HOW MANY VENTILATORS, ICUS, CORONA VACCINATIONS, WILL $270 BILLION BUY?

1 JULY 2020

PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

DEFENCE STRATEGIC UPDATE

HOW MANY VENTILATORS, ICUS, CORONA

VACCINATIONS, WILL $270 BILLION BUY?

CAN THE BEST DEFENCE MONEY BUY REALLY THE BEST DEFENCE? ARE WEAPONS REALLY THE ANSWER AT ALL?

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is to be commended for understanding that the world now faces the most threatening strategic stability outlook since 1939. Whether throwing the considerable sum of $A270 billion at hi-tech defence hardware is the best possible response to the deep problems that beset not just Australia, but the whole world, is a question that perhaps has not been given enough thought.

In a world awash with weapons, are more exotic and hi-tech weapons the answer or are they merely going to compound the problem?

In an Australian budget that has already gone way into the red (and for excellent reasons), and in which the pandemic blazons the immediate need for investments in pandemic preparedness, vaccines and vaccine research, ICUs and ventilators, an announcement that the need of the moment is a ten year spending plan worth 270 billion on exotic ways to kill other humans, especially ones with whom we would be wiser to be collaborating on coronavirus vaccine research seems oddly placed.

True, the defence forces have made extremely useful contributions in both fighting bushfires and in fighting the coronavirus pandemic. The capabilities that made that possible should urgently be expanded. But exotic ship to ship missiles add nothing to those more mundane, but much more useful, capabilities.

This is not at all to deny that the concerns that underlie Prime Minister

Morrison’s defence spending plan are real. Of course, they are real. Indeed, they are even MORE real that Prime Minister Morrison himself admits – they are catastrophically, civilisation-endingly, real. The likelihood of a nuclear exchange in which everything we call civilisation and possibly in which humans as a species would perish, has simply never been higher. The answer is not however to invest in nuclear weapons or indeed in any weapons at all, but to work to eliminate them.

Australia has critical infrastructural dependencies on eg, the internet that make us acutely vulnerable to both cyber and EMP threats. These need to be addressed not just to secure us from human enemies but from for example, a massive coronal mass ejection.

The answer to global strategic instability, undoubtedly as bad or worse than in 1939, is not to add to it with yet more weapons. It is to seek peaceful solutions to those problems and to encourage others to

seek such solutions.

In the meantime, there ARE real investments that should be made – in

Pandemic preparedness, in infrastructural resilience, in infrastructure more broadly, in health and education and in social security that would both give Australia something truly worth defending and would in themselves diminish potential threats.

Migrant Indian Economy

THE MIGRANT INDIA

Finally, the Indian Government has agreed to send the migrant labourers home.  It was a result of three things. One, the workers were clear that they wanted to go home.  Tens of thousands of them were walking home in spite of tremendous hardship and pain.  Some even died due to hunger and fatigue.  the second is that the state could not take care of them by way of providing shelter, food and health care.  Thirdly, the government began to believe that these migrant labourers are also voters and if they continue to suffer like this and if the government continue to ignore their hardship they may not vote for them in the elections.

One thing has become evident that the ruling dispensation at the centre does not really care for the poor of India.  They did not bother to create any arrangement to take care of the migrant labourers after they declared the shutdown.  When they declared Janata curfew they had done this four days in advance.  The total shutdown did not give people any time to cope up with this.  There were four hours between 8.00 pm and 12.00 am, is not the time to make any alternative arrangement for the migrants.  The state treated the shutdown as curfew since the police used their lathies liberally when they saw the working walking towards their home.

Who are the migrant workers?  It is foolish for me to go on telling others who the migrant labourers are.  But still the question is worth reflecting up on.  They are unintended part of every city and town of India.  If they were not available all the cities and towns would have come to a standstill.  They provide labour to remove the garbage of our cities.  They clear the sewage of our cities.  They provide domestic help to all the household.  They construct the houses and the malls of the cities.  The factories are being constructed by them.  They build bridges, railways and metros.  We have seen them standing precariously at an infinitely high places on high rise buildings under construction, risking their lives.  The reports of their deaths in sewage tanks, falling from great heights and dying, falling under the collapsed scaffolding and dying, they being run over by recklessly driven vehicles, often by drunken drivers cease to stop.  To sum up the migrant labourers are life line of the cities and towns.  Nobody loves them, nobody cares for them.  They are not trusted and they become victims of suspicion, if there was any murder and dacoity around.

There is one thing we should know is that at least 25% of the Indian economy depends on the migrant labourers.  In their absence from the cities MSME will not just revive.  MSME not only employs a large number of people (workers) but also these also produce goods consumed by the people, majority middle class and lower middle class.

