My field trip to the wettest place on earth

I reconnected with my good old mate and colleague from school, Peter Marbaniang when I visited his home to deliver the Hapa book sent by his cousin Karen David who is based in London. Later in the week I went for a field trip to the village near Sohra to meet the members of the Self Help Group that he has been working with for about a year. To get to the village people have to climb down 5000 steps and it takes about an hour to get to the bottom of the mountain near the river. The SHG consisting of 10 males in the village with Peter's help have been able to build a shop cum storage facility on the top of the mountain near the road side to sell the local products that they make in the village.


Peter is helping them to create market linkages for their products so as to benefit the whole village. There are about 250 people in the village and it is the most under developed one compared to others in the area. Anyway I had a great learning experience from my journey with Peter and we have decided to raise awareness about the hardship faced by the villagers and to get more support for them from the government and other concerned funders.


We also visited the office of the Khatarshnong Social Organisation (KSO) and met its dynamic founder who has made a huge impact in the development of the 46 villages in the surrounding area since he got started back in 1990. We later had lunch in the Sohra market and we were so lucky to have a beautiful clear blue sky above us with no sign of rain in the wettest place on earth. On the way back to Shillong we drove through a nature park that was inargurated by the Governor of Meghalaya recently. It was really a beautiful spot with great potential for eco tourism.

Meeting the UN's Deputy SG Mark Malloch Brown

The Chef de Cabinet to the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mark Malloch Brown delivered the Third British Council lecture in London on 9 March 2006, which I was invited to attend. The lecture was on the theme: The United Nations in the 21st century 2006.

Mr. Brown said to understand the challenges that the UN faces this century, we need to go back to the end of the Cold War and to the extraordinary period of globalisation that followed it. He stated that during the 1990s we saw a dramatic integration of world economies, not just around trade, but around information flows and capital flows and even cultural flows. He said that in some ways it seemed we had reached a moment where international organisations had their epiphany: that they had found their moment in the sun and the world order they had been calling for, often as lonely voices during those cold war years, had finally come about.

Hence, he suspect for all of us, who believe in these organisations, there has been a real sense of surprise and dismay at the fact that, 15 years later, nearly all of these organisations are in a profound crisis of legitimacy, mandate and purpose. Not just the United Nations, but he thought it would be fair to say at the European Commission as well, NATO even, the IMF and the World Bank. Mr. Brown said if all of these organisations are struggling to recover lost ground with public opinion in member countries, to reconnect with those they're seeking to help, reconnect with the governments that must support them, one must seek some common roots, some common explanations for why we see this crisis in the very international organizations.


Mr. Brown mentioned three new pillars that the UN needs to focus are development, security and human rights, and that the new UN needs major management reform. He said that nothing symbolises this issue of an institution still too closely held down by its 1945 roots, than the management and institutional arrangements of today’s United Nations. He stated that the UN spends some $2 billion a year and there’s something $18 billion a year devoted to development, humanitarian and peacekeeping work around the world, all of it done in hugely difficult circumstances.

He said that for the UN Secretariat proper, with an assessed contribution funding scheme and huge intergovernmental involvement in the management, it has not changed with the times. Mr. Brown said that today in the peacekeeping operations alone the US has more than twice as many civilian staff, UN staff, as they have in the Secretariat in New York. He argues that whereas the Secretariat in New York is in some ways more often like a kind of comfortable, tenured university world with 3% vacancy rates and some people sitting in the same jobs for years and even decades at a time, out in the field it’s a very different story. He said that the people in the field are not able to have their families with them, and are disadvantaged in terms of the financial package they're offered and as a consequence the UN has 30% vacancy rates in the field and in critical functions such as procurement, 50% vacancy rates.

Mr. Brown wants to change the whole structure of the organisation, its management systems, its investment in people, the way they develop their leadership, the way they run things in terms of their global IT system – in short the way the whole operation works -- to one which reflects this new global operational reality.

