Green Festival this weekend!

Speaker List includes:

See you there!!

Book List

Author and esteemed journalist P. Sainath was gracious enough to send this list of books that he considers as must reads. I am attaching his message and the list below.

Here’s the promised list. There’s a full 100 below in the table. Above the table are 20 which I figure should be fairly easy for you to access, since they are mostly American. The list has no particular order of priority, only the top 20 above are all relatively recent books (with the exception of titles like Now Let Us Praise Famous Men and a couple of others). Allow for a mistake here and there as this was mostly done from memory. Also some of the titles in the top 20 might not be there in the main list. Sorry if that’s confusing.

Will keep updating the top 20 as and when I get idea or remember some other titles and will let you know later suggestions

At any rate, the books are guaranteed to transform you or your money back. (They were chosen for you guys after careful deliberation by a select committee comprising me. Now comes your part of the job - READ).

• Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong By James W. Loewen
• Late Victorian holocausts: El Niño famines and the making of the third world By Mike Davis
• The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals By Michael Pollan
• The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict By Joseph E. Stiglitz, Linda Bilmes
• The New Media Monopoly By Ben H. Bagdikian
• Fast Food Nation: What the All-American Meal Is Doing to the World By Eric Schlosser
• Blue Gold: The Battle Against Corporate Theft of the World's Water By Maude Barlow, Tony Clarke
• Second front: censorship and propaganda in the 1991 Gulf War By John R. MacArthur, Ben H. Bagdikian
• Ida: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching By Paula J. Giddings
• The Jungle By Upton Sinclair
• Imperial Masquerade: Essays By Lewis H. Lapham
• No space, no choice, no jobs, no logo By Naomi Klein
• Confessions of an economic hit man By John Perkins
• Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families By James Agee, Walker Evans
• False Dawn : the Delusions of Global Capitalism: The Delusions of Global Capitalism By John Gray
• One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy By Thomas Frank
• The best democracy money can buy: an investigative reporter exposes the truth about globalization, corporate cons, and high-finance fraudsters By Greg Palast
• A People's History of the United States: 1492-present By Howard Zinn
• IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation By Edwin Black
• Trading with the Enemy: The Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949 By Charles Higham

1	A Peoples History of the United States	Howard Zinn	24	Against Empire	Michael Parenti
2	A Zinn Reader	Howard Zinn	25	King Leopold’s Ghost	Adam Hochschild
3	One Market Under God	Thomas Frank	26	Global Media	Robert McChesny & Edward S. Herman
4	Manufacturing Consent	Noam Chomsky	27	Rich Media, Poor Democracy	Robert McChesney
5	Trading with the Enemy	Charles Higham	28	Luce & his Empire	A.L. Swanberg
6	IBM & The Holocaust	Edwin Black	29	Politics of Rich & Poor	Kevin Philips
7	Lies My Teacher Told Me	James Loewen	30	The Mind Managers	Herbert Schiller
8	Fast Food Nation	Eric Schlosser	31	Tube of Plenty	Erik Barnouw
9	All Govenments Lie	I.F. Sone	32	The Sponsor	Erik Barnouw
10	The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb	Gar Alperowitz	33	Ending Corporate Welfare	Ralph Nader
11	The Fateful Triangle	Noam Chomsky	34	The Press	A. J. Liebling
12	Palestine: Myth & Reality	Norman Finkelstein	35	The Second Front	John MacArthur
13	American Holocaust	David E. Stannard	36	On Writing	Sol Stein
14	Late Victorian Holocausts	Mike Davis	37	Joe McCarthy & The Press	Edwin Bayley
15	When Corporations Rule the World	David Korten	38	Common Sense	Thomas Paine
16	Jihad Vs. McWorld	James Barber	39	The Rights of man	Thomas Paine
17	The U.S. Presidency	Gore Vidal	40	Citizen Paine	Howard Fast
18	The Media Monopoly (6th ed.)	Ben Bagdikian	41	Spartacus	Howard Fast
19	Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee	Dee Brown	42	Viva Mexico	John Reed
20	The State of Native America	M. Annette Jaimes	43	Ten Days that Shook the World	John Reed
21	Coming of Age	Studs Terkel	44	The Debt: What America Owes Blacks	Randall Robinson
22	Man’s Wordly Goods	Leo Huberman	45	Inventing Reality	Michael Parenti
23	The Press & the Cold War	James Aronson	46	Roughing It	Mark Twain
24	Don’t Blame the People	Robert Cirino	49	The souls of black folk	W.E.B. DuBois
25	Wizards of Media Oz	Cohen & Solomon	50	Black Reconstruction	W.E.B. DuBois
51	Vindication of the Rights of Woman	Mary Wollstonecraft	75	The Cold War & Culture	FranesStonor Saunders
52	The Wretched of the Earth	Frantz Fanon	76	The Suppression of the African Slave Trade	W.E.B. DuBois
53	What Apartheid Means	Jean Paul Sratre	77	All Governments Lie	I. F. Stone
54	The Law of Manu	Anon.	78	Gandhi Autobrography	M. K. Gandhi
55	The First Casualty	Phillip Knghtley	79	The Prince	Machiavelli
56	How the Other Half Dies	Susan George	80	The struggle is my life	Nelson Mandela
57	The Debt Boomerang	Susan George	81	Karl Marx	Francis Wheen
58	The End of Food	Paul Roberts	82	The Trial of Socrates	I.F. Stone
59	Information & Inequality	Herbert Schiller	83	The Communist Manifesto	Marx & Engels
60	Culture Inc.,	Herbert Schiller	84	Imperialism: the hgihest stage of capitalism	Lenin
61	Black Skin, White Masks	Frantz Fanon	85	Fads & Fallacies	Martin Gardiner
62	Through the Media Looking Glass	Normon Solomon & Jeff Cohen	86	A Peoples History of England	A.J.L. Morton
63	Global Parasites	Winin Perira & Jeremy Seabrooke	87	The History	Herodotus
64	History will absolve me	Fidel Castro	88	The Republic	Plato
65	Murdoch	George Munster	89	The Wealth of Nations	Adam Smith
66	Maxwell	Tom Bower	90	The Affluent Society	J.K. Galbraith
66	Passport	Wifred Burchett	91	The Culture of Contentment	J.K. Galbraith
67	At the Barricades	Wilfred Burchett	92	On Colonialism	Amilcar Cabral
68	Poverty & Famines	Amartya Sen	93	On Colonialism	Marx & Engels
69	The Globalization of poverty	Michael Chossudovsky	94	The History of the Standard Oil Company	Ida Tarbell
70	The Geopolitics of Information	Anthony Smith	95	War is a Racket	Gen.Smedley D. Butler
71	A Fate worse than debt	Susan George	96	Seize the Time	Bobby Seale
72	World Hunger	Francis Moore Lappe	97	Profits over People	Noam Chomsky
73	Ecology & Equity	Madhav Gadgil & Ramachandra Guha	98	The Lords of Global Poverty	Graham Hancock
74	All in God’s name	David Yallop	99	The Age of Empire	Eric Hobsbawm
75	Voices of Revolution	Roger Streitmatter	100	The Age of Capital	Eric Hobsbawm

