• our economist prime minister and his team of experts had done a poor job of managing food stocks
• Forget two years ago, was
  anybody in the central secretariat paying attention even four months
  ago? India then had the opportunity to pick up three million tonnes of
  rice from Myanmar (Burma). The great economic experts in Delhi
  dilly-dallied. Today, there is only a million tonnes left — and the
  price is over 40 per cent higher.

Questions for the Shenoys of this world:

1. Why are handful of people (PM, his team of experts and the Central Secretariat) managing the food stock of a billion strong nation which includes millions of farmers and traders? I thought Soviet Union collapsed few years ago and with it the idea that handful of central planners can be substitute for million of humans and their thousands of institutions and organisations, collectively called the market. I guess I was wrong.
2. If three million tonnes of rice was just waiting in Myanmar to be taken, while prices in neighbouring India was going up, what were the millions of evil traders and businessmen, who supposedly put “profits before people” doing? Why didn’t they “exploit” the poor farmers of Myanmar by buying low and “exploit” the poor Indian consumer by selling high?  Are all Indian traders and businessmen as dumb as the Central Secretariat? Or are there some barriers to such trade ?
3. Does the Central Secretariat include the central Agricultural ministry, the food processing ministry, the zillions of central and state government employees in rural areas to “help” farmers, all the state government agricultural ministries and their staff, the gram this and the gram that, krishi this and the krishi that, my favorite the FCI, the zillions of PDS shops, rural dev ministries, the social security ministries, the zillions of subsidies that go directly to inefficient fertilizer companies, the fertilizer and chemical ministries, the panchayati raj ministries, the zillions that go to indirect electricity, water and other subsidies, the loan melas that go to mostly rich farmers, all the nationalised banks that supposedly was nationalised to serve the rural poor whom the evil private banks won’t serve, zillions of barriers to even a simple common market inside India, let alone with the outside world, ………?
4. If yes to question 3, then what more do you expect the Central Sec to do? They have tried all complications and distortions humans can come up with.
   
5. Come to think of it, if yes to question 3, then Central Sec must be full of all-seeing, all-knowing, omnipresent gods. Is it legal to worship them? If so, when can I start?
   

Wait for few weeks and we will be on to the next fad. The current food crisis will fizzle out just like the last big crisis–the rising oil price crisis. The world, thanks to globalisation, liberalisation, technology, etc., has learnt to do more with less. The world could do better, if only the governments–eastern, western, rich and poor–stop distorting the markets with indirect and disingenuous subsidies, putting unnecessary barriers to trade, playing god and market by predicting and subsidising the fuels of the future, etc.

Some Don Quixotes in government will chase windmills of private monopolies, hoarders and exploiters (see earlier post Of men, mice and monopolies).

Traders and speculators will continue to outwit every government plans and scheme. They will buy low from the government and sell high, back to the government. I don’t blame them either since they are usually not allowed to do anything else.   

So while we live in this blameless, Kafkaesque world, doing the tango and the Kabuki with various incarnation of plans-crisis-plan, the world figures out ways to move on, get around stupidity and vanishing common sense.

I have heard this lack-of-toilet story many times in education
meetings and seminars. I have read about it in reports. But I had this
tinge of doubt, “can this be true in Tamil Nadu. One of the more
progressive and better governed states”. Well my doubt is cleared now.
Crystal cleared.

A piece by Meera Srinivasan in The Hindu: Toilets, yes; but usable? Hardly clarifies that doubt once and for all.

This is the 21st century. After 60 years of central planning,
passing law after law, regulating and criminalising private initiative,
this is what public education has achieved.

The report said one of the main reasons for girls dropping out of school was the lack of proper toilet and sanitary facilities.

The insanity does not end there. Now we need the UNICEF to teach
these geniuses–administrators, teachers and an alphabet soup of
government programs’ officials– hygiene!

The poor conditions and maintenance of toilets in
schools notwithstanding, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF),
in an attempt to spread awareness about the importance of clean toilet
habits, is involved in organising workshops as part of the School
Sanitation and Hygiene Education (SSHE) programme. It is intended to
support the State Government implement the Total Sanitation Campaign
(TSC) of the Centre.

Initially, Kancheepuram, Tirunelveli, Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri
were identified as focus districts where officials and teachers were
trained. It was later extended to a few other districts, including
tsunami-affected areas. It is expected to be extended to city schools
this year.

UNICEF’s project officer A. Devaraj said they offered similar
training programmes to Corporation schools in 2003-04. Issues such as
separate toilets for girls and boys and child and girl
students-friendly toilets were addressed.

“We found that awareness about hygienic practices was very poor.
These days, girls attain puberty early. Students of class six upward
need to be sensitised about hygiene during menstruation.” UNICEF has
therefore been insisting that sufficient water be made available for
girls. “We also train students in aspects like safe disposal of
sanitary napkins,” he said.

I especially love this one

It is intended to support the State Government implement the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) of the Centre.

In a five thousand year old civilisation, in the land of Mahatma
Gandhis, Vinoba Bhaves and Baba Amtes, we need the Central government
bureaucracies to teach our state government bureaucracies to teach us
the how-to of total and complete sanitisation.

I guess this is the final state of a centrally planned society. All
citizen become the equivalent of caged monkeys. With zoo keepers and
department officials civilising the enfeebled monkey, teaching him how
to keep himself clean, telling him how to take care of his young ones,
teaching him about the birds and the bees, ….

Yet our NGOwallas and Jholawallas look far and wide, under every
grant and loan, for colonisers–white skinned ones I suppose. All the
while unaware of the true nature and form of colonialism. When
government officials start toilet training you, you know you have been
colonised. Surrender! Resistance is futile!

In the long run, unlike what Keynes said, we are all not dead. We are just monkeyised. Or monkeyed. In the long road to serfdom, we are all enfeebled monkeys. In need of government planned and funded toilet training.

Title of this post is a twist on Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman, a semi-autobiography of Prof Richard Feynman, one of the greatest physicists ever.

Note to kids: do not try this–language, spelling and attempt at this kind of humour and sarcasm–at
home or school. Some of the words typed above, like monkeyised, do not
exist in the English language. I am not responsible for your failing
the English exam.