INEQUALITY – A FLAWED CONCEPT AND A POLITICAL HOAX

 

Prosperity is built by deliberate choices to develop a society that works for everyone — an inclusive society, with a strong social contract that protects the fundamental liberties and security of each individual. It is driven by an open economy that harnesses the ideas and talents of the people of a nation. To assume that wealth can only be created by inheritance or unfair means is a sick communist idea. Human efforts to improve skills and material conditions results in wealth creation, and majority of wealth creators today are self made. To define how much profit is appropriate is an exercise designed to kill entrepreneurship and a plan to redistribute wealth of haves to have nots is the last nail in the coffin of a prosperous nation.

 

Why are we discussing this?

In this election the Congress has offered a plan of redistribution of wealth to achieve prosperity. The grand plan involves taxing the middle class and upper class disproportionately and giving 1 lac (Rs. 100,000) to one woman of every family, a total of 32 lack crore annually, almost the entire revenue expenditure of the Government of India! While a poll promise can be a hyperbole, the very idea is able to send an alarming shudder down the spine of our economy. It will surely discourage entrepreneurs, and their money will start getting invested overseas, thus halting our progress. When the tax payer’s money is used in welfare of the poor like giving free ration to the poor, educating their children, giving them easy loan to start a business, offer them healthcare services, home to live, electricity, cooking gas and running tap water, the tax payer feels proud. But when the same money is used to waive off bank loans, provide electricity to rich farmers to further deplete our water table, there surely is a problem.

 

Releasing the party's poll manifesto at a public meeting a Congress leader stressed on "jitni aabadi, utna haq" principle. "First, we will conduct a caste census...to know the exact population and status of backward castes, SCs, STs, minorities and other castes. After that, the financial and institutional survey will begin. Subsequently, we will take up the historic assignment to distribute the wealth of India, jobs and other welfare schemes to these sections based on their population.” The question that we are discussing is “is this how we will address poverty?” The grandmother started with “Garibi hatao” and the grandson is following it up with “Amiri hatao!”

 

Picketty has got it wrong

The million dollar question is “is inequality the cause of poverty?” Thomas Picketty, a famous economist and author strongly feels so and for him inequality is the problem and a higher tax is the solution. Even he does not advocate giving Rs. 100,000 annually to every family for doing nothing. Why will anyone work if they are assured a lifelong pension? Is this not the best recipe to kill the will to work and struggle to prosper. Equal distribution of wealth is not good, because people produce dramatically different amounts of value. If you do not reward them accordingly, they stop doing it, and ultimately the whole society will suffer.

 

Thomas Picketty

Picketty and his colleagues have for quite some time been harping on how today’s India is more unequal than the British Raj and the era of Nehruvian socialism.  Off course it is. India has embraced economic growth, free market and globalization and despite what his research paper entitled ‘Income and Wealth Inequality in India, 1922-23: The Rise of Billionaire Raj’ says, India is not abandoning the growth path and returning to the scary days of growth-less socialism. Post liberalization, the paper says, India has become more unequal. But, what it does not say is that during the same time 400 million people have been pulled out of poverty. Compare this to the pre-liberalization days, when poverty kept on increasing despite the sloganeering of ‘Garibi hatao!’ Picketty seems to have overlooked the British orchestrated Bengal famine during the British Raj, or does equality means that equally everyone died of poverty and hunger?

 

Are common people bothered about inequality?

Ask yourself an honest question; are the common people of this country angry with Adani and Ambani because they are rich? Or are they desperately trying to attract their attention and work in their ventures to contribute to nation building? Inequality is not a problem that policy makers in India should worry. Our economic challenge is to create sustainable growth and opportunities for hundreds of millions of youth, to exploit on our demographic dividend and government alone cannot do this without the help of private enterprise. We need not one or two Adani and Ambani, we need thousands of them. They will set up newer industries and create newer opportunities.

