IMAGINATION RULES THE WORLD

 

 

When I was in school I was often caught staring out of an open window or at a blank wall, all lost on my own world and not paying attention to what was being taught. Needless to say this often led to detention, punishment and a note to my parents. I had no problems with that but what I resented was the blame of 'inattentiveness'. I was not being inattentive but on the contrary I was being extremely attentive in my world of dreams in my open sky of imaginations. It is quite a different issue that neither I could put this in words then and nor did my teachers understand my predicament but I was convinced that whatever I was doing was far more interesting than the lessons being taught! 

 

I was dreaming of becoming like the surgeon who took out my tonsils and offered me ice cream the same evening when I was 6. I was dreaming of playing cricket in Lords like my hero Sir Garfield Sobers, going to the space like Yuri Gagarin and I was dreaming of becoming the Principal of my college like the legendary Mr. H. L. Dutt. And I did all this because my father often said that 'If you can imagine it, you can become it!' Imagination is not a waste of time; it is a road map for future.

 

Imagination is endless. It is a power vested in each and every one of us. Neither the skies nor the stars are the limit for an individual’s imagination for we are the only determinants of what we can and can’t imagine. Our varying experience in life, however, will create a great difference of pattern of our imagination. Why else would William Blake, the romantic English poet, painter and print maker say “A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees”!

 

Conflicting opinions

Imagination has not always been very kindly looked upon over the ages. Plato, the Athenian philosopher of the Classical period in Ancient Greece and founder of the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world, looked down upon imagination as something wishy-washy, illusionary and just a distraction. However his student Aristotle, the famous Greek philosopher, considered imagination to be the foundation of all knowledge.

 

Our brain sets us apart from other species and provides such a rich internal playground for us to think freely and creatively. Imagination helps us to create a mental image about persons, places and things. Colours, shapes, voices, movements and all such scattered bits of information, which we gather from our experience and knowledge, coalesce and synthesize to form a pattern, a collage which is very uniquely ours. While you can copy-paste my words, my verses and and can pirate my videos and audios you can never replicate my thoughts and my imagination. I hold their divine copyright and will continue to do so as long as I live!

 

Imagination is what allows us to envisage our life goals and our greatest successes. It symbolizes our vast potential in life, which is actually limitless. It shows us that despite what we may be told or what others expect of us, we are as capable as we strive to be. Imagination gives us what we seek most in hard times: hope. Our imagination allows us to enjoy the small things in life and extracts more gratification from even our hardships.

 

Imagination and creativity

Noted scientist and thinker Albert Einstein stressed that imagination was more important than knowledge. This is because knowledge is limited to what is known and understood while imagination embraces the world and points to all there ever will be to know and understand. Imagination is at the basis of creative actions like art, science or engineering. An artist with an overly active imagination would be a good and productive artist, but a run-of-the-mill person with a fearful imagination would be crazy.

 

One can improve his/her imagination with practice, by creating complex and varied lenses through which to see the world. It is one thing to imagine the world as you would like to see but it is quite different and difficult to imagine it through the imagination of others. This is what authors and novelists do day in and day out. Geniuses like Sarat Chandra Chattopadhayya, Munshi Prem Ckand, William Shakespeare have created memorable characters like Paro, Dhania and Portia respectively by imagining the world they lived in and the complexities in their lives they led. More recently how can we forget the trials and tribulations of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, and their fascinating Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry created so beautifully by J. K. Rowling? The ability to disappear in their character and inhabit their point of view as if living their lives is what makes these characters memorable and  all this the genius of the author’s imagination.

 

The downside

Unfortunately if imagination becomes day dreaming at work it can be disastrous. Besides the consequences of inattentiveness, which itself can cost multiple lives as seen in accidents in road, air and sea, failing to concentrate on the task in hand and dreaming of Utopia is outright foolish. Imagination also gives rise to something else: expectations. Expectations always seem right until they aren’t fulfilled. Expectations can lead to great satisfaction and a feeling of accomplishment that everyone hopes to achieve in their life. However, unfulfilled expectations fill us with an agonizing feeling of disappointment. Simply put, it is like building a magnificent castle in the air only to see it come crashing down with the slightest jostle from the wind. Our imagination gives us the capacity to dream of accomplishing whatever we can conceive with the magic of our minds. But what it doesn’t give, is the rationale to know what our current capacity seems to be. So imagination should be a stimulus to achieve and not a destination by any means. Only a rational mind will understand this.

