gross domestic product; the balance of payments deficit was huge and the current account deficit was close to 3.5 per cent of GDP. India's foreign exchange reserves were barely a billion dollars and foreign direct investment was almost non-existent. He began the restructuring process of the Indian economy and opened up the economy to competition and foreign investment. Singh, unshackled the country from the bureaucratic controls and licence-permit raj, and took the economy to a high growth path of 6-7 per cent during his first five-year stint at North Block. Nearly 10 million new jobs were created, an environment of liberalization was set in motion and the foundation of an information technology and telecom revolution was laid. And not only that, he was instrumental in educating his countrymen about the desirability of pursuing economic progress in an open-economy framework. This is no mean achievement, if one realizes that economic nationalism has been the most influential political religion in India. Despite the rapid economic growth of the last few years under his prime ministership since 2004, these are the best of times and worst of times for India. The economy is growing at a steady clip, and aspirations of people continue to soar. A growth rate of 8.5% is virtually guaranteed for the India, making it one of fastest-growing large economies.


But in recent days corruption scandals, high inflation, the breakdown of bipartisanship, a stalled parliament and a worrying drift in governance threaten to sully the narrative. His assiduously cultivated image of impeccable honesty and integrity has been sullied in recent weeks by three scandals: first, the cash-for-votes scandal that saved his government and the nuclear deal in July 2008 has come back to haunt him# Then, his own cabinet colleagues and burecraucrats, have spoken of how much the PM (and others in the cabinet) knew about the Rs 173,000 crore scam in the allocation of 2G spectrum ; and now the Commonwealth Games scam has thudded even more dangerously into Manmohan Singh’s court, showing how the PMO looked the other way while corruption ran rampant around him.

So both of them are now embattled in their own countries with their countrymen wanting new leadership and new initiatives.

Paradoxically the way forward for both of them is the same – they need to go back to their roots and find in them the kind of bold initiatives that brought them to power in the first place.

In the case of Obama, he could tackle the joblessness problem by organizing a National Reconstruction Project by mobilizing the ground roots. To finance them he could use bold ideas like issuing state bonds, guaranteed by the federal government, compel Banks to buy these bonds as was done during the WWII, and offer them also to the public and the private sector. He could use the returning veterans to manage the reconstruction effort and put to work over 1-2 million people in a short period of time.

In the case of Manmohan Singh, he could set up an Ombudsman to cover all politicians including his cabinet and proceed to prosecute the corrupt in all walks of life. And ensure that the guilty were punished in short order. It could be his last gift to the country.

In short what they need are a few bold new initiatives…

Kashmir and the looming water shortage

Sixty years ago the Indus Canal waters treaty (IWT) was signed between India and Pakistan. And despite three wars, the infrastructure created by this treaty has survive unscathed. A searching article traces the history of this treaty and how it may hold the key for a resolution of the Kashmir conflict.


The fact is that water is the hidden driver of South Asia's most dangerous territorial dispute of Kashmir. According to David Lilllienthal, " The struggle for Kashmir was motivated in large part by Pakistan's desperation to control the rivers that flowed through the region."


India and Pakistan signed the IWT in 1960, after protracted negotiations facilitated by the World Bank  Before the partition of British India in 1947, each province had jurisdiction to build dams and other infrastructure for electricity and irrigation on the portions of the rivers that flowed through their land; after partition, a series of patchwork agreements left several key issues, such as whether and how much Pakistan should pay India for water and canal maintenance costs, unresolved. The IWT gave "unrestricted use" of the basin's thee western rivers (the Indus, the Jhelum, and the Chenab) to Pakistan and the three eastern rivers (the Ravi, the Beas, and the Sutlej) to India. Today, the treaty governs the use of roughly 55 trillion gallons of water per year, which sustains more than 210 million people in the basin.


Today about 80 percent of Pakistan's cultivated lands are irrigated by water from the Indus system, the lion's share being governed by the IWT. Of the IWT water, more than 70 percent of flows from the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Not only is Pakistan's population projected to increase by 82 percent, from 184 million in 2010 to 335 million in 2050; per capita water availability was already nearly 80 percent lower in 2005 than 1947, plunging from 5,600 cubic meters to 1,200 cubic meters. A growing alarm in Pakistan over this hydrological straitjacket has in recent years spurred jihadi leaders based there to frame their attacks against India as a struggle to secure the rivers that form Pakistan's "lifeline."


