DesiPundit

Karthik argues why it makes economic sense for farmers in Karnataka, when faced with a glut in the tomato crop, to throw sackloads of tomatoes on the roads rather than sell them.

Given the facilities in India, it usually turns out that the costs of storage would be much higher than the expected revenues from it. So we only lose money by doing so. So what do we do? Dump them on the highways. Or if they take my suggestion, organize a Tomatina.

One solution that I could think of was to transfer the storage and transportation costs to the retailer.  Biggies like Reliance can surely set up a purchasing network and use refrigerated trucks to transport tomatoes to the cities?

Emma visits Chilika lake and enjoys the peace and tranquility.

Night arrives early at Satpada, and it stays ever so silent that you can actually hear a pin drop. I took a walk across the harbour, which offers a panoramic view of the lagoon encircled by hills, the colour of the water changing with the passing clouds and shifting sun. And then we went and sat by the jetty - it was a full moon night, and we could actually see the moon rays slowly casting their magic on the lake waters.

Musafir is critical of the Indian Government’s scheme for all new MBBS graduates to serve in a rural area for one year as a precondition for being granted permanent registration.

It’s the perfect socialist scheme. Government abdicates responsibility, puts clueless, young people on the spot by entrusting nation-building in their inexperienced hands and watches the fun while people squirm in their seats. It’s a scam because our villages deserve better. It’s a scam because our medical graduates deserve better than being asked to sweat their asses off, trying to clean up the Government’s mess.

Kalyan Varma on the Eravikulam National Park

Massive open grasslands, immense spaces and an eerie silence. So quite, I was whispering most of the time and the silence is only broken at times by the wind or some small birds. The temperatures drop close to freezing point in the nights and it can get quite hot in the mornings.

Since you have to walk for everything, your whole perspective of things change. I was walking between 15 to 35 km daily along with my gear.

A lovely photo-essay on rural Indian women. We usually avoid linking to old posts but this is just too gorgeous!

Hat Tip:blr bytes

The children studying in a rural school in Kalleda, Andhra Pradesh, have a wonderful photoblog on Flickr [via Swarup who links to a BBC story on this project]. The intro page is here:

This is the photoblog of the kids at Kalleda Rural School in Warangal District, Andhra Pradesh, India. The students take their own photographs documenting their lives and post them on their own flickr accounts. This account is a collection of some of their best photos.

I googled a bit to find that this photoblog has been around for a while. It finds a mention in this post on Charu’s blog from 2005. And in this post on anthropologi.info as well.

A very interesting piece on the Mritak Sangh (association of the dead), formed to fight the menace of fraudulent deaths in the official records of rural India 

In order to bring attention and justice to the throngs of the undead , Bihari formed Mritak Sangh, the Association of the Dead. Many were worse off than he, suffering beatings and threats from the family members who had defrauded them. Many of them were even in danger of losing their real lives at the hands of those who had profited from their “demise.” No land owner was completely safe from the treachery, including a a man named Maha Prasad who worked as a police constable for six years while legally dead

But it’s important to note the way this killing is celebrated. I wouldn’t have had any problem if this would have been done with a distribution of medals to the murderers, in the name of army but how could they? How could they rejoice and pose in front of a photograph with a dead body? Let it be that it’s a militant’s body, a terrorist’s body-as they would put it- but how could they?

Aruni criticizes the Indian Army for celebrating with the body of a dead militant.

I have to say (yet again)- I agree. Dignity of the dead is important, whether it is a dead terrorist or….

Vijay had worked hard to pass the exams, and received one of the top rankings in the state. I can’t imagine they could find a more qualified candidate. Nobody knows why Vijay was rejected, but the most likely conclusion is that they knew of his work with Budhan Theatre and his dream of making a change. Or perhaps they are just discriminating against him because he is Chhara? In either case, I’m glad to hear that the community isn’t taking this blow lying down. Together with three other rejected Chhara candidates, Vijay filed a petition under the Indian government’s Right to Information Act, seeking information as to the reasons for their rejection.

That’s from Kerim Friedman, who co-produced (with Shashwati Talukdar) a short film “Acting Like a Thief” about a theatre group run by Chhara children (available for free download for private viewing).

This, then, is how the idea behind this exhibition was born, or rather germinated, journey after journey, season after season. The idea which, at the start, was just a feeling, and an ill-defined perception developing during walks taken in the Warli landscape, took on the form of this encounter–a meeting of two artists, two people hailing from undoubtedly quite different cultures, but belonging, above all else, to the same world, and the same Earth, and paying similar respect and consideration towards it.

Some beautiful pictures, those.