After his lecture I asked him a question about the possibility of the UN having a rapid action force or a standing army of blue helmets under the direct command of the Secretary General in the future to prevent conflicts around the world. Mr. Brown answered saying that the UN depends on developing countries to provide the troops needed for peacekeeping operations that are paid by developed countries. But it would take a while for the members states to agree on contributing enough troops to serve under the UN flag and to be ready for deployment within short notice. Later I continued the discussion with him in depth. I also reminded him about the story he stayed at Columbia University on a panel with Jeffery Sachs about the development hawks in New York with sharper beaks. He remembered the event and laugh at the reminder. Before he was taken away by the people from the BBC, he gave me his business card and asked me to keep him posted on the finding from my own research work at the London School of Economics.

Meeting the World's Banker James Wolfensohn

The former President of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn delivered the Ninth Commonwealth Lecture in London on Thursday 2 March 2006, which I was invited to attend. The lecture was on the theme: The Future Role of the Commonwealth: A Bridge Between an Emerging Three-Speed World.

In his lecture, Mr. Wolfensohn outlined how sweeping changes to the global economy over the next 40 years could produce three distinct but interconnected spheres of varying levels of wealth and development, presenting the Commonwealth with new opportunities but also added challenges. According to Mr. Wolfensohn, developed high-income countries will form the first tier. They will continue to be some of the wealthiest countries on the planet but may slowly lose their economic dominance to the second group of countries, which would include Brazil, China, India and Russia. This second tier will be home to almost half of humanity and could become the new centre of economic power. The third tier will be made up of those countries held back by political, social, and institutional factors. These countries will struggle with widespread poverty but will remain an integral part of the global economy and world social order.

Mr. Wolfensohn said that the Commonwealth could bridge the gap between the different levels of development among its member countries by finding a common ground through shared values. He said the Commonwealth could address the disparities between the high, middle and low-income countries through close collaboration based on a shared heritage of history, language and values. He stated that high income Commonwealth developed countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK will continue to enjoy a major share of global economic growth, while middle income countries such as India, Malaysia, Nigeria and South Africa will enjoy healthy growth in their gross domestic product. Low income and poor countries may languish in poverty if faced with low economic growth but high population growth. Adding to this situation is the disparity in the volumes of foreign direct investment and trade among countries that fall into the three different tiers of development. Mr. Wolfensohn pointed out that these factors have a role in determining the level of equitable growth and social justice that in turn affect global stability.

Strong leadership, accountability and eradication of corruption can make a difference in a country's progress, said Mr. Wolfensohn. Apart from these, having the know-how, coupled with strategic planning and implementation of development programmes, can enhance the growth process. Educated and healthy populations are also critical factors, he added. Mr. Wolfensohn stressed that the Commonwealth has tremendous strengths that can be drawn from its association of 53 countries with close to 2 billion in total population. He commended the Commonwealth for its work that is targeted at promoting peace and democracy, human rights, the rule of law, good governance, public sector reform, gender equality, education, health and trade to advance sustainable development.

After his lecture I asked him a question about what he would do differently to address the interlinking issues of Poverty and Environment if he could go back on a time machine to 1995 when he joined the World Bank. He gave me a 5 min long answer stating the fact that he was not able to do much in that sector and wished he had got more time to deal with the nexus of Poverty and Environment, especially in the least developed countries. He did mention the mainstreaming of the Poverty and Environment linkages and that the World Bank Institute was developing new training programmes to sensitise development professionals globally how to address these two interlinking issues at the same time.


We later continued our discussion over a glass of red wine at the reception that followed with his wife Elaine who also went to Columbia University and recognised the Columbia pin on my jacket. James later gave me his business card and asked me to look him up when I crossed over the creek to New York. What impressed me was that he learnt to play the cello at 40 and is a great lover of classical music. After he left the World Bank in June 2005, he was appointed Special Envoy by the Quartet for the Gaza Disengagement, which comprises the United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice; the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavtov; the European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana and United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.