 

Having a focus on something creative will provide an excellent way to exorcise the catastrophic thoughts of depression into something productive and positive. An unused but over active imagination is a terrible thing to waste. Not all imaginations are creative; some are stupid, some fearful while others can be even feral in nature. How else can you explain the common imagination of 72 hoor (virgins) in heaven for every God fearing Muslim as the Taliban preaches?

 

What is technology doing to imagination?

My parents read the great Indian epics, Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Jatak Kathas to us when we were children. Those were the pre- television days and so there was no visual support. Our parents would emote them and we would imagine our own Ayodhya, Hastinapur, Sita and Draupadi in our minds. The better was the description the more vivid was our imagination. Then came Amar Chitra Katha and and all these characters from our imagination as if came to life. The television gave human face and feelings to these individuals and the stories became even more interesting. But now very little was left to imagination.

 

Has technology killed imagination?

This is a really difficult question because while I have to agonizingly agree that technology has replaced creativity with piracy the fact that it has given wings to imagination and oxygen to innovations cannot be denied. Any thesis or academic writing is rarely original today because the computer and the internet has made it easy to access academic information at any given point in time. This restricts human imagination and creativity in academic settings. Replication of information has become easy and intellectual data theft is rampant thanks to technology. Perhaps the biggest obstacle in giving a free rein to human imagination has been the use of pirated software and products in the market. Data theft has become a common problem across creative fields such as movie making and fiction writing thanks to piracy and the influx of technology. Technology has mechanized everything from music to film making and there is no scope for innovation or human creativity to take flight and special effects further cancel out human imagination and creativity. Thanks to the presence of graphics software and other technological advancements, creativity and originality have gone for a toss. Replicating Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or Van Gogh’s Sunflowers is now possible with the click of a mouse.

But on the other hand the fact that technology has made many innovations possible in fields as diverse as music, entertainment and film-making cannot be overlooked. It has expanded the scope and power of human imagination by enhancing the limits to which one can go in the creative process in the health sector and enabled healthcare to become life prolonging. Using scientific creativity and human innovation, biotechnology has revolutionized the field of pharma and healthcare. Technology has also boosted communication which facilitates creativity through the spread of knowledge and ideas across the globe. Technology has provided an online knowledge industry which is thriving and enhancing human creativity by leaps and bounds. So it will be fair to say that technology has only unleashed the power and potential of human creativity and imagination.

Imagination is also a great way to identify what is going on in your unconscious mind – your outside world is a mirror image of the inside and hidden mental world. Deepak Chopra, the Indian American author and alternative medicine advocate talks about the mind and the body in parallel universes. Anything that happens in the mental universe must leave tracks in the physical one. 

 

Napoleon was spot on 'Imagination rules the world!' 

THE M.S.P CONUNDRUM

 

MSP or Minimum Support Price of food grains was introduced in the 60s during the Green Revolution to encourage farmers to grow food crops. This is the floor price at which the food grains are procured from the farmers by the central and state governments. Though 23 crops have declared MSP but bulk of procurement is of wheat and paddy only.

 

The agitating farmers and their Marxist supporters argue that since succeeding governments have been declaring MSP year after year, twice a year, why not make it a law? After all when 900 million farm dependent individuals are producing food grains for 1.38 billion countrymen should their income not be legally guaranteed? By not making it legally binding the feel the government is not sincere and intends to trick the farmers at some stage in future. They have a suspicion that the declaration of MSP twice a year is just a wink and nudge policy, which is nothing to be proud of. They claim that their demand for legal guarantee of MSP is in the constitution of our nation as a fundamental right to life and livelihood of 900 million people and so the government can no longer ignore it.