 

Those who specialize in sounding the alarm about rising inequality have rarely succeeded in doing anything about it. Probably they also know that nothing needs to be done and high growth creates higher inequality.

 

Gini coefficient

Gini is an index that takes the value of zero when income/wealth is equally distributed in a population and 1 if it is concentrated in the hands of one person. Thus a rising value of the index indicates rising inequality. In India Gini coefficient was 0.30 in 1993-94, 0.35 in 2004-5, 0.36 in 2009-10 and 20011-12. While post liberalization hundreds of millions experienced the joy of escaping extreme poverty, were they aware that inequality too increased with their prosperity? And were they even bothered? The common man knows what his consumption is, what his neighbour’s consumption is but does he even care about Adani’s consumption or for that matter, the nation’s Gini coefficient?

 

While we are at Gini, would you believe if I tell you that Kerala is the state with maximum consumption inequality, despite having a communist government and Bihar has the least consumption inequality? Yes, poorer states are more equal, but they are poor. So, people are concerned about poverty not inequality. Adani and Ambani are not getting rich at the cost of the poor. They are helping the poor by opening opportunities for them. That is what entrepreneurs do. Do you see protests in the streets and looting of shops by the agitated poor? I find people hurrying about their jobs and looking for opportunities. Every 5 years they get the opportunity to choose a new government, I don’t see them choosing the party which is most concerned about inequality and with a vintage slogan of ‘Garibi hatao!

 

Where does inequality matter?

It only matters in your immediate social circle. If Adani and Ambani add a few more billions to their kitty a common man is not concerned. But, in their immediate social context it is a different matter. How a select group of Yadavs became rich overnight in Uttar Pradesh did not escape the eyes of their neighbourhood. Their one time friends did not grudge the wealth of Adani and Ambani but surely the neo-rich Yadavs were a sore to their eyes.

 

In a developing country, fighting poverty triumphs over pursuit of equality. Poverty reduction requires wealth creation. If these wealth creators keep even a tiny portion of their profit as their share before reinvesting the rest in more opportunity creation for theose seeking an opening, their wealth gradually increases and they can afford extravagant wedding receptions for their children. The poor never grudge that so long as their own economic condition also improves. Needless to say, the wealth created also generates taxes for the government, which again can be invested in poverty alleviation programmes.

 

If redistribution of wealth is not the answer then what is?

We have to increase productivity and make a substantial shift from low skilled agricultural jobs to higher skilled manufacturing jobs. People cannot be paid for doing nothing in the name of wealth distribution. The answer lies in skilling, transportation, infrastructure and market development. Raising incomes will reduce poverty, and we can stop bothering about inequality. The negative effects of inequality are better tackled by increasing competition in the market enabling people to capture opportunities and strengthening social capital. Higher taxes and license raj are relics of the past, never to return again. Bolstering our human resource and improving overall governance along with reforms in education, manufacturing and environment are the need of the hour. Simplifying the laws, punishing the corrupt, enforcing equality before the law and an agile and swift justice system will help and restoring regressive tax laws will only result in black money, graft and disaster. Inequality is at best a political hoax, pulled out for the election season.

TREES MAKE CITIES LIVEABLE AND LIFE HAPPY AND HEALTHY

 

I have known the two flowering trees Amaltash or Golden Shower and Gulmohar or Royal Poinciana since my childhood. These trees were planted on either sides of the roads of Mahanagar in Lucknow, and we have been enjoying their beauty and their shade since childhood. When Amaltash is in full bloom you can hardly see any leaves......only a tree decked in golden yellow showering the flowers generously over you as you walk under their shade. In about six weeks these flowers will disappear and long legumes with seeds will take their place!