Flying to Meghalaya where the clouds come home

I left my research tower at the London School of Economics after sending the 2nd draft of my thesis to my supervisor on the 29th of March. I took the last Piccadilly train to Heathrow international airport at mid night. I got the early 6am Air France flight out of London via Paris to Delhi the next morning and spent the night waiting for my check in time at Terminal 2. Thank God I had the wonderful company of a nice girl from Bogotá, Colombia who was determine to keep me awake while having a great conversation with me in Spanish. Well I must say it was nice way to brush up my language skills again in the early hours of the morning. It was a nice quick sail across the English Channel to Paris and then we had to say goodbye and run to catch our connecting flights heading in different directions. I was so tired on the Delhi bound flight and went straight to dreamland the moment we took off from Paris.


It is great to be back home in India where it is much warmer compared to cold and wet England. The journey home from Delhi to Meghalaya was beautiful flying parallel to the mighty Himalayas on my left. I will be resuming the 2nd stage of my fieldwork in West Khasi hills district and collecting household survey data from 5 more villages in the Riangdo cluster. I hope to collect at least 100 interviews and since each one takes about 3 hours, I guess I got 300 solid hours of work ahead of me. I plan to be back to base in London my the 27th of June, just in time for my PhD seminar due at 2pm GMT. Below are some pictures of my homeland Meghalaya. More updates later!





While I was home I also had a great interview with the legendary Lou Majaw our home grown rock 'n' roll star!

The day I met an exotic Khasi girl in London!

My good old schoolmate from St. Edmund’s Gerald Pde who currently works in New York is the Internet researcher who tracked down this amazingly beautiful and super talented Khasi star that Shillong has ever produced. Her name is Karen David and she is only 27, but I must say that she has achieved a lot for her age. Gerald’s wife Habari Warjri who is also a good friend of mine, then got in touch with me in London and connected me to Karen who wanted to meet Khasi people there.

Karen was born in the music-loving city of Shillong, but moved to Toronto with her parents when she was one year old. The last time she returned home was when she was 8 years old. So when I met her, I told her that she must revisit her homeland and rediscover her roots and heritage. She then told me she wrote a song called “Shillong Shillong” and I was happy to know that still she strongly identifies herself as a Khasi girl even she was raised far away in Canada. We both agreed that we needed to put our hometown Shillong on the international radar screen and that we wanted to work with children in the poor villages of our state Meghalaya.


Before I went to her show at the Jazz Café in London, I did a little research on her and I was really impressed by what she has been able to achieve so far. I found out that the stylish singer, songwriter and actress may be this year’s hottest new thing, and it seems that Karen is no stranger to the world of showbiz. She was handpicked by Bill Cosby to star alongside him in a TV commercial for Jell-O at the age of six, and the multi-talented girl has spent her whole life doing what she does best putting on dazzling performances to win admirers wherever she goes. Born in Shillong and raised in Toronto, by a Khasi mother and a father from Chennai, I guess the ever-alluring Karen was never one to be confined by the expected boundaries.


One evening after spending the whole day studying and working on my paper at the London School of Economics library, I decide to take a break and go to one of her shows at the Jazz Cafe in the North of London to hear her music and relax my mind. When I got there her fans cheered as she walked on stage with a light grey top with shining silver V shaped neck, black pants and smooth leather boots up to the knee. She saw this Khasi boy in the club packed with her screaming fans and just smiled at me as I wave my hand. After that all the other girls and boys in the club then looked at me and asked me how I knew the cool singer on stage. I replied to them saying that it was my first Karen David show.