Migrant workers have come from the villages.  Most of them we know are from Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.  There are also migrant within each state.  Laboureres from Kalaburgy, Raichur, Beedhar come to Bangalore city looking for jobs. Their native places are drought prone and economically backward areas.  Most of these people are landless, they work as agricultural wage labourers and when there is no work in their villages they move to the cities in search of work.  Some are marginal farmers with land for just one crop.  Given the agrarian distress, farmers’ suicide the rural economy is not able to give them yearlong employment.  The only option to them is to migrate to the cities for work.

The shut down abruptly announced with notice of just four hours put these workers on the street with out jobs. When the only option before them was to starve the were forced to go back home.  They have their families - their parents, wives, children - back in the villages they come from.  With this pandemic and the news of people dying in hundred due to the corona virus has made their kith and kins very anxious about the safety of their dear ones in faraway cities.

Though this reverse migration of workers is unique and painful this is not the first time that the migrant labourers are returning to the villages.  On 18^th November 2016 the sudden declaration of de-monetization by the prime minister made the economy come crumbling down.  80% of our economy, informal economy, depended on cash transaction and the migrant workers were paid their daily wages in cash.  The employers of the informal economy did not have cash and they could not pay their workers their wages.  Both informal economy as well as the labour force came crashing down.  The migrant labourers had to return to their native places.

I feel ashamed to recall the condition of the migrant labourers who were force to walk thousand and odd mile on foot to their native villages; to narrate the hundred who lost their lives out of sheer exertion, run over by trains and vehicles. Our nation should hang its head in shame at the condition of our valuable citizens and their sufferings.

Migrant labourers -- industrial reserve army:

The migrant labourers are essential component of the working class.  We could go in great details about their consciousness as workers, the nature of the work they do, their skill and training etc.  But that will go beyond the scope of our discussion.  There is one thing I want to elaborate about them and that is they being indispensable part of the workforce of India.  Karl Marx would call them “industrial reserve army”.  When Marx was developing the theory of Capitalism he had gone in great details in discussing how the rural peasant got transformed into proletariat.  Towards the end of his discourse he dealt with concentration and centralization of capital.  As capital became more and more sophisticated, technology developed requirement of workers per unit slowly got diminished.  This led to the creation of industrial reserve army.  These workers lost their jobs.  But they did not become redundant.  On and off they were called for work for a period of time and sent back to the rank of unemployed masses.  They were compared with the reserve army every state has at hand.  The migrant labourers are de-facto industrial reserve army.  They lost their jobs not only at the industry but also at the rural agricultural economy.  They are required in the agricultural economy as well as in the industrial economy.  They may have work in the rural area during the time of sewing and harvesting.  They are also required in the urban centres for construction activities.  Construction industry is one of the biggest industry in the society and it is employs the largest working force.  But this industry will give employment only seasonally.  During rainy season the construction activity takes a break.  The migrant labourers go back to their villages and the agriculture would be waiting for them to employ them.  These labourers do not have permanent houses in the urban centres.  Their main stay is in their villages. But they have no permanent work in their own villages.  They are like “dhobi ka kutta, na ghar ka na ghat ka”.

The migrant labourers contribute immensely to the urban economy.  Their work is very crucial for the development of urban infrastructure.  But their income and living conditions are subhuman. 

These days when we go round the city we see all the work on the flyovers, metro construction has some to stand still.  There are no workers and therefore there is no work going on on these important work sites.  It is a proof of how important these, so called migrant workers to our economy and development. 

Agriculture is cannot proceed without these workers but their wages are miserably low.  Every construction work before getting approval will have to put substantial amount of money in “Workers’ Welfare Fund”.  This fund goes into the treasury of the government.  Every worker will have to be registered with the workers’ welfare board.  Now the question is whose welfare this fund is being utilized? In times of crisis the workers get no assistance from the workers’ welfare board.

Since the migrant labour is a permanent component of our workforce; since this force is always at the receiving end; and during the crisis situation they suffer the maximum, not just having to starve but receiving inhuman treatment from their employers and also from the state.

If the government is serious about ameliorating the sufferings of this section of the working class it will have to take some very serious steps.

At the city and town level:

1.       All the workers working at the construction site should be registered with the workers’ welfare board and they should know what welfare programme they are entitled to get under this board and the procedure to obtain the same without extortion.

2.       Those who employ the migrant labourers should provide them minimum 20X10 = 200 square feet accommodation with water facility and toilet.  There should be first aid kit on the site and easy access to medical facilities.

3.       When the workers are employed, they should be given fixed tenure of work with facility of weekly off and sick leave with payment.