 

So, where is the problem? The problem is in the not so subtle demand of the Marxists to nationalization agriculture in our country. They are asking the government to use the tax payer's money to procure food grains, in far excess of our needs at a high price and then sell it at a low price through our PDS and ration shops till it goes bankrupt. These are the same socialist ideas which resulted in mortgaging of our gold stocks in London in 1991 outraging our national sentiments.

 

Now if you thought that was the only demand of the agitating farmers you are wrong. They want the government to enact the law in such a way that even private traders will be compelled to buy food grains at the same inflated cost! Why will they do that and suffer losses? Why will they not import the same grains from overseas market at a fraction of the declared MSP? No, our agitating farmers will then want the government to increase tariff on such imports to legislate losses of the private sector to suit their Marxist whims and fancies! Naturally the traders will not suffer losses and so we, the tax payers, will be forced to pay higher price for food grains.

 

Can you even imagine what will actually happen if MSP is legalized? There will be no buyers and the farmers will be forced to sell surreptitiously at a price even lower than the actual low market price. Inspector Raj will once again prosper and black marketing of food grains will become a norm. Black Market traders will be prosecuted and jailed and our food distribution system will collapse. 

 

Let us forget the obvious shortcomings of legislating MSP and appreciate a few other irregularities. The government of the day has acquired 100 million tons of food grains from the farmers at MSP and have spent 2 lakh crore rupees in the process. This stockpile is far more than the buffer stock required for our entire country. So what are we going to do with this excess? Surely we cannot export them, because at the procurement price which is MSP we cannot compete with other food grain producing countries and the World Trade Organization(WTO) will not allow us to export heavily subsidized food produce anyway. So all this excess food grains, after giving free rations to the poor will still remain in our godown, rot in the coming monsoon and get eaten by rats.

 

Then again, MSP is only declared for 23 crops and the government ends up buying wheat, paddy and a few pulses. So naturally, the farmers of Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh, from where most food grain procurement is done, end up cultivating only wheat and paddy. So there is excessive procurement of these crops at the expense of other crops like oil seeds and pulses which may be more nutritious and earn more export revenue. 

 

Paddy is a water guzzling crop and it depletes the water table of this area and so it is totally unsuitable to grow here. The water for this crop is pumped out using electricity which in turn is either free or grossly subsidized, thus further taxing the tax payer. 

 

As if that was not enough, after harvesting the paddy the stubble is burnt in the field to prepare the field quickly for subsequent wheat crop. Stubble burning emits  gaseous pollutants such as, carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), and methane (CH4) as well as particulate matters (PM10 and PM2.5) causing serious damage to human health and the environment. About 84 Mt (23.86%) of the stubble is burnt on-field each year immediately after harvest. The disastrous haze observed over India during the winter season has been linked to stubble burning as it coincides with the burning periods (October-November). 

 

The irony of MSP is that the poor farmers get virtually nothing out of it because they have very little or no surplus to sell and they live on the produce of their land. So, though they have their own land but financially they are no better than farm labourers. The reversal of farm laws have made the plans of their poverty eradication even harder. Accounting for nearly 5 crore (In Indian number system crore is 100 million or 10,000,000) of India's 12.5 crore of unviable land holdings the states most likely to suffer are Bihar, Jharkhand, U.P and M.P. So subsidized big farmers will hake hay while sun will not shine on poor farmers. The hypocrisy of the Marxists was never more obvious when the abandoned the poor small farmers and took the side of large farm owners!  This will effect the poor small farmer's multidimensional poverty index constructed on their health, education and standard of living indicators like nutrition, years of schooling and amenities like  pucca housing, cooking fuel, electricity sanitation, household assets etc. The government's welfare schemes will have to take care of them and they will remain poor.

 

The concept of nationalizing agriculture, setting a MSP for every crop and forcing the private sector to buy at that inflated price will not only lead to unprecedented corruption but will be extremely harmful for our economy. The demand and supply equation of the market should decide the price of every food grain and not the ministers and bureaucrats sitting in centre and state capitals. We have to reject this failed policy of Marxism outright. A government’s duty is to ensure justice, security and infrastructure and has been so since ages. Even Kautilya's Arthashastra emphasizes on free trade and good regulations.