I wanted Karen to sing “Shillong Shillong” which is about our homeland, but she sang four of her other great songs. She opened with “I Need You”, and who could resist such an offer? The exotic star has everything her fans have been looking for: talent, beauty, charm and a star quality that shines through everything she puts her passion to. That night she was performing with the Inklein Quartet – so they were playing a couple of their own pieces as well - she hit the stage at 8.30pm sharp and I tell you, it’s not easy to sing pop songs with a Quartet. There were seven people playing three violins, a cello, a tabla, a keyboard and a background singer. Karen did the opening for the great Susheela Raman and her music was simply amazing!



After her show Karen introduced me to her manager and lawyer Colin Long who later gave me her CD. She got me a drink and some pudding and thanked me for coming to support her. She is so talented and famous, but yet she is so humble and warm. I think that is the perfect ingredients that make a star. I am really proud of her and all the Khasi people will be very proud of her too. I picked up one of her fliers and she signed her autograph on it for me. Before we parted that night, I said rock on Khasi Star and she said "Khublie Shibun and Thiah Suk". What can I say, but she turned that cold and rainy night in London into one that her fans including myself will cherish for a while.


Karen was in a film with Steven Seagal in, "Enemy of the Unseen" in Romania. The picture above is a shot of Karen as Lieutenant Landers in the US Air Force from the film set. Well we will have to wait until the film comes out of Hollywood to see Karen in action. The other picture is during the Lord of the Rings premier in Canada with A. R. Rahman. If you are interested in her work then you can listen to her music and see her videos on www.karendavid.com. May the force be with her to keep our Khasi star safe and strong always!

My fieldwork in the villages of West Khasi Hills

I flew to Meghalaya, India to start my fieldwork in late September 2005 and stayed there until late January 2006. During these 4 months I had a great learning experience revisiting my own home this time looking through the lenses of a research scholar. It was exciting, but nevertheless challenging. My research question was to find out if the Supreme Court logging ban in 1996 had any implication on the rural household strategies of the people, and if so how are these forest dependant communities coping with such an institutional arrangement. My goal was to find the data from the villages I had selected in the West Khasi Hills district of the state which will help me, answer my key research question.


During my journey through the district I visited and stayed in 6 villages, interviewing the people there and listening to their stories. According to what I have gathered so far, the logging ban had a direct effect on the lost of livelihoods in the communities I studied and it failed to protect the remaining trees and bushes from being converted to charcoal.


I was studying three types of villages and they are the ones that have had intervention from a multilateral agency, in this case through International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the ones that have had intervention from a governmental agency, in this case though the Joint Forest Management (JFM), and the ones that have had no intervention whatsoever since the ban was enforced.


IFAD has been working in some selected villages in West Khasi Hills since 1999 and the Forest Department of Meghalaya had just introduced the JFM in August 2005 in a few selected villages. It was interesting to see how the wealth-ranking index of the IFAD villages was rising since they got some support. The JFM villages have also got some support in the form of nurseries, fishponds and livestock. However, the villages that have been left out from any sort of assistance are going from bad to worst.

One such village that I visited called Lawsiej had 75 households and it took me about 2 hours to walk there from the closest metal road. When I reached the village I was shocked to see only 3 men who came to the meeting, which the headman had organised for me. I later found out that since there was no more livelihood opportunities in the villages, all the men had left their homes to work in coal mines 250 kms away near the Bangladesh border. They would only return home after 6 months with all sorts of respiratory diseases and later die from lack of medicines and treatment. It was very sad to see this trend of male workforce migration as a coping strategy for these poor communities in order to survive. However, before I left this village the headman gave me a rooster to take back with me as a special gift from the entire village. I was so touched by his generosity and I had to accept his gift or else I would be insulting his whole community if I had declined. Wherever I went I was treated in good faith and I realized that these people had no material belongings with them, but yet they were so happy.