4.       If for any reason the work is interrupted and restart happens after a month, they should be either given wages during the period of no work or be given travel cost to go to their native place and come back.  The employer should not hold arears of salaries.

5.       At the completion of the project the employer should allow the workers to stay at their facilities till alternative arrangement, i.e., alternative job or returning to their native place, is made

6.       These workers should have access to public distribution system with or without ration card.  The employer should ensure this with the public distribution system.

7.       The children of the migrant labourers should have access to schools with free education and midday meal.

8.       The labour inspector should make periodic visits to the work site to ensure fair treatment is meted out to the workers.

At the village level:

65% of the Indian population stays in the villages involved in agriculture and allied industries.  Successive governments have given nelson eye to the rural agricultural sector.  Agriculture is in permanent state of crisis.  The economic policies of the governments have been focused on industries and on export.  The rural sector is looked upon as non-essential to the modern economic system.

If the government gives due importance to the agricultural sector it will make sure that the rural economy will grow, create employment.  Apart from this the robust rural economy will be a great market for the industrial product.

Since they are basically part of the rural economy, they have to get a fair share from the rural economy.  Landless and marginal labourers depend only on wages.  They should get fair wages.  The government fixes from time to time minimum wages.  These wages are minimum which means they should get well above this level of minimum wages to be able to live a human level of life. The farmers are in distress and they have not been able to pay the fair wages to the agricultural labourers.  The entire agricultural sector needs drastic reform. 

1.       There should be thorough land reform.  Any access land available in the villages, I do not mean the common lands, grazing land which provide fodder for the cattle, but lands with the rich farmers should be distributed to the marginal and landless labourers.

2.       All these farmers should be brought under cooperatives to cultivate their land in common and market their products through the cooperatives. 

3.       Irrigation and credit should be made available to these farmers.

4.       They should be provided with permanent houses with drinking water and sanitation facilities.

5.       They should be given free and quality health care and free and quality education.

6.       There should be universal public distribution of food grains and grocery items.

7.       It should be a duty of the government that their income should be above the minimum universal income.  Whenever their income goes below this basic minimum universal income the government should transfer money to their account to make up for the short fall in their income.

One Moral environment that is absolutely necessary for our society:

Our bureaucracy is very conservative and are fossilized in the red tape, the rules and regulations.  They are not able to think out of box.  This is a legacy of the colonial bureaucratic system.  Apart from this 80% of the bureaucracy comes from the upper class and have no ability to understand the pain of the poor.  Instead of using their heart they use the rules to understand the situation of the people.

COMPROMISE WITH ORIGINAL SIN

COMPROMISE WITH ORIGINAL SIN

The Original Sin is a reality.  The Holy Scripture sets it at the very beginning, in the first book, The Genesis.  But the reality of the Original sin keeps changing from time to time.  The Original sin is the sin of the world and the situation of the world keeps changing from time to time and epoch to epoch.  Jesus Christ has redeemed us from this sin.  But we still have to be saved through our conversion, through the transformation of every individual and the world as a whole.  St. Paul says, “we are holy and yet we have to be holy”. Holiness is given and it is also a task at the same time.  The message of the Gospel, the life, the death and the resurrection is the path to move towards freedom from the original sin, towards total redemption of the world.  Redemption is not to be understood in terms of going to heaven.  It has to be understood as redeeming the world from the sin of the world, the original sin.

The situation of the world in the context of Corona virus Pandemic:

To proceed from where I left last time, let me put forward some thoughts on the Original sin in the context of the Pandemic called Covid 19.

The virus is neutral creature and it does not make choice between the rich and the poor; It does not make distinction along the lines of caste, class, culture, religion.  It affects all people of all nationality, all cultures, caste and religion. 

So, India and the world at large is threatened by the Pandemic.  India seems to be doing well on dealing with the infection as the lock-down was started at very early stage. But the none the number of infected people continues to rise.

Why do I link the pandemic to the discussion on the Original sin, or the sin of the world? 

Let us state first. The virus was brought to India from China, Dubai and many other countries.  It is clear that those who brought this virus to India could easily be called upper middle class and rich people. The people who returned from China, Europe and America were either business people or those working abroad.  There is not question of being moralist about this.  These people are not to be blamed. They were infected and had been in the danger of being killed by the virus. More and more people started getting infected and there had to be rapid action to control the spread of virus.  Massive efforts were underway to locate, identify the people who had come in contact with the infected returnees from abroad.  Then started lock-down as an effective way to control the spread of the virus.  As I stated earlier, India had started the shutdown earlier.  As a result the number of infected people and deaths has remained low compared to the rest of the world.  The recovery rate too is commendable.