 

Solution

Yes, farmers require help and that is undeniable but let that not be in the form of MSP and unhealthy subsidies in seed procurement, fertilizers, electricity etc. Let us form a committee comprising of farmers, agriculture scientists, economists, judicial luminaries and government representatives and calculate the input cost and cost of labour. Then let us decide what amount the farmers should earn per hectare for every crop so that his income is doubled. Let us subtract the market price of his crop and pay the rest as Kisan Samman Nidhi. But for this to take force there should be strict conditions - the farmers will grow what the country needs and not what they have grown traditionally. They will have to abide by all the environmental laws, pay for seeds, fertilizers and electricity. All payouts should be digital, without any intervention by middle men, and farmers earning beyond the standard deduction should pay taxes like the rest of the countrymen. For a very long time the rich farmers and the corrupt politicians have avoided taxes by showing spurious farm incomes. 

 

Let there be wide consultation and new laws be enacted to facilitate enterprise. Only then the private sector will invest in food processing, storage, transportation and export. Only wheat and paddy cultivation is not farming. We need policy for our dairy sector, fisheries, poultry farming, bee keeping and all of them have export potential. Getting bogged down by a bunch of Marxist loonies is not helping our greater cause.

POTATO PEELS – DON’T JUST THROW THEM AWAY

We often peel the potato and discard the peel. My mother always fried them into spicy crispy bits and as those were the pre packaged Kurkure days, this was one of our favourite home made fast food. Her lifelong habit of frugality and her obsession with making the best use of every object purchased shaped our childhood and our choices in life. Little did I know that the skin is the most nutritious part of a potato? Not only that. Potato peels can also be beneficial for your skin and hair in a variety of ways!

 

1. They are quite nutritious! By adding it to your diet, you will get a variety of vitamins and minerals. According to the USDA, 100 g of raw potato peels contains 83.3 g of water and gives 243 kJ of energy. Apart from that, the skins also include: Protein: 2.57 g, Dietary fiber: 2.5 g, Calcium: 30 mg, Iron: 3.24 mg, Magnesium: 23 mg, Phosphorus: 38 mg, Potassium: 413 mg, Sodium: 10 mg, Zinc: 0.35 mg, Copper: 0.42 mg, Manganese: 0.6 mg, Selenium: 0.3 mcg, Vitamin C: 11.4 mg, Vitamin B3: 1.03 mg and Folate: 17 mcg. So the peels are rich in proteins, essential minerals, trace elements and vitamins and we have been routinely throwing them away!

 

2. They are good for your heart: Since potato peels are rich in potassium, an essential mineral for maintaining and regulating blood pressure, they are considered good for heart. They are also loaded with magnesium and calcium, which, according to Harvard Medical School, also help control blood pressure. Furthermore, peels have powerful radical scavenging, or antioxidant, activity because of chlorogenic and gallic acids – two dominant compounds that help maintain the health of your heart by reducing damage caused by free radicals. Recent research has shown that free radical damage may cause many chronic health problems, such as cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases. Antioxidants can prevent that damage, as they eradicate free radicals by neutralizing them.

 

3. They can help heal wounds: A very famous Plastic Surgeon of yesteryear Dr. M.H. Keshwani in Mumbai dressed burn wounds with potato peel. He compared treatment with plain gauze dressings and the application of the potato peel dressing and showed that the latter reduced or eliminated wound dessication (drying up), permitted the survival of superficial skin cells and hastened epithelial regeneration. Potato peels contain terpenes and flavonoid organic compounds, both of which have been proven to prevent bacterial and fungal infections. They moisturize the skin, and are readily available, inexpensive, and easy to apply.