It is time to take another look at the successful experiment of the Indus Canal waters treaty and to build on its success.

Andre Agassi- a truly soul stirring speech

Once in a while we come across genuine humility and courage all enshrined in a simple soul stirring speech. Here is one from one of the tennis greats - Andre Agassi. And you need to read all of it to realize its power:

A TRULY REMARKABLE SPEECH

   

Eight-time Grand Slam singles champion Andre Agassi was inducted into the International Tennis Hall Of Fame on Saturday in Newport, Rhode Island. Here is the full transcript of his speech:

I've stood at this podium twice before. Once was to introduce my beautiful wife, Stephanie Graf. I was so much more comfortable that day because I felt the recipient to be far more worthy. The second time was in my father's imagination (laughter), in his mind's eye. From the day I was born, my father Mike saw this day in my future and described it to me many times.

So my feeling of déjà vu right now almost rivals my feeling of gratitude. Almost.

You know, not long ago I was giving a talk in my home town of Las Vegas, and after I spoke there was this answer and question period. The first hand up, first questions out of the box, was a man in the front row. You could see in this man's face that he was really struggling with something. He took the microphone, stood up and asked, "How do you know when to stop telling your kids what to do?" The questioner was my father.

I was caught off guard that night. I didn't know what to say. I don't remember what I did say. But the answer has come to me now so clearly. Dad, when I was five, you told me to win Wimbledon; when I was seven, you told me to win all of the four Grand Slams; and more times that I can remember you told me to get into the Hall of Fame. And when I was 29, I don't know if you remember this, you told me to marry Steffi Graf. Best order you ever gave me. So Dad, please don't ever stop telling me what to do.

If we're lucky in life, we get a handful of moments when we don't have to wonder if we made a parent proud. We don't have to ask them; we just know. I want to thank tennis for giving me one of those moments today. It's one of the many things for which I need to thank this sport.

I look at Simone and the thousands of young people she represents at Agassi Prep, and I say under my breath, "thank you, tennis". I look at my wife and my children who I live for, and I say, "thank you, tennis". I look to the future, my efforts to build high performing charter schools in inner cities across the U.S., schools that will impact tens of thousands of Simones, and I say, "thank you, tennis", for making that possible.

I fell in love with tennis far too late in my life, but the reason that I have everything that I hold dear is because of how much tennis has loved me back. I'm thrilled, humbled, quite terrified to be honest to stand in front of you right now. I've felt vulnerable on the tennis court many times but not quite like today. I've grown up in front of you. You've seen my highs, my lows. We've laughed together, we've cried together. But what is so clear to me standing here today is that you have given me compassion, understanding, love, more than I expected, many times more than I deserved.

Tennis has not only given me much, it has taught me much. It's no accident that tennis uses the language of life, service, advantage, break, fault, love; the lessons of tennis are the lessons of maturity. In tennis you prepare and you prepare, and then one day your preparation seems futile; nothing is working, and the other guy has got your number cold. So you improvise. In tennis you learn what I do instantly affects what you do and vice versa. Tennis makes you perceptive, proactive, reactive all at the same time. Tennis teaches you the subtlety of human interaction, the curse and blessing of cause and effect.

After you play tennis for a living, you never forget that we are all connected, and there's nothing quite like a tie break that teaches you the concept of high risk, high reward. Tennis teaches you there's no such thing as perfect. You want to be perfect, you hope to be perfect, then you're out there and you're far less than perfect. And you realize, I don't really have to be perfect today, I just have to be better than one person. It's true. All you club players remember that, okay?

Tennis is a lonely sport, probably the most lonely. You're out there with no team, no coach and no place to hide. That's why tennis players not only talk to themselves but answer. And yet all that loneliness eventually teaches you to stand alone. The high standards that tennis imposes on us, the self reliance it demands of us, that's the reason why tennis has produced so many of life's great game changers.