The people who were infected in large numbers were from upper middle class.  Though they say the people above age of 60 with comorbidity, meaning who were suffering from heart disease, diabetics, high tension etc. were at grater risk.  The elder people’s immunity normally comes down.  Accordingly, the health department took good number of measures to prevent as many deaths as possible.

Many Indians were stranded in Europe, America, Iran where the pandemic is more severe. The government sent planes to rescue and bring back these Indians.

Now I come to the most contentious issue.  When the prime minister declared complete lock-down, it gave the people just four hours’ time. He addressed the nation at eight p.m. and the lock-down came into effect from 12.00 midnight.

The lock-down meant people could not come out of their houses. All shops, public places, factories and all the construction work and any other activity you name it, was stopped.  On the dot of 12.00 midnight all the workers lost their jobs.  Their number goes into millions.  The most affected people were migrant labourers who had left their homes and states and come to the big cities for work.  These workers were staying on the construction sites, in the shanties and congested places.  And now they find themselves without jobs.  Since the lock-down happened in the middle of the month, they did not get their salaries.  They did not have any savings.  Many had not received their salaries for months.  They had no place to stay.  Social distancing, which was essential for saving oneself from infection did not permit them to continue staying at the work sites, shanties and in the crowded place.

One thing that has become abundantly clear about the kind of attention our economic and political administration has given to the migrant labourers and daily wage earners.  The rural distress caused by utter neglect of our agriculture had driven the scores of our rural population to the cities in search of jobs.

The cities and towns where they migrate live a precarious life.  They may not have ration cards, voter ids and Aadhaar cards.  They do not enjoy their entitlements.  The native citizens look at these migrants with suspicion.  But without them the cities will not be able to go on. They work in sanitation area, clearing the garbage of the city; they work as domestic maids without whom families will not go on; they do menial work, like cleaning, helpers in small scale industries. They are in construction work, building huge condominium, factories, flyovers, bridges and metros. But they do not enjoy their citizenship.  Their children get no facilities for education, ration and food securities, medical facilities.  While they always remained aliens to the cities and towns, the cities and towns could not function without them.  They provided the life line to the cities. 

Having no alternative, they began to walk back to their homes, several hundred miles away from their work site.

This time their pain was excruciating. There was no transport facility; they had to walk hundreds of miles to their home.  The stories we hear of their plight is heart rendering.  One young boy cycled 1800 kms to his home.  One boy walking back from Nagpur to his home in Bihar had reached Hyderabad with his companions.  As they were sitting to rest, this boy fell on his back and died. His dead body was carried to his home. What pain his family members must have suffered to receive the dead body of their son. There was another man had walked a few hundred miles.  His home was just 50 kms away from where he had reached.  But he was not to reach.  He died and only his dead body reached his home to be handed over to his children.

The Story of Mahesh Jena from Orissa:

Jena, 20 years, was working in an iron casting facility in the Sangli  Miraj MIDC Industrial area in Maharashtra.  He was earning Rs. 15,000.00 a month.  After the lockdown was announced his company was closed for three months.  He did not have money to continue to pay the rent and feed himself for three months. He was left with just Rs. 3,000\.  He waited for a week.  There was no hope for him in Sangli.    He thought it wise and set out on the cycle to his home, 1,700 kms from Sangli, to Badasuari village in Jajpur in Odisha.  “All of a sudden, I decided to go back home to Badasuari village in Jajpur by cycle.  It was a matter of survival.  On August 1, I set out.  Though I did not have a map, I remembered the names of the major railway stations during my train journey here”.

On the week long cross country ride, Mr. Jena made most of the cool, predawn hours, cycling till lunch before taking a break.  He would stop at the few, still open dhabas for bath, lunch and a nap before getting back on the cycle.  “I was averaging 200 kms per day”, he said.  He reached Jajpur late on April 7 only to be stopped by villagers, who were reluctant to allow him in without checkup.  They informed the district administration, and he was sent to a quarantine centre at a school in Bichitrapur.

Munna Kumar:

Munna Kumar, 35 years of age, of Muzaffarpur in Bihar was employed as a construction worker in Gurugram, the millennium city with gleaming skyscrapers, shopping malls, upscale eateries and night clubs.

The night Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a three-week lockdown, Kumar’s employer gave him the marching orders.  With no money to pay the rent in his slum cluster, he had no option but to return to his village with his meagre saving.

“My employer treated me badly.  I will not go back to Gurugram even if I have to die of hunger.  I will do so in my village”, Kumar said, revealing the trauma that will remain imprinted for as long as he lives.