Monsanto Ki Roti

My wife and I follow this weekly ritual of making chappatis on weekends. A kind of bread that is staple diet of north Indians. If Monsanto had its way we would have to apply to Monsanto for a license. Producing chappati's without that may have been a theft of intellectual property. Strange, because it wasn't Monsanto who taught us this art. It's a family tradition that our ancestors have mastered and refined over generations.

Every year millions of Indian couples go out in their farm to produce Nap Hal. The strain of wheat used to make chappatis. If Monsanto had its way they may have to pay royalties to Monsanto. Producing Nap Hal without that may have been a theft of intellectual property. Strange, because it wasn't Monsanto who invented the seeds. They are the result of a collective effort of generations of farmers in India who spent years crossbreeding crops.

Follow the links to these news

Monsanto's Chappati and Nap Hal Patent:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2004/jan/31/gm.food

EPO revoked the patent after Greenpeace filed a legal opposition.
http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=13582831

On sixth anniversary of the killing of American peace activist Rachel Corrie

DN reports:

An American activist from Oakland, California was critically injured Friday when Israeli soldiers fired a tear gas canister directly at his head at the close of a weekly nonviolent protest against the wall in the West Bank village of N’alin. Thirty-seven-year-old Tristan Anderson underwent brain surgery on Saturday, and parts of his right frontal lobe and shattered bone fragments were removed. He remains in critical condition.

Here is a video of another American casualty of Israeli violence. Contrast the coverage these Americans recieve with the others who get killed/wounded due to action of the "bad" guys.

NYT article on chid hunger in India

The idea of starving Indian kids is not new to the West. In earlier days western moms are said to remind their kids of starving Indian kids when they did not eat ther veggies. I have written about depressingly high rates of malnutrition among Indian children a few times. Every time I have encountered a weird sense of denial among many Indians to acknowledge this fact. The same people who would otherwise hail the Western policies around the world and swear by their news paper/channels claim that there is a Western bias or denial to accept India's shining. This is not surprising as the Indian media itself props this notion. They celebrate any western collaboration that would benefit a few of their advertisers and comfortably forget to followup of western reports that point at the real issues that infest the country. Analysis of how the policies of the country might be affecting the poor in the country and providing a thorough understanding to a well fed Indian reader is missing from the media. This once-in-a-while reporting and citing some report (even an Indian report) has almost become a regular drama. Even though we are hailed as democracy(and we are quite democratic) its a shame that there are still people who have more control over the policies than the rest. The Indian media has been severly restricting their access to these analysis and allowing them to disregard a truth as vital as this.