Amaltash or Golden Shower 

In some localities Gulmohar was the predominant species and the earth would be ablaze with red and the sky would stoop down to encircle the flames with the calm of blue. Streets were lined by these two varieties of trees and many of them still exist and enchant us. Walking to school under their shade on a carpet of red and yellow flowers is a childhood memory that will never leave me. Even today morning walk below the flowering Amaltash or Golden Shower tree is absolutely divine! Their pendulous inflorescence of mild scented yellow flowers and legumes are seen dangling from their branches in the hot summer months of April and May.

Mango tree in our backyard

In our home my father had planted trees of mango, custard apple, Guava, Lemon, Ashok and Neem. We have spent the best part of our childhood on their branches and in their shade. Our farm has a Mango orchard, a bordering of row of Poplar trees, two Jackfruit (Kathal) trees, 20 Indian Gooseberry (Amla) trees, and one banyan and one Neem tree.

Jacaranda lining the streets in Australia

When I stayed in Australia I was introduced to their blue cousin Jacaranda. These trees laden with blue inflorescence would line up on either side of King William Street in Fitzroy, where I stayed.

Amaltash is the national flower of Thailand and the state flower of Kerala, God's own country. Gulmohar tree is a native of Madascar but is widely seen all over India. It, like Amaltash, is gifted with many medicinal properties. It can be used as antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antifungal, antimicrobial, antioxidant, antimalarial, gastro-protective, cardio-protective along with wound healing properties. It is a popular belief is that when Jesus was crucified, his blood was shed on the flowers of the Royal Poinciana tree in the vicinity, which gave its flowers that vivid scarlet colour.

Gulmohar in full bloom

These trees were brought to India by the British and they planted them along the roads in their cantonment. The trees provide excellent shade to the weary travellers and when in full bloom they mesmerize the world!

These trees are so vital to our cityscape that they are one of the reason why this part of the city is considered most livable! It is a pity that the living canvas of colours these trees paint, are largely disregarded by us. We cut then down mercilessly to broaden roads for more cars and create concrete living spaces for more humans.

Students protesting against tree felling

Delhi lost around 112,000 trees between 2005 to 2017, largely to road construction. Mumbai’s old trees have borne the brunt of new development in the booming city, including road widening, transport projects, and housing construction. The new subway alone is destroying or damaging 5,000 trees, from hundreds of old street trees in the dense parts of the historic island city to more than 2,000 trees in a mini-forest in suburban Aarey Colony, where a rail car shed is to be built. In Bangalore, a historically green city that has become a traffic nightmare as its economy has grown, residents formed a human chain in May when they found 25 large flowering trees felled overnight to make street-side billboards more visible. The Faizabad Road from Lucknow to Ayodhya, Gorakhpur and further east was widened to accommodate more fast moving traffic at the expense of countless trees!

In the British city of Sheffield, where officials planned to fell 17,000 trees to improve roads and footpaths, residents recently staged mass rallies, hugged trees to prevent them from being cut, and, in some cases, were arrested by police. Despite the protests, the city cut down more than 5,000 trees.

 

Look at the difference

Cherry Blossom trees in Tokyo, Japan

Our disregard for these beautiful flowering trees and many fruit bearing trees like mango and jamun (black Java plum) in in sharp contrast to the near devotional status accorded to the Cherry Blossom trees in Japan whose seasonal blossoming is an efflorescence of almost mystical enrapture, drawing visitors from all over the world! The autumn fall in America’s North Atlantic coast is breathtaking with embers of brilliant red and brown and it attracts tourists from everywhere to witness the changing colours of the palette of nature. 

The mesmerizing colours of fall in Vermont

Trees are majestic and we need to appreciate that. The word ‘tree’ is derived from the old English ‘terow’ which means trust and promise. That is exactly what trees are; they are repositories of faith, living places of worship, mare not of stone and bricks but of sap, roots, leaves and flowers. No wonder Gautama Buddha attained Nirvana sitting under a Bodhi tree!