Baleshwar Das:

Baleshwar Das, 45 years of age, comes from Bihar’s Madhubani district.  He was employed with a leather products factory in New Delhi.  With the factory shut, he along with 6 others began to reach their homes at least 600 kms away.  Das said he would return to his workplace the moment the lockdown is lifted as, “my life’s savings are still with my employer.”  Isn’t this is a good remark on Jan Dhan Yojana of Mr. Modi?  Das had no chance to open a Jan Dhan account to put his “life’s savings”, and remain a free wage labourer.   It is reverse case of bonded labour.  Instead of employer giving loan to the labourers and keep them bonded the employer keeps labourers money with himself to keep the labourers in bondage.

This is not the first time that the migrant labourers had to desperately return to their villages.  When demonetization was announced, the government had taken cash out of the market.  More than 80% of our economy function on cash transaction. The informal economy had completely collapsed.

The more serious issue I want to come to is the manner in which the government went about during this pandemic. 

Government sent aeroplanes to bring back our people stranded in the foreign countries.  But they could not organized transport for the migrant labourers to reach their home states.  To add insult to injuries the police took to lathi charge the people who were going back walking on the road.  Some were forced to do frog walk as a punishment for coming out on the road.  The maximum number of police force in India comes from the rural and the poor section.  These people had forgotten their past and behaved like brutes, flogging the miserable migrant labourers as if they were cattle.

The UP government sent buses to bring thousands of students who had gone to Kota, Rajasthan to give IIT entrance test.  Of course, these people did not come from the category of the poor migrant workers.

The main point that I want to make here is that this is an Original sin, the sin of the world. 

None of us individually are responsible for this sorry state of affair.  But the situation is in human.  Such things keep happening again and again.  Our history, the history of our nation is the history of brutality meted out to the weakest.

I had seen on the main alter of a church in Kerala an inscription on either side of the crucifix, “Be Little and Serve the Little.” It was an indication of what it is to be a Christian.  It is what Jesus told his apostles, just before he died, “Wash one another’s feet”.  This is the path to fight against the original sin.

When we make a confession we ask for forgiveness for ‘what we have done and what we have failed to do’.  But of course, we believe that in the situation narrated above we do not have anything to do.  Many have donated to feed the migrant workers, many have arranged to shelter the migrant workers and given them food.  This is highly commendable work and we have to solute these generous souls for doing this. 

But the main issue is not that the migrant labourers are shelter less or hungry.  The issue is that we are living in an unjust system.  The government has kept huge amount of money to build new parliament building.  The Government has sanctioned huge amount of money to build a bullet train from Mumbai to Ahmadabad, the two largest hotspots of corona virus.  Government will give huge bail out package for the big industries to tide over the crisis caused by this shutdown.

Already Niranjan Hiranandini, the president of the Industry body of real estate developers has already made it clear that they would need $ 200 billion, with the ability to go up to $ 300 billion.  He says they would require $ 100 billion immediately and then after four months another $ 100 billion and after 8 months the third installment of $ 100 billion.  $ 300 billion would mean Rs. 22.89 lakh crore.  This is indeed a mind-blowing figure for India to cater to.  Where will this money come from?

This request comes from Niranjan Hiranandini.  Surely there will be many more coming the government with begging bowls.

Now there are a few questions come to my mind.  No 1, who are the people who borrow from the bank huge amount in loan and fail to pay, willfully, most of the time.  We have heard of huge amount of NPAs, (non-performing assets) with the bank.  The most of the non-performing assets have been declared as bad loans and written off.  This is an annual feature with the banks.  Vijai Mallya, Lalit Modi, Nirav Modi, Mehul Chausky, to mention a few, have escaped our country with huge amount of money borrowed from the bank in fraudulent manner and sitting pretty in overseas countries.

We have been made to believe that these industrialists, capitalists are the saviours of the world.  If the poor have to be out of poverty, they should get employment with these capitalists. Hence the government has to hand over its wealth in the hands of these capitalist class and waits for the poor to benefit from them through the process of trickling down effect.

When we find ourselves in this unjust and in human, sinful situation what are thoughts? Do we ask the Lord what He would like us to do; what we should do?  We regularly go to make our confession to the priest.  We confess our sins.  But what sins?  We never confessed that we have failed to do anything about the injustice in our society; that we have failed to stand up with the poor for justice.  The priest too never asks us if we have failed to bring justice to the oppressed.  Richard Rohr puts it as, “Vast majority of the Catholic confessions have to do with pragmatic problem solving.  The ‘supposed sins’ that divert our attention from the real evil that is destroying our society.  The present practice actually trivializes the immensity and urgency of our moral need.”  