One of the landmarks of our sport, our National Tennis Center in New York, is home to the Arthur Ashe Stadium. What courage Arthur showed; how fair he was while being treated so unfairly. Once Arthur grabbed hold of a truth, he was unwilling, not capable, of letting go. Tennis gave us that man. He was and is a treasure, not just for America but for the whole world, for those who have yet to be born.

The tennis center itself ithe Billie Jean King National Tennis Center named after one of my personal heroes. Think of the seismic transformation Billie caused in society. Our wives, daughters, mothers, have more than a hope for equality; they have a mandated claim on it because of Billie. She did so much more than just inspire women; she changed the way men and women think about men and women, the way we all think about equality. She woke us up. Tennis gave us Billie, and tennis today is giving me the chance to say, "thank you, Billie".

Tennis gave me all my personal teachers that I owe a debt I can never repay. They lifted me up and carried me across many finish lines, sometimes literally. My dad Mike and my mom Betty; my big brother Phil; my friend, protector and trainer Gil Reyes; my coaches, Nick Bollettieri, Darren Cahill, Brad Gilbert; and the person who means more to me than words can express, the woman who still takes my breath away every day, Stephanie Graf.

Each one of them deserves a separate Hall of Fame speech, but of course there isn't time. So I've written a letter to each one of them, intimate letters, love letters, but they're not private. I want the world to know how I feel, so I'm putting them on my foundation's website where I hope they'll serve as a permanent public tribute to those who made this day a reality. They're the ones who made possible the highlights. They're the reasons I am blessed with magical memories that help me sleep, sometimes keep me awake.

Because of my father I have the memory of the '92 Wimbledon and the '96 Olympics and some thrilling Davis Cups. Because of Gil I have the memory of the '99 French Open, his ear to ear smile in the fifth set when we both thought my tank was empty but there was a few drops of fuel left. Because of Stephanie and my children, Jaden and Jaz, there was that day of my retirement in 2006 when I got to walk away from the sport on my own terms. They were there for me that day ready to embrace the future, whatever that might be. These are my people, and these memories are seared in my mind forever.

One of the most influential people in my life I met only one time. It was the most vulnerable time, a time that I needed direction and inspiration, and just then, there I was, shaking hands with Nelson Mandela. He took my hand, complimented my game, and in the same breath told me the reason why we have been put here on earth. I can still close my eyes and hear his words of wisdom from that evening. He said, "We must be careful in our decisions, careful in our words, and we must be careful in our relationships. Andre, we must live our life carefully." Once you hear those words from Nelson Mandela, you can never un hear them.

I didn't always live carefully. I didn't always pay tennis the respect it deserved. I thought it was my career that was creating my angst, that tennis was the cause of my internal tension and disconnect. I didn't know myself, and I didn't recognize that my troubles were of my own making and that I and only I could solve them.

Only after being broken, another tennis term, did I realize I wasn't being careful. But you know, rock bottom is an interesting place. I moved in and spent some time there. It's actually not a bad place. It's a place where you get to ask, who do I want to be; am I ready to take ownership of my life. For me, ownership meant growing up, focusing every day on being just one day better. Ownership meant not only embracing tennis but celebrating it. Ownership meant going back to the Challenger circuit, feeling honored to be my own ball-boy, feeling privileged to flip my own scorecard. Ownership meant feeling grateful for being and having the chance to start over. Climbing out of that hole that I had dug for myself, that's when I started choosing to believe that each of us have a plan for our life, a purpose to fulfill, a body of work to create, a reason to be.

I committed to taking care of myself and taking care of my tennis. Going from a ranking of 141 in the world back to No. 1 was not an accomplishment; it was the reflection of an accomplishment. It was the symptom of good choices; it was the result of being careful.

The highlights I experienced taught me what is possible. The hard times reinforce the consequences of me not being true to my character, of not living up to my expectations. These things have coalesced inside of me into a kind of code, a personal mission statement I believe we have a responsibility to each other, a responsibility to create more than we consume, a responsibility to build things that will outlast us, a responsibility to find our own limits and push through them.

Even when life's challenges weigh us down, make us unrecognizable to ourselves, we can always begin again. There's always time to thrive. It's not too late to be inspired. It's not too late to change. It's not too late.