While I was driving to another village called Nongkrem, which had got some IFAD help, I stopped on the way to give a lift to 7 women who had just returned from the market with all their supplies. Their journey home from the market was 3 hours walk and it was already getting dark that evening. Anyway they all got into my jeep and I continued to drive in this jungle mud road where only timber carrying trucks ply on. It was therefore very difficult to navigate between the deep tracks created by the tyres of these heavy trucks. Since the ground clearance of my jeep was no high enough, I had to drive in between these deep mud tracks, which also had stones and boulders along the way. As we drove down a steep descend heavy fog suddenly appeared and both my headlights failed to dim, so I was driving blind.


In the process I managed to hit a rock on the road, which then broke the joints that held the spring of the left back tyre. The bang was loud, but I continued to drive slowly up the hill and finally after a few minutes the spring came off with the shock absorber and the left back tyre hit the mudguard of the jeep and we were stuck on the hill. Anyway to cut the story short, I had to ask all the women to disembark and walk home from there. I was lucky that there was enough space for the trucks to pass from the side of my broken jeep. After locking the jeep, I too continued on my journey on foot and reached the village in an hour just in time for my meeting.


The next morning I took a ride on one of the timber trucks to meet the people in another village called Nonglang with also got some IFAD support. In the mean time some village boys from Nongkrem walked to the market bought the spare parts for my jeep, returned to repair it and then drove the jeep back to me to Nonglang where I was still busy with my interviews. It was simply amazing as I though I would be stuck there for days. So much for jungle driving!

Buffalo Hospital in Dong-ki-ing-ding Village

On the evening of the 12th of January 2006, as part of my Ph.D. research work for the London School of Economics, I visited the village of Umniangriang located 49 km away from Mairang in the West Khasi Hills district in the state of Meghalaya. I was respectfully received by Mr. Boxstar Nongrang, the 31-year-old intelligent and dynamic Sordar (elected chief) of the village who had been waiting for me with his team of village committee leaders. We got along very well as we were about the same age and had a similar outlook to life. However, he had a long beard and was already married with four kids. The Sordar did not waste any of my time and wanted to show me the dysfunctional infrastructures in his community right away. So we drove for 2 kms down the road to meet the Sordar of the next village of Dong-ki-ing-ding, which happened to be the closest market centre for the all eight villages in the surrounding area.


We were taken to see the hospital that was built by the government about 10 years ago in front of the Christian secondary school. On arriving at the site I was shocked by what I saw. The gates of the hospital were locked forcing us to duck under the broken barbwire fencing to enter the compound. When we got inside I found that the hospital too was locked and had no one occupying it - no doctors, no nurses, no equipment, no medicines, absolutely nothing. To my astonishment I saw two buffaloes sitting in front of the hospital enjoying the grass in the compound. The condition of the hospital was appalling, it was already rotting to pieces as the termites had eaten up all its doors and many windows were broken. So here was the most important infrastructure built to serve the public health needs of all the eight villages in the area, but tragically it never opened for business. Surely it is shameful and unacceptable that after so much has been already spent from public funds to build such a hospital, nothing has been done in a decade to make it functional.


Only bitterness and hurt can be felt when one is faced with wasteful and uncaring behavior from the government making me wonder when the political leaders responsible will wake up and feel concern enough to open the hospital. According to the Sordar the landowners donated the land, which the hospital was built on, on the condition that the members of their family would get some sort of employment from it. That agreement was broken because the hospital was never opened, and now after 10 years of waiting in vain the landowners want to take the government to court. I was also told that many sick people have died in the surrounding villages over the years because they could not get access to medicines in time and they could not afford to go all the way to Mairang for getting hospital treatment for their illnesses. These innocent lives could have been saved if the hospital in the Dong-ki-ing-ding village was fully operational. I spent a night in the village of Umniangriang and visited the thatch house of a single mother who lost her little 1-year-old girl because she had no money and no medicines to save her from her illness. So I question the concerned authorities and their responsibility for the plight of our poor villagers dying from easily preventable diseases. Are they going to continue to shut their eyes and turn a deaf ear while the poor villagers suffer? On my 3-month journey across West Khasi Hills, I found many other villages in the same pathetic state of affairs. So where has all the money for the support and development of these villages gone?