We are not the creators of the original sin.  We may contribute to the existing sin of the world.  But we do not do anything to do away with this sin of the world.  We come to an understanding about it.  We develop theories to explain away the sin of the world.  We live in peace by making compromise with “the sin of the world”.

THE SIN OF THE WORLD

THE ORIGINAL SIN

The book of Genesis tells us that the original sin came into the world through the disobedience of Adam and Eve.  This concept of Original sin indicates one important thing.  By disobedience the humans broke the relationship with God.  Further they wanted to be like god, a desire to replace God by one’s own self.  There may be more and better reflections on the meaning of disobeying God. 

Why was God so strange that he wanted Adam and Eve not to eat the ‘fruit of the tree’.  There is some thing deeper in it than we can understand from the plain text.

It is clear that the sin came into the world through human beings and there no second god or god like ‘god of evil’ who brought sin into the world.  God is one and he is good. No evil can come from God.  It is due to human folly that the sin came into the world.  Human beings are responsible for the Original sin.

Why is it called original? Because, any one individual is not responsible for the original sin. It is original because it has become inherent in the history of development, history of mankind.

Original sin is not one single act but it is an evolution, creation over a long period of time. It is an evolution of a situation.   You can call it “A Situation of Sin”, “a sin of the world”.

Original sin is a situation in which we are born and find ourselves in.  We are individually nor responsible for this situation.  We have not created this situation.  But we have contributed to the situation by being part of the situation, going along with the situation, committing sin and adding to the situation.

I have with me on example to illustrate this “situation of Sin”.  It is, for example, “CAPITALISM” as far as the present epoch is concerned.  We are living in the capitalist world, capitalist situation.

In capitalist situation there is private ownership of the productive assets, land, water, money capital, and the means of production.  The private owner who owns the productive assets invests his money capital and employs the workers who have no ownership over what the capitalists own.  The workers own their capacity, energy and skill to work, and they are called workers.  The society is divided into the capitalists who own and the working people who only work and produce.  Since the capitalists own the means of production, they take away what is produce by the workers.  They pay the workers wages. The capitalists sell the product and recover what they have invested and over and above that they get profit, excess value that the value they had initially invested. (There are more sophisticated explanations to each of these categories. For our present purpose this suffices.)

The capitalists earn so much of profit that there remains a huge amount of surplus over their initial investments.  They spend part of this for their luxurious life.  A part of their profit, much greater part than what they have themselves consumed they again invest in their capital and enlarge their capital.  Over a period of time their capital becomes large, multiple times bigger that what they had initially invested. Their living style too get sophisticated. Mukesh Ambani builds a huge mansion in Mumbai, with a swimming pool inside and a helipad above.  The Rich become RICHER.

The Workers get only wages. Wages are called the cost of living of the workers and their families. The workers spend their wages to look after their families: house, food, education of the children and medicine in times of sickness.  The workers may save some part of their wages but it is nothing more than what they require in times of emergencies. His children also become wage labourers (workers).  Some of them remain unemployed. Strictly speaking the y do not improve their situation.  They get older and poorer.

It is said “a silk worm spins silk all its life and at the end it becomes a butterfly”.  Silk worm through its life activity reaches a higher stage of existance.  But the worker remains worker.  A sericulture farmer takes the cocoon spinned by the silk worm.  In order to harvest silk from the cocoon he puts the cocoon with the worm in side in boiling hot water.  He kills the worm inside the cocoon, which was in the process of becoming a butter fly.  It is only in that process alone that the farmer will get long yarn of silk so that it can be woven into beautiful saries, which the delicate women will wear and look pretty for men to enjoy them.

The story of the worker is not the story of the silk worm which through its life activity becomes a butterfly, a higher level of existence.  But it is like the story of the silk worm owned by the farmers, which goes in the boiling water to take long strand of silk from the cocoon. Worker dies as a worker.  In his life process he makes the capitalist wealthy and bigger and bigger capitalist.

The story of the capitalist is the story of Mr. Ambani, who becomes one of the richest men in the world and builds a house with swimming poor in side and helipad above.

Julius Nyerere, the former president of Tanzania once said, “When it rains the water from the driest region ultimately goes to the sea where there is plenty of water.  It is a natural process. Similary, in the capitalist society the wealth of the poor nations and poor people goes into the hands of the rich people and rich nations, who already have a lot of wealth.  This happens through the natural functioning of the economic and political system that we have created.”