 

4. They act as a natural hair coloring agent: A little-known benefit of potato peels is that they can color grey hair. The peels contain several vital nutrients, such as iron, zinc, copper, calcium, potassium, niacin, and magnesium that help provide a natural look and color to your hair. So, if you're looking for a natural and eco-friendly way to dye your hair, just use potato peels. Boil the potato peels with a cup of water and wait for the boiled peels to cool for 5 minutes. Now strain the boiled peels through a strainer and discard them. Let the strained liquid cool and apply it on your shampooed and air dried hairs generously. Wipe the excess with a towel and allow your hair to dry naturally without washing it. Your hairs will look darker.

 

5. They act as natural cleanser and help lighten dark spots: Apart from antioxidant and antibacterial compounds, potato skins also contain phenolic compounds. Together, these compounds have a brightening effect on the skin. The act as natural cleanser and if you rub raw potato paste on your face and leave on for 25 minutes and rinse with lukewarm water, it will impart a natural glow to your skin. Thus they can help lighten dark spots on the skin or help reduce dark circles that appear under the eyes. All you need to do is collect some fresh potato skins and rub them over the dark spots for a few minutes. Alternatively, you can make a fine paste of the peels and rub them on the problem area every day. You should start seeing results in about three weeks!

 

6. Anti-inflammatory and anti-allergy effects: Potato peels are a natural source of a flavonoid called quercetin. Flavonoids are a group of natural substances found in fruits, vegetables, plants, and trees that are believed to protect against disease. Today such medicinal products derived from plants go by the fancy name of ‘Phytoceauticals’. The flavonoid quercetin has been shown to have an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effect that protects the body against disease and infection. Quercetin can be effective for treating bronchial asthma, allergic rhinitis, and peanut-induced anaphylactic reactions and is the main ingredient in several potential anti-allergy drugs.

 

7. Can reduce glucose levels: Dietary fiber and polyphenols in potato peel powder can help lower glucose levels when added to the diet for at least four weeks. Furthermore, the vegetable’s skin also helps limit free radical damage to the liver and kidneys and enhances their functions in people with diabetes.

 

8. They help in maintaining bone health: The peels consist of nutrients like magnesium, phosphorus, calcium, iron, etc., which help in maintaining bone strength and density thus reducing the risk of osteoporosis in post-menopausal women. 

 

 

How to add potato peel in our diet?

There are numerous recipes out there for making dishes with potato skins. But, you must first make sure that you are eating them in a healthy way. Otherwise, you won’t get their nutritious benefits.

•        Add them to your salads for a low-calorie healthy lunch.

•        Bake a potato without peeling off its skin and add salt and pepper, and very light simple toppings for a nutritious and delicious snack.

•        Bake potato skins with sour cream, chicken, beans. Pan toss them, add cucumber slices and salad dressings for a yummy snack.

•         Rub the cleaned skins with ghee and salt and bake them until crispy.

Potato peels are also loaded with iron, that helps support red blood cell function. The skin is also a good source of vitamin B3 that helps cells break down nutrients into usable fuel. In addition, vitamin B3 helps your cells recover from physiological stress. The indigestible portions of the potato's skin are made up of various types of cellulose, better known as insoluble dietary fiber. So, next time you are peeling a potato to create your magical cuisine think twice before throwing away the peels.

 

 

THE JAM TRINITY

The JanDhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) trinity has proved to be a game-changer and helped in reaching out to the citizens living in the farthest corners of the country, during the coronavirus pandemic. With the lockdown placing immense strain on the household budgets of several sections of society, the JAM trinity acted as a safety net and helped millions who were in need immediate monetary assistance. Introduced in the first term of this Government, the Jan Dhan scheme proved to be a boon and its Its strong inter-linkage with the mobile linked Aadhaar scheme has facilitated swift transfer of money into bank accounts of beneficiaries without pilferage or corruption.