This honor today leaves me deeply humbled but also makes me think of others who don't get their due: Teachers, nurses, caregivers, struggling parents, all the people who do the right thing who win their own private Grand Slams. They know already. They know already what took me decades to figure out: That we are here to do good quietly, to shine in secret, to give when there's no crowd applauding, to give of ourselves to someone who can offer us nothing.

Tennis gave me the chance to meet so many of these people, to travel the world and visit places where the human spirit shines brightest because life is darkest. Tennis taught me that the needs of this world are great but they are no match, nor will they ever be a match, for the human spirit.

So thank you, tennis, for my life. Thank you, tennis, for my wife. And thank you, tennis, for enabling me to find my life's work.

In closing, to my son Jaden, my daughter Jaz, and every young person listening to my voice, the world that we're leaving you is not the world we wish for you. You need to make that world, to go places we've never been, to succeed in ways we've never dreamed. Mandela said to me, "There is difficulty in all human journeys, but there is no ability in just being a journeyer." From him I learned every journey is epic, every journey is important, every journey begins today.

At the beginning of my journey, my friend Gil said to me, "Andre, you have dreams and I have strong shoulders, so stand on my shoulders and reach." To my children, to all of our children, stand on our shoulders, reach higher than we could, reach for your dreams, because today standing here receiving this honor, I am living proof that no dream, no journey is impossible.

Stop whining, start fighting

It has been a pathetic display of ineptitude and stupidiy - no not by the Republican tea partiers but by the democrats rank and file. In the face of a hostage situation conjured up by a vocal minority, the silent majority has been rendered impotent and reeling in silent anger. Or at best anger displayed primarily in blog  post, commentators and pundits. Not one of them has any constructive idea on how to confront the hostage takers. Not one that I have seen. One of my readers sent this disgusted note on the present state of affairs:

"The fact is that democrats need to stop whining and start fighting. They need to stop blaming their own side and start organizing to effectively oppose the real enemies of democracy. At these low moments, there is in all of us a tendency to retreat to a feeling of hopelessness, a view of pox on both the houses, and a retreat away from the hurly burly of the political landscape. But that is precisely what the hostage takers count on- that the onlookers are sufficiently cowardly to not interfere. Perhaps the passengers on the Pennsylvania flight have something to teach us all. Fight and not run away from the battlefield.

The question is how? Instead of seeking to upend a party, why not focus on the specifics to begin with. Here are two areas :

a the FAA funding refusal which has led to over 4000 people being laid off. Find out who is standing on the way. Flood them with protests- shame them on the TV- send them garlands of shoes. Harass them at every townhall meeting.

b. Pat Buchanan today called the President " boy" on Al Sharptons show on MSNBC. He should be drummed out of all TV appearances. Send emails to all pundits and shows and advertisers to take Pat Buchanans racism off the air...."

I agree - democrats do need to stop whining and start fighting.

Managing the silver tsunami- technology and ageing

This so called silver tsunami stems from a seemingly unstoppable increase in longevity, driven in part by improvements in medical technology. American demographer James Vaupel has shown that human life expectancy in most advanced nations has increased in a linear pattern, rising by about three months a year for the past 170 years. The life expectancy in India, which was about 45 years at independence, has now grown to about 70 and the problems of ageing are slowly but inexorably rising here as well.


The real problem is that ageing is about all of us, and how we keep people productive for as long as possible. In essence ageing well is about living in an environment that has the intensity and the density of activities that keep one engaged and healthy right through our golden years.


In the west, the normal cycle of living as one gets older is to move from the home to a retirement home and then to the hospital as the fraility of old age slowly requires help in every day activities that one can no longer do for one self. But this system is costly- for example nursing homes in the US range from $78000 for an average nursing home to $ 194,000 for full time home based care.  And worse this is a system no one actually wants to use -a 2005 study from the Association of Retired Persons (AARP) found that around nine in 10 of those shortly to retire expressed a strong preference to stay in their existing homes during their retirement.


In the Indian context, the joint family structure used to provide the necessary infrastructure for its aged family members. But this has slowly frayed with urbanization and some of the same problems now dog the ageing here as well. But efforts to focus on these issues and find solutions are still in their infancy. As Coughlin, the director of an ageing lab at MIT, puts it the real issue in ageing is the longevity paradox: “We spend billions of dollars trying to live longer, but no one puts any thought or any investment into how to live longer, better.”