We rarely understand the parable of the ten gold coins that Jesus gave in the gospel of Luke 19:11- 27. (Luckily just I open the Bible now and I put my finger on this page. Please read this parable and save me the trouble of narrating that here.) “The ‘noble man’ went to a distant country to acquire another kingdom for himself”. He called ten servants and gave them ten gold coins to trade and make more money. The conclusion is “those who have much more will be given to them. Those who have nothing whatever they have will be taken away from them and given to them who already have”.

Jesus is talking in the context of Jewish society.  Jewish kings did not wage war on another kingdom to capture their kingdom.  It was considered sin to make profit out of one’s business.  Here, a “Noble man” goes to get another kingdom for himself and while he is away, he wants his servants to make more money for him.  And he orders, to those who have more will be given more and those who do not have, even what they have will be taken away from them and given to those who already have.  We should be wise enough to understand the parable in the Jewish and Christian spirituality.  This parable is condemnation of the society that goes along the lines of the “KING”.

Now I am holy man and a capitalist and I decide to run my business in the ways of God.  I will not make profit or share my profit with the workers.  In the next round of production, I will start at the same level as my first cycle.  I will have not money left from my profit to reinvest into capital, expand my production, introduce latest technology, produce better quality goods and cheaper goods and make super profit.  But all the others capitalist will do this.  At the end I will be thrown out of production as my product will not match the quality and cheap cost of the other capitalists.

But if I want to be a capitalist, I should be like everybody else.  I am compelled to accumulate profit, expand my production and make super profit for my survival as a capitalist.  I have no freedom to be a “holy capitalist”.  If I want to remain a capitalist I will have to go by the ways of the capitalists’ world.

Sidharth opted out of the kingship and became Goutham. His way was that of a sanyasi. Beg and live with bare necessities. He was like a Baloo in the Jungle book singing and dancing and living with bare necessities.

Joachim and Anne opted out of the normal run of the society and lived like Goutham with bare necessities and brought Mary up with that spirituality.  Mother Mary was out of the system, she was free from the situation of sin.  Born outside the original sin.

Jesus gave a drastically a new way of life for us.  The weak will be strong, the last will be the first, master should wash the feet of his slaves (there should be not master slave relationship, no big and small categories). Break your life give your life so that the world may live.  Jesus instituted a “New Society, a New Jerusalem” where people were called to live by dying, grow by breaking and giving to others. The last supper was the beginning. He commanded to “do this in his name and memory”. We have to do a soul-searching reflections on the command of Jesus.

Soon after the resurrection the disciples of Jesus sold all they had and held everything in common.  No body lacked anything. Everybody had enough for their need.

When I spoke about confession and confessors diverting our attention from the main issue that destroys the social fabric of our society and speak about sing in a very trivial form.  What is needed is transformation of one self and of our society.  Work to create eucharistic community, not sitting in the church building but by shedding blood on the alter of transformation.

PRAXIS® LEARNING CENTRE

PRAXIS^® LEARNING CENTRE

BLUE VALLEY SCHOOL

PRAXIS^® is a registered voluntary, non-profit organization, established in1981. Praxis has been   conducting supplementary education classes for the children, after school hours, in 120 villages of Devanahalli taluk.

WHY DO WE START A SCHOOL?

v  The education policy makers have flawed assumption about education.  They perceive Education from a utilitarian perspective.  They ignore the social purpose of education for emancipation.

v  Education should not aim at just getting employment.  It should aim at building character, integrity and a capacity to be responsible citizens, developing cognitive ability, thinking capacity and problem-solving skill.

v  The present-day education system has created a social differentiation. There is a great disparity in the quality of education the rural children get and the quality of education the urban children of the elite get. Good quality education for the children of the poor is a key to overcome inequality in the society.

v  The school education has to be seen as a public good outside the logic of the market.

v  Education should enable all round development of individuals.  Emotional wellbeing of the students is paramount important.  Emotional wellbeing of the learners is linked to their successful life. Education should shift from teacher centeredness to learner centeredness; teaching for learning; text book based learning to experiential learning; unhealthy competition to happy collaboration; teacher domination to learner participation; rote learning to activity based intelligent learning.

The eight core-competencies that education should develop in students are: 1. Creativity, 2. Curiosity, 3. Critical thinking, 4. Ability for communication, 5. Collaboration, 6.  Compassion, 7.  Composure, and 8. Citizenship.

A.      Praxis Learning Centre will provide the children from remote rural areas a guarantee of excellent quality education in English medium and overcome the injustice in the education system.

B.      Our school will be run on ‘NO PROFIT NO LOSS’ basis. We will be transparent in all our operations including our finances.

C.      We will provide residential facilities for children from distance places, again at charges based on ‘NO PROFIT NO LOSS’.