One such report that will meet the same end has been just released by NYT. It is a good report but as usual, the policy analysis is minimal and the implementational inefficiencies take bigger blame. ( Read these article by P Sainath called "It's the policy stupid" Part I and Part II )

NYT Report: As Indian Growth Soars, Child Hunger Persists

In India, by contrast, despite robust growth and good government intentions, the comparable number is 42.5 percent.....

India’s public expenditure on health remains low, and in some places, financing for child nutrition programs remains unspent. ...

Others point to the efficiency of an authoritarian state like China. India’s sluggish and sometimes corrupt bureaucracy has only haltingly put in place relatively simple solutions — iodizing salt, for instance...

as the [Chinese]government safety net has shredded with its adoption of a more market-driven economy. ...

AT&T's public channel "censorship"

For those like us who prefer to watch community/public channel and news from Democracy Now AT&T may not be a good choice.

When someone's tragedy is another's fun

Coming up.. commentary on

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090309/ap_on_bi_ge/landlord_nation

International Women’s Day

Sometimes I wander over to Times Of India website to check their coverage on some important events. Not surprisingly, on IWD they were conducting this poll to choose the “Absolute Woman”. Here are the shorlisted candidate:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshowpics/4239388.cms

The nominees for the Absolute Woman are... Katrina Kaif, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Chanda Kochar, Preity Zinta, Priyanka Gandhi, Farah Khan, Ritu Beri, Sania Mirza, Kiran Majumdar-Shaw, Saina Nehwal

I wondered why Times Of India did not mention some names that I would expect to be on that list. Perhaps TOI could not fit these other ladies in their print. Perhaps its because these women are not just two dimensional, rather they possess certain depth of character. Perhaps because these other ladies think that true women liberation lies beyond the freedom of wearing skimpy clothes, freedom to hop bars or to hold/kiss their valentines. Not that there is anything wrong with that!(Sorry Seinfeld).

Disheartened, I have only one option left. To release my addition to this list on this 100 hits a month webpage. But before we do that it might be a good idea to understand the concept of IWD.

History of IWD:

According to the UN website : http://www.un.org/events/women/iwd/2008/history.shtml

1909: The first National Woman's Day was observed in the United States on 28 February. The Socialist Party of America(Yes, America) designated this day in honour of the 1908 garment workers' strike in New York, where women protested against working conditions.

Following years saw some anti war protests by women and further protest for better working conditions and right to vote(!) on March 8th.

1975 was International Women’s Year and since then UN has celebrated March 8th as the IWD.

Here is the UN General Assembly’s observance on the need for IWD:

Two reasons:

human rights and fundamental freedoms require the active participation, equality and development of women; and to acknowledge the contribution of women to the strengthening of international peace and security. For the women of the world, the Day's symbolism has a wider meaning: It is an occasion to review how far they have come in their struggle for equality, peace and development. It is also an opportunity to unite, network and mobilize for meaningful change.

So without further ado, I present my nomination list. Since these exceptional ladies or their work rarely make it to print/screen it might be a good idea to put in a few good words for them.

The Nominations Are:

1) Irom Sharmila Chanu: This brave woman continues her 9 year fast to persuade the Indian govt and people to dispel the repressive and dread law called AFSPA act. Here is the latest news on her.

Sharmila Released, Resumes Stir

2) Krishnammal Jagannathan: The winner of year 2008 Right Livelihood Award and the founder of LAFTI (Land for Tiller Freedom). I met this incredible woman during her Seattle visit and in her singing tone she narrated her story to us. Curious I read her biography called “Color Of Freedom” and discovered how this tireless woman has been constantly fighting for “equality, peace and development”. Here is a short video from democracy now(please follow to part II)

3) Dayamani Barla:

Tribal activist and journalist from Jharkhand, Dayamani Barla has won several prestigious awards for her coverage on displacement of tribals due to Arcelor Mittal’s steel plant. Born to parents who were cheated out of their land she paid her way to University by working as maid and sleeping at Railway stations to save money. Here is BBC coverage on her: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7610127.stm Here is another interesting article on her work. http://www.indiatogether.org/2008/dec/ksh-steel.htm

4) Women of Khabar Lahariya:

Khabar Lahariya - Bundeli for ‘News Waves’ - is a fortnightly rural newspaper written, edited, illustrated, produced and marketed by a group of women - most of them from marginalised Dalit, Kol and Muslim communities - in Chitrakoot and Banda districts of Uttar Pradesh in north India.

Checkout these clips on the newspaper: http://www.nirantar.net/khabar_taaza.htm

5) Arundhati Roy: Thanks to her best selling novel and activism she does not need an introduction here. I nominate her for her continued activism and her articles like "9 is not 11" and "Listening to the Grasshoppers". Some good writing from her is on http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/arundhatiroy

There are many more like Vandana Shiva, Medha Patkar and those others who are never talked about in the mainstream media. Forget about getting an hour’s worth of coverage like Amrita Arora got on her wedding on Star Plus. This list, therefore, will remain incomplete.

PS: Here is TOI's last year IWD winner: http://onethoughtcriminal.blogspot.com/2008/12/meanwhile-in-wonderland.html