 

Even before the pandemic this was used as a vehicle of direct fund transfer of MSP of farm produce and Kisan Samman Nidhi. This was also the modality of transfer of relief funds for natural disasters, insurance for unskilled labourers, repaying LPG, farm fertilizer and other subsidies and MNREGA. Student subsidies for dresses, books, school-bags for students in government schools along with their scholarship money is also paid similarly. The government spends about 4.2% of the GDP on subsidies. This is a costly affair and in the past most of the benefits did not reach the intended beneficiaries. The rich ended up taking most of the benefits and corruption was rampant. Disgusted with the situation in 1985, the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, had said that out of every rupee spent by the government for welfare of the downtrodden, only fifteen paise actually reached the persons for whom it was intended!

 

As if that was not enough there were lots of leakages in the way to the beneficiaries. Over 15% of PDS rice, 54% of wheat, and 48% of the sugar are lost in leakages. The Centre and States supply rice, wheat, pulses, cooking oil, sugar and kerosene at heavily subsidised prices through the PDS. Then, sectors such as power, fertilisers and oil sell their products to people below market prices. Such subsidies cost the exchequer quite a bit. Yet, as they used to make their winding way through the hands of intermediaries, leakages, corruption and inefficiencies nibbled away substantial parts. So naturally, despite the centre announcing subsidies and aid packages there were no change in the living standards of the poor. With Aadhaar helping in direct biometric identification of disadvantaged citizens and Jan Dhan bank accounts and mobile phones allowing direct transfers of funds into their accounts, it was made possible to cut out all the intermediaries and so the corruption.

Why blame the intermediaries only, even the State governments were either corrupt or careless. Millions of students of minority communities disappeared from the list of beneficiaries when biometric identification was made mandatory for scholarships! Who was thriving on this loot before JAM?

 

Cash-based social assistance can be delivered most efficiently and timely when the percentage of the population that has access to the three components—IDs, phones, and financial accounts—is high, systems are well-integrated, the existing system of benefits and transfers has wide coverage, and benefits are paid through financial accounts linked to the ID. The government has created a JAM Index based on Findex data to rank countries on their use of ID systems, mobile phones, and financial accounts to effectively make government payments. India and Kenya are two top ranking countries in this index. The Prime Minister Jan Dhan Yojna or PMJDY accounts helped the government to reach everyone, even if the accounts were zero balance accounts. Even people who hesitated to enter the mainstream were also brought in and given confidence, with opening of their accounts, disbursing of RuPay Cards and insurance cover. The financial inclusion thus brought in by Jan Dhan stood with the underprivileged during a pandemic and it was because of Jan Dhan that many people and small businesses were able to get collateral-free loans.

 

Aadhaar seeding of bank accounts gave the government an instant KYC (know your client) benefit. This enabled beneficiaries getting benefits directly into their Jan Dhan and KYC verified accounts. The government thus used these three modes of identification to implement one of the biggest reforms in independent India – direct subsidy transfers to the poor.

 

So even if the JAM Trinity does make your goods and services dearer in the short-term, take heart. Over the long-term, the plugging of leakages and savings for the government will mean a lower burden on you, the taxpayer. Of course, lower subsidies and fiscal deficit will also mean a better credit standing for India. If India can afford to immunize 1 billion plus people today, a substantial credit should go to the savings from plugging these unholy leakages, along with the extra that we are paying for petrol!

Now do you remember how so many progressive thinkers and elites, both inside and outside the country, made fun of Jan Dhan Accounts as empty accounts, wasting banking time? How a learned former Finance Minister mocked digital payment by wondering whether his green grocer will ever accept digital payment for 2 Kg of potato? Today not only the green grocer but the ice cream vendor, the three wheel driver, the barber, the cobbler and the paan-wala all accept digital payment on BHIM or PayTM apps. Imagine how much extra GST the government is earning from these digital payments! All these were cash transactions in the past and invisible to the tax-men.

 

The JanDhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) trinity has undoubtedly changed the financial condition of the poor in our country. By bringing the financially excluded in the mainstream of banking, by saving pilferage and disbursing government benefits to genuine beneficiaries in their Aadhaar seeded bank accounts linked to their mobile phone numbers, and by providing SMS updates to citizens on their bank transactions, the JAM trinity catapulted our banking and our system of distribution of subsidies to a different level altogether. Digital payment has become popular and cash is losing its vice grip on our economy.