D.     We will conduct summer camps to upgrade the learning standard of the children. 

E.      There will be a parents’ association. All parents of the children who study in our school will be part of this association.

F.       We will promote philosophical thinking and intelligent enquiry leading to VISION for life. 

G.     In our school, there will be a strong emphasis on subjects like history, social science, literature, and geography, to make the children acquire sense of history, looking at the society from a historical perspective, social consciousness leading to social commitment; being aware of inequality, oppression and exploitation.

H.     Having a scientific approach to the society, never accepting things as given, the students and the teachers will become agents of change.  Change is a constant reality of the society.

I.        Promoting understanding of different cultural, religious diversities. Recognizing that these diversities and differences are a wealth of the society.

J.   We learn together.  A teacher cannot teach if he/she is not learning at the same time.  A teacher becomes a learner and the learners also become teachers.”  Our school will be a community of children and teachers living, sharing and learning together. It will promote learning as a collaborative and cooperative life together rather than competitive business venture.

K.      “Our school is based on the philosophy, simply put, “A person is an individual with others in the world”.  We arrive in the world created by people before us.  We cannot live unless we recreate this world for us and for our future generation. If a person is important, the world is equally important and others are integral part of us.  We cannot become ourselves without others and we in turn make others.  We cannot grow without others.  We cannot grow as human persons at the expense of others.  A real growth of our person is achieved only through growing together.  We cannot receive without giving.  Receiving and giving are two sides of the coin called life.

L.       We place ourselves in the history of our people.  We learn from the people who have gone before us, who have contributed for the creation of this wonderful world. We resolve to contribute our best so that the world and the history moves forward and all experience a good quality of life.

M.   We are citizens of this world with “an attitude, a state of mind, an emotional conviction that the whole is greater than the part . . . and that the part should be humbly proud to sacrifice itself that the whole may live.” (Robert A. Heilein)

“THE NEW SOURCE OF POWER IS NOT MONEY IN THE HANDS OF A FEW. BUT INFORMATION IN THE HANDS OF MANY’. (John Naisbitt)

Director: Alex Tuscano, Mob: 9448386968 / 9449066968

Praxis Learning Centre

PRAXIS LEARNING CENTRE

Policy and procedure on Child Protection

We, in Praxis Learning Centre, have a primary responsibility for the care, welfare and safety of the pupils in our charge. We will carry out this duty through our pastoral care policy, which aims to provide a caring, supportive and safe environment, valuing individuals for their unique talents and abilities, in which all our young people can learn and develop to their full potential.

One way in which we seek to protect our pupils is by helping them learn about the risks of possible abuse, helping them to recognize unwelcome behaviour in others, and acquire the confidence and skills they need to keep themselves safe.

All our staff and volunteers have been subject to appropriate background checks.  The staff of our school have also adopted a Code of Practice for our behaviour towards our pupils.  In our work with our younger pupils, or with children whose statement of Special Education Needs requires it, certain caring personal tasks may present themselves from time to time.  These tasks will always be carried out in an appropriate manner.  Close liaison with parent ensures that there is trust and understanding of such situations.  Our school Prospectus and Code of Good Practice includes guidance for parents on how to make known to our staff any concerns they may have about the safety of their child or any other child in their care.

The purpose of the following procedures on Child Protection is to protect our pupils by ensuring that every one who works in our school – teachers, non-teaching staff and volunteers – has clear guidance on the action which is required where abuse or neglect of a child is suspected.  The overriding concern of all caring adults must be the care, welfare and safety of a child, and the welfare of each child is our paramount consideration.  The problem of child abuses will not be ignored by anyone who works in our school, and we know that some forms of child abut are also a criminal offence.

What is child abuse?

We use the following definitions:

NEGLECT – the persistent or significant neglect of a child, or the failure to protect a child from exposure to any kind of danger, including cold or starvation, or persistent failure to carry out important aspects of care, resulting in the significant impairment of the child’s health or development including non-organic failure to thrive.

PHYSICAL – physical injury to a child, whether deliberately inflicted or knowingly not prevented.

Procedures for reporting suspected (or disclosed) child abuse

The designated teacher for child protection is MS Yashoda. In her absence, MS Poornima will assume responsibility for child protection matters.

If a child makes a disclosure to a teacher or other member of staff which gives rise to concerns about possible abuse, or if a member of staff has concerns about a child, the member of staff must act promptly.

N.B. He/she should not investigate this matter, but should report these concerns immediately to the designated teacher, discuss the matter with her, and make full notes.

The designated teacher will as a matter of urgency plan a course of action, and ensure that a written record is made. The designated teacher will decide whether, in the best interests of the child, the matter needs to be referred to the expert counsellor.