 

Why We Need Trees for our Cities

Many cities and urban communities around the world are beginning to make improving their “green infrastructure” a priority because they understand how vital trees are. Trees provide benefits that improve the quality of city life, making urban environments more livable and sustainable for everyone. Trees also help mitigate the negative outcomes that come with the modernization of facilities, businesses and services in our communities, such as pollution, heat and density. But most importantly trees can actually produce positive returns for the economy, especially when they are well taken care of.

Acting as the “lungs” of growing cities across the world, here are the reasons why we need trees in the urban landscape:

1.      Trees make cities more visually appealing.

Urban trees provide an aesthetic touch to our streetscape. By adding colour to grey spaces and separating various urban fabric elements (meaning pedestrians, motorists, buildings, parking lots, etc.) from one another, they transform busy cities into more harmonious and pleasing environments. Healthy trees are aesthetically pleasing. They create variations in color, texture, and height in the visual landscape. Their beauty can be a tourist draw, whether it’s bright autumnal foliage in Vermont or the gorgeous spring cherry blossoms in Japan.

 

2.     Trees improve air quality in cities.

With growing populations and advancing industrialization, air pollution is an unavoidable problem in developing cities. Fortunately, trees can minimize the toxic levels of air by drawing out carbon dioxide. A mature tree alone can absorb up to 48 pounds of carbon dioxide, while trees within street proximity absorb 9 times more pollutants than those planted far from each other. Research also shows that ozone is improved by 3% to 7% every time urban tree canopy increases by 10%.

 

3.     Trees create a cooling effect.

Trees lower the temperature in urban areas. They offer shade, large canopies like a parasol. They also release water vapor into the air, which is why the shade beneath a tree is often fresher than shade beneath a patio umbrella. Concrete streets, parking lots and asphalt buildings can increase urban temperature by around 3-7 degrees. By transpiring water and providing shade, trees are known to reduce this heat and create a cooling effect on local temperatures. With proper urban street tree planting, an average household in the city can also save around 15% to 35% off their energy bills.

 

4.     Trees clean the air we breathe

Trees are our biggest tool in the struggle to lower atmospheric carbon dioxide and mitigate climate change.  By adding oxygen and removing carbon dioxide, the trees help us breathe. Trees help manage air quality by reducing particulate and absorbing gases. A large healthy tree can remove 3.5 lbs of pollutants in one year. A single tree can have 5 acres worth of surfaces when calculating all the leaves and branches. The tree’s surfaces capture and settle particulate moving by on wind currents. When it rains, the channelization of water along branches and in bark helping wash this particulate to the ground, where it is filtered by soil and other plants.

 

Our Jackfruit tree

5.     Trees provide health benefits to citizens.

With their capacity to protect people from pollution and harsh weather, trees are helpful to those who are suffering from asthma, skin cancer, hypertension and other stress-related sicknesses. Trees can also address noise pollution issues that bother most people living in cities. Each mature tree can reduce unwanted noise by up to 6 decibels, while a vertical wall of trees serves as a buffer to loud street sounds. Trees create walk appeal. Where space is beautiful and safe, people are more likely to be active, including walking or riding a bicycle. In this way, trees encourage healthy lifestyles. Lower air pollution also is a likely contributor of good health.

 

6.     Trees improve the mental health of citizens

Being surrounded by trees lowers the level of stress hormones (cortisol) in our brains. Through their calming influence and therapeutic effect, they reduce the risk of stress and anxiety in a population.

 

7.     Trees allow cities to save costs.

A research performed in the U.K. by Natural England reported that every £1 spent on tree planting yielded £7 savings – which equated over £2.1 billion, if taken nationally. This is because, throughout their lifetimes, trees provide tangible benefits twice the amount invested into planting and caring for them. Such benefits can range from climate change mitigation, ecosystems conservation, disaster prevention, livelihood improvement and sustainable infrastructures.

 

8.     Trees improve economic health of people.

People who walk or ride through their community spend more time on the street. Perhaps this explains why pedestrians and cyclists spend more at local businesses. They’re not quickly moving past, and have more reasons to be drawn in. In some neighborhoods, this savings may be offset by housing charges but in others it leads to increased local retail profitability.

