According to Agriculture Census 2000-01, two-thirds (64.34%) of the 11.6 million land holdings in Bihar are smaller than 2000 sq. meters (i.e. 0.5 acres). These sub-half acre holdings account for nearly 20% of the total cultivable area in the state and their average size is just 760 sq. meters (0.19 acres).  I wonder how the rice-wheat cropping system, predominant in Bihar, can be sustained on such stamp sized plots.

Elsewhere smallholders are diversifying to high value crops and crop based activities (like dairying) to eke out a living off their tiny plots. But that does not seem to be happening in Bihar. Here rice-wheat system continues to dominate agriculture. Rice-Wheat cropping on such small plots, with yields as low as they are in Bihar (rice+wheat<4 tons/ha), cannot provide enough food or employment. These 7.5 million smallholder families must be supplementing their incomes from other activities–like working in others’ fields and migrating to villages and cities of other states of India–just to survive. If so, then the claim that 3/4th of the working population in rural Bihar is employed mainly in agriculture becomes suspect. It may still be true, but it definitely requires closer scrutiny.

The Economist says it’s working.  Rural job guarantees faring well. India’s grand experiment with public works enjoys a moment in the sun.

Tushaar Shah argues in an Op-ed in Times of India that replacing NREGS with a cash transfers program is a bad idea. NREGA is self-selecting while a cash transfer program will be completely hijacked by the rich and the connected.  Cash transfers is a flawed alternative to NREGS.

Common people living in resource rich areas often end up paying dearly for the riches. Tribals in mineral rich Chhattisgarh are no exception.

This is from a government report:

….”The report is devastatingly frank about the collusion between government and big business, even accusing the two of funding and fuelling the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh. “This open, declared war will go down as the biggest land grab ever…. Tata Steel and Essar Steel…wanted seven villages or thereabouts…to mine the richest lode of iron ore available in India. (After) initial resistance from the tribals…the state withdrew its plans. A new approach was necessary…. (It) came about with the Salwa Judum…headed by the Murias, some of them erstwhile (Maoist) cadres. Behind them are traders, contractors and miners…. The first financiers of the Salwa Judum were Tata and Essar…640 villages…were laid bare, burnt to the ground and emptied with the force of the gun and the blessings of the state. (Some) 3,50,000 tribals, half the total population of Dantewada district, are displaced, their womenfolk raped, their daughters killed and their youth maimed. Those who could not escape into the jungle were herded together into refugee camps run and managed by the Salwa Judum…640 villages are empty. Villages sitting on tons of iron ore are effectively de-peopled and available for the highest bidder. The latest information being circulated is that both Essar Steel and Tata Steel are willing to take over the empty landscape and manage the mines.”

An interesting article from Time magazine that captures the West’s view of India’s intransigence in climate negotiations. Factual details of the article are less interesting than its tone. Read it for the tone, not for the facts. While the title suggests that the article will be about why India refuses to co-operate, that is not what it is. It is more about how “we” (the Americans) see India’s attitude and how pissed off we are at it.

“What is clear is that the first step in a successful outcome in Copenhagen will need to come from the U.S., the country responsible for nearly a quarter of the CO2 that is warming our planet. India and other developing nations will have to follow. It’s not exactly fair, but there’s nothing fair about climate change”.

There is some of “we are also responsible and we should act” type self-flagellation here that is typical of liberal America, also seen in its approach to WTO, world peace, and everything else. But it is more deception than sincerity. Like their European ancestors, they “want gold and slaves but at the same time they want statues put up to themselves too” as people who care a lot about the planet earth.

In climate negotiations, it is amazing how the past is being washed away; there is only the present and the future.

वो लोग बहुत ख़ुशक़िस्मत थे
जो इश्क़ को काम समझते थे
या काम से आशिक़ी करते थे
हम जीते जी मसरूफ़ रहे
कुछ इश्क़ किया कुछ काम किया

काम इश्क़ के आड़े आता रहा
और इश्क़ से काम उलझता रहा
फिर आख़िर तंग आकर हम ने
दोनों को अधूरा छोड़ दिया

Gideon Gono, the governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank, won the Ig Nobel prize for Mathematics in 2009. He was recognized for:

“giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers — from very small to very big — by having his bank print bank notes with denominations ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000)”.

In 2008, Zimbabwe’s peak hyperinflation rate reached 79,600,000,000 %(79.6 billion %) per month. At this rate, nominal price of things would double every 24 hours. Hungary, in 1945-46, experienced inflation rate of 41.9 quadrillion percent (41,900,000,000,000,000)per month, a record unsurpassed: na bhuto, na bhavishyati.

Other Ig Nobel Prizes are just as interesting and deserving.

The PEACE prize went to Stephen Bolliger, Stephen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland:

“for determining — by experiment — whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle”.

And the Economics Prize was awarded to the directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic Banks: Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland:

“for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy”.

Muzaffarpur is my hometown, “the place I belong”.

Muzaffarpur is the largest town in north Bihar. It is a relatively new settlement with humble beginnings. The founder, Muzaffar Khan, was an amil ( revenue collector) of Mughals in eighteenth century. Years before East India Company’s accession to the Diwani, he selected 75 bighas (~ 68 acres or 0.27 sq. km) of land from the village of Sikandarpur on the north, Kanhauli on the east, Sayyidpur on the south,  and Sariyaganj on the west, and called the town Muzaffarpur, after his own name.

Few noticed the founding of the new town. For decades it remained an obscure place.  The name Muzaffarpur does not even appear in the settlement records of 1790. Apparently, no one in the government knew it existed till one Sankar Dat brought it to the attention of the Company officials. We do not know who this Sankar Dat was. In 1817, more than half a century after its founding, Muzaffarpur had only 667 houses. It was still a village. But then the town grew rapidly and by the Census of 1872, it had become the second largest town in Tirhut district after Darbhanga with a population of 38,223. Darbhanga (47,450), Hajipur (22,306), Lalganj (12,338), Rosera (9441) and Sitamarhi (5496) were other major towns of Tirhut in 1872. After the famine of 1874, Tirhut was split into districts of Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur in 1875. Muzaffarpur town became the administrative headquarter of the eponymous district.

(This is from WW Hunter’s A Statistical Record of Bengal, Vol. XII, first published in 1877. More will follow as I read more).

Chhath is the biggest festival of Bihari Hindus.

The chairman of Nobel Peace Prize committee defends this year’s award to President Obama. He says, in choosing the winner, the committe was looking at what Alfred Nobel said in his will — namely, to give the prize to the person who has done most for peaceful development in the world in the last year.

Is that person President Obama? I don’t think so.