The people whom I met from the different villages asked me to help them out, but being only a research scholar I cannot do much. However I can use the power of my pen to put pressure, to raise public awareness and debate at the local, national and international level about the unfair treatment and injustices that is being meted out to the poor people in my state. After seeing the reality of how our people life in the villages with my own eyes, I am leaving home feeling very sad and angry to finish my academic work in England. But I call upon all the concerned citizens and stakeholders, NGOs and especially the young people who are the current and future leaders of our state to shake up and put massive pressure upon some of the elected sleeping leaders, so that they wake up before its too late.

Direct Funding to the Village Councils

A special call was made to the Government of Meghalaya by the Dorbar Shnongs (Village Councils) to recognize their traditional system of grassroots governance and to give them the full responsibility of implementing the "Direct Funding" for the development of their villages. The Dorbar Shnongs wanted the government to start with an allocation of Rs. 2 lakhs for small villages and Rs. 5 lakhs for big villages in the entire state of Meghalaya, which will be audited by government authorities. They understood that if such a funding came straight to the villages, it would really speed up their growth and development process. It would also lighten the responsibility of the concerned MLAs & MDCs with regard to building footpaths and other small infrastructure related work that the villages themselves can take action upon.

On 21st August 2004, the Government of India published in many national newspapers the words of Rajiv Gandhi, the former Prime Minister of India who said "the system of governance that is planned from the top-down does no reflect the true realities of the people on the ground and must be stopped…if we want strong and meaningful governance we need everyone to be included in the decision making processes from the bottom-up right from the village level." The newspapers also published the words of Dr. Monmohan Singh, the current Prime Minister of India who said, "the most important responsibility of this government is how to shape the traditional institutions of self-government, so they are included in big projects for their own development and growth."


In his letter to the political leaders on 6th March 1989 and to the Governor on 24th February 1989, Bah B. B. Lyngdoh, our former Chief Minister stated that he had spoken in the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly saying that the Government of Meghalaya has decided to preserve and strengthen the traditional governance system of the Syiems, the Dolois and the Nokmas. He also stated that the government will open different ways to lift the honour and rank of these traditional leaders. The Governor also stated that the Government of Meghalaya, through the government notification of 22nd February 1989 has appointed a "High Powered Committee" consisting of – Chairman – B. B. Lyngdoh, Members – O. L. Nongtdu, P. R. Kyndiah, P. A. Sangma, and Member Secretary J. M. Phira, IAS. But nothing is known what became of this High Powered Committee, which just ended only in publicity and promises that were made from time to time by the political leaders.


Rajiv Gandhi, the former Prime Minister of India spoke in Parliament on 18th May 1989 and said, "The Panchayati Raj Act was (released) for Meghalaya because they already have the Dorbar Shnongs as existing traditional institutions of self-government which we must preserved and strengthen." But what is really surprising is that since 1992 the Gram Panchayat (Shnong) in other states in India got direct funding from their respective state governments. However, in our own state of Meghalaya where the approval was already granted because of the existence of the Dorbar Shnongs, no support of any kind has come through from the government so far. I really wonder what is holding them back. I have observed in my travels across India that while other states in our country are moving forward and developing rapidly, we in Meghalaya are shamefully moving backwards.


In 2004 about 3100 Gram Panchayat (Shnong) in the state of Karnataka got direct funding from their government for projects amounting to about 60 lakhs per village, supporting an array of developmental initiatives that benefited them. I spent a night in the village of Umniangriang, which is about 49 kms from Mairang, as part of my own Ph.D. fieldwork meeting with their Natural Resource Management Group and 4 Women Self Help Groups. After a long conversation with Mr. Boxstar Nongnang, the young and dynamic Sordar of the village, I was told that he and Mr. John F. Kharshiing, Chairman of Ka Dorbar Ki Nongsynshar ka Ri Hynniewtrep have been working very hard to push for this direct funding mechanism to work in our state. I want to salute their tireless efforts to help our poor villages and I call upon all other concerned stakeholders to join forces with them in this noble cause.