In urban environments, the local climate control of trees lowering both heating and cooling requirements helps prevent energy use. Creating a healthier microclimate helps lower the overall energy requirement of the city.

 

9.     Trees drive the values of properties up.

By providing a more pleasant and safer environment, surrounding trees increase property values by an average of 5% to 20%. According to professional realtors, street trees also add more value to adjacent houses and businesses than non-street trees.

 

10.  Trees enable cities to acquire a community identity.

Many neighborhoods, buildings, or developments in the western countries are named for their trees. Common place names such as Oakridge, Elmvale, Maple Grove celebrate the effect of local trees on creating a sense of identity for that place.

 

Our Mango orchard

11.  Trees enable cities to manage their stormwater better.

A massive portion of our cities’ ground surface is composed of impermeable materials that don’t effectively absorb water and mitigate flooding. Each mature and healthy tree, however, is capable of absorbing up to 450 litres of water through its roots. In addition, trees effectively prevent storm water (which might contain harmful chemicals) from reaching water courses.

 

12. Trees help biodiversity

Trees also help promote regional biodiversity. Birds, butterflies, squirrels, chipmunks, invertebrates and other local fauna require the habitat and sanctuary provided by trees. The tree’s ability to help prevent soil erosion can also help maintain understory vegetation. Improving and maintaining biodiversity is necessary for a sustainable city.

 

13. Trees help streamline traffic and calm drivers

Trees help with safe road design. They’re proven to slow average driving speeds. On medians, they reduce the chance of head-on crashes. A row of trees can also provide clear demarcation of pedestrian zones, creating a visual wall that helps keep drivers on the roadway.

Trees have a calming effect on drivers

 

Green Infrastructure

Green infrastructure protects life below water and life on land, while promoting sustainability. The ability of trees to reduce the pollution in the waterways is beneficial to human health and well-being. Trees are considered “decentralized green infrastructure” and can be important tools for managing water, especially in an urban ecosystem. Water runoff is a serious issue in the city environment, as runoff can increase the exposure to pollution and cause property damage. Trees can help reduce and intercept stormwater and improve the quality of runoff water. With less contact on impervious surfaces, stormwater is cooler and has fewer pollutants when it enters local waterways and water-related ecosystems. Trees can also be valuable in phytoremediation, where they can remove heavy metals and other contaminants from the environment. While gray infrastructure depreciates over time, trees appreciate in value as they mature. Investing in trees will result in sustainable cities with happier and healthier people. 

 

Problems Trees in an Urban Environment Face:

An urban tree’s lifespan is significantly shorter than one found in a forest. Why? Short answer is ‘we humans’. Other causes are:

• They do not have other trees nearby to share nutrients with
• They do not have other trees to protect them from wind and sun 
• Their soil is contaminated with byproduct of cities; chemicals, paint, chlorine
• They have limited area to grow due to streets, sidewalks, power lines, and driveways
• They experience root disturbance from plumbing, construction, or trenching
• Temperatures in a city is higher due to concrete and less shade from other trees
• The suffer electrical fires from nearby electric wires

These stressors impact the trees quality of life and because of this urban trees need extra assistance from humans to correct these manmade problems they would not run into if they were in a forest.

 

An unfortunate and sad tree in urban environment

As cities grow with more buildings and traffic, we need more trees, not less. City trees provide a host of functions — absorbing carbon dioxide, filtering pollution, cooling the air, shading pedestrians from sun and rain, slowing down floods, and nurturing wildlife. On crowded Indian streets, large old trees are used as niches for rest or small commerce, providing a shady spot for a cobbler or coconut-seller. In dense neighbourhoods, green canopies muffle noise and give apartments privacy. In hot weather countries shade from trees makes streets tolerable. I have known this since my childhood days when I would walk on the red and yellow flower covered streets under the shade of Gulmohar and Amaltash from home to school and back. Once home, I have spent hours playing in the shade and in the branches of mango and guava trees in our garden.