The Age Lab at MIT has come up with some interesting solutions to help the elderly cope with life in their declining years. Among them:

• Agnes (or Age Gain Now Empathy System)-a specially designed suit to mimic the physical restrictions of old age and helpA plastic inner harness and elastic bands attached to the feet and hands imitate the businesses adapt their products for elderly consumers;
• a set of two-way monitors allowing distant children to check in remotely on elderly parents;
• a sensor-enabled “smart trash can” to measure how much food is being eaten;  
• Paro: a furry white robot seal, designed to provide stimulation for a dementia sufferer which responds to touch and sound, waking up and getting sleepy depending on the frequency with which a user interacts with him

But the director of the lab is the first to admit that technology is only part of the solution and that what is required is a comprehensive approach to helping the elderly navigate the difficult years of their lives. The advent of civilization has brought its own particular kinds of problems and we need to integrate technology with political and social institutions in our search for solutions.


With urbanisation, for example, has come an issue that is really modern in its origins- transport. With economic growth, people in the west tend to live in bigger houses that houses are further apart, shopping malls have replaced the neighbouring mom and pop stores, the vegetable vendors that came to your house are gradually being replaced by large malls. In the absence of any public transport, most elderly people have no alternative to cars. Taxis are expensive, or unsuitable. There are few rules to stop you driving. Faced with a choice between giving up either their cars or their freedom, most elderly people drive for longer than they should. And, as a consequence, older drivers have the highest accident rates of any group apart from teenagers. One solution under trial is ITNAmerica, an innovative not-for-profit organisation that brings together volunteers, vehicles and clever computer software to provide around 50,000 subsidised car rides a year to elderly people across the US. The organisation is, in effect, a cheap, community-run taxi service staffed by a mix of paid and volunteer drivers.


Living alone elderly couples now face problems in doing even routine jobs by themselves. While external help may be available, it is expensive. Hiring a plumber or electrician for a minor repair can cost anywhere from $ 75 t0 $200 per hour.  Another experiment in Beacon Hill Village thus seeks to add community services, discounts at local stores and medical facilities and a programme of social and political activities to transportation. Here too a range of volunteers and paid professionals provide help from odd jobs to more formal care services thus providing an infrastructure of help for the aged living in their own houses.


Yet another experiment Elder Power focuses primarily on health care and was launched in 2008. This offers different packages of care, ranging from $100 to $600 a month, for which customers receive a mixture of visits and daily phone calls, along with cameras and motion sensors to monitor their wellbeing. More personal support – including transportation, help with meals and bathing – is provided too, although some of it costs extra.

Models like Beacon Hill Village, ITNAmerica and Elder Power show glimpses of a future in which more elderly people can stay in their homes for longer. All three use innovative technology, make use of assets in their local community and bring together the resources of local businesses, volunteers and the state to solve problems none could have solved individually, at reasonable cost.


Some other interesting attempts to grapple with this problem come from around the world:

• Mensheds ( Australia) targets those at risk of loneliness or isolation by building or renovating a local shed in which men of all ages can come together and work. 
• Fureai Kippu (Japan) translated as “elderly care units” or, more charmingly, “kindness tickets”, is a nationwide Japanese system of local alternative currencies to help care for elderly people. 
• Senior Co-Housing ( Netherlands) Sometimes known as “lifetime neighbourhoods”, is a system of mixed-age residential developments designed to allow young and old to live together and support each other. 
• Circles, (UK) is an innovative programme of social services for elderly people, which operates by creating local “circles” of support using a mix of concierge-style phone and internet help services and local volunteer “neighbourhood helpers” to augment traditional social care. 
• Aconchego,( Portugal) finds elderly people at risk of loneliness and isolation but with a spare room to offer, and matches them with local university students in need of inexpensive housing. 
• Tyze, (Canada) allows elderly people to share private information with their family, friends, care-givers and health providers. 
• Norcs, (US) or “naturally occurring retirement communities”, are buildings or neighbourhoods that have been retro-fitted to provide services for elderly people. 

It is an irony that what all these efforts are really trying to replicate is what the Indian joint family system used to provide in the past!