Our mango tree at home, a responsible and loving member of our family

MY PROBLEMS WITH PROCRASTINATION - N.B.C FOUNDER'S DAY ORATION

 

The National Burns Center (NBC) promoted by the Indian Burns Research Society is a unique and pioneering project to tackle burns holistically. It was conceptualized by Dr. Manohar Hariram Keswani, a doyen in the field of burn care and research. He acquired training in burn management in  Birmingham and then in the University of Texas and the US Army Research Hospital in the United States of America. In 1975, he set up the first paediatric Burns unit in the country at The Bai Jerbai Wadia Hospital for children in Bombay and also established the first skin bank in the year 1978. In 1992, he organised and started a state of the art burns department at the Masina Hospital which was called the Kharas Memorial Burns Department. In 1998, he planned and helped to set up a 16-bedded Burns Department at the Jubilee Mission Medical College Hospital in Trichur, Kerala, in South India for his friend and batch mate Dr. Hirji Adenwalla..

Dr. M.H. Keswani

In the year 2002, he ventured on a gigantic project – the NBC. Almost everone, friends and colleagues, advised him to abort the idea as it was impossible for one man to complete what he had in mind. With tremendous perseverance and courage and sinking his own meager resources in it, he founded the National Burns Centre at Airoli in New Bombay. 

 The primary goal of NBC is to evolve simplified methods of treatment to reduce cost-of-treatment & and to give a near normal functional life to burn survivors. It was commissioned on 5th October 2001 with 50 bed capacity. It is a holistic specialized center of excellence for Prevention, Treatment, Training, Rehabilitation & Research, relating to Burns.

The NBC strives to touch the life of suffering burns patients, understand their problems and provide    solutions in terms of pain relief, scar management, deformity corrections and ultimately physical, psychological and social rehabilitation. Its Intensive Burn Care Unit (IBCU) was inaugurated on 2nd Aug 2009 and its skin bank was inaugurated on 21st NOV 2009. This was the first skin bank of India.

Today, the NBC is ably managed by Dr. Manohar Keswani’s son, Dr. Sunil Keswani. Every time I see Sunil, I see a giant standing on the shoulder of another giant. In the last two decades he has left an indelible impression on burn care and research in our sub-continent. Almost every burn care unit has professionals trained in his NBC and every skin bank in this part of the world has opened by his active support and assistance.

April 8 is the birthday of Dr. Manohar Keswani and on the Sunday nearest to that date the NBC celebrates its Foundation Day. Every year it has an eminent orator delivering the Foundation Day Oration on this day to a select audience of friends and well wishers of NBC. This year they made a small compromise with their standards and I was privileged to be the orator. It was my good fortune and a fan moment to have Prof. Farokh Uduwadia, an eminent physician, a very famous author and an outstanding human being, besides being Dr. Manohar Keswani’s batch mate, presiding over the function. I have read his books Tabiyat and Man and Medicine and have had his text book ‘Principles of Critical Care’ thrown at my face every time I have argued with the Critical Care doctors.

 

This is the LINK to the VIDEO RECORDING of the NBC FOUNDERS DAY PROGRAMME on April 7, 2024

 

Speakers

Dr Surajit Bhattacharya - Founder's Day Oration

Dr Sujit Chatterjee - Philosophy of Life and Death

Dr Priscilla Joshi - AI in Healthcare

Dr Farokh Udwadia - Remembering my batchmate Manohar Keswani

Dr Hoshang Patell - National Burns Centre and Dr. M.H. Keswani

 

Topic of ORATION :

MY PROBLEM WITH PROCRASTINATION

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Mn9d25JMOqH8AI7w5UGLryCgPIBO8P4P/view?usp=drivesdk