The Sordar also told me that the Government of Meghalaya has rejected the central government’s approval for direct funding to the Dorbar Shnongs because our political leaders will not have control of the money that will flow directly to the villages. I would argue that if this great system can work and benefit the villages in many other states in our country, what is the real problem of making it work in our own state. I think our leaders really lack the political will to make it work. I really believe that if there is a strong will to make it work, there will always be a way. It is now up to you the people of the state to put tremendous pressure on our political machinery to jump start the direct funding engine in Meghalaya before the villages run out of gas.

My Journey to the Himalayan Foothills

It was on the 27th January morning at 7am that I started on my solitary journey to the Himalayan foothills. After being in the presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and listening to his teachings, I was ready for my journey. But I have never felt so lonely as on that 20 kms hike that morning. I started walking alone up a slippery trail from the town of Mcleod Ganj, but I was later joined by 3 stray dogs, two black and one brown that accompanied me all the way to the top on the mountains.


About 2 hours later as I was approaching the top, I was then escorted by a huge eagle soaring above my head. I realized that I was not alone anymore and that God had sent me some friends to accompany me on my journey. When I got to the base camp on top, I found a shopkeeper there who told me the trail ahead was covered with snow and too dangerous to proceed. But I decided to walk on after taking some pictures and I climbed higher into the mountains in front of me.


After walking for another hour I got to the top of a big rock and was breathless and covered in sweat. I decided to stop and then took off all my clothes, boots, backpack and shouted at the top of my voice "Let me heal my broken wings and fly free as a bird." It was an amazing experience where I felt one with the snow covered mountains and I was not even feeling cold at all. I felt that I had to let go of all my baggage and just meditate with nature in the snow. I closed my eyes said a prayer and did some breathing exercises and felt some powerful, burning and fresh energy rise from within me. I felt love and compassion. I remembered my good friends around the world and sent blessings for them in the cold wind from 3000 metres above the sea!

My Mission to Tsunami stuck Tamil Nadu

Following the recommendations and contributions that came out of a meeting that I attended in Bristol in July 2005 that was set within the context of Aubrey Meyer's "Contraction and Convergence" Schumacher briefing, the next step was to explore ways to establish a mutually beneficial set of co-operative relationships and projects between the community in Chew Magna, West England, UK in the "developed" world and two communities in Tirunelveli District, Tamil Nadu, India in the "developing" world. The goal was to use and build upon ongoing, long term activities between these villages to illustrate how contraction and convergence principles can be implemented, practiced proven and adapted on a local scale illustrating global possibilities. The purpose of my mission was to identify some on going activities of an NGO working in the area called Social Change and development (SCAD) and also to propose other possible tangible projects that could be implemented following the principles of contraction and convergence. A challenge paper was prepared to identify the hurdles, capacity, resources, skills and strengths that are needed to bridge these communities across the miles. This paper will later develop into a "Plan of Action" with a set timeline and budget once the priorities, goals, target groups, needs, networks, partners and core groups on each side have been identified. The goal is to develop some social, economic, environmental and cultural links between these participating communities both in the UK and India. To begin it is important to know and understand what kind of support the people from Tirunelveli would need from the people of Chew Magna. Therefore we need to identify what role each community would play in this partnership and find out what kind of exchange of ideas and initiatives would generate win-win outcomes on both sides.


During my one week visit I stayed at the SCAD guesthouse located at the SCAD 200 acres beautiful campus. I was taken for a tour of the campus in Chernmahadevi where I visited a special school for physically disabled, mentally challenged and gypsy children. A mentally challenged girl welcomed me with flowers and I spent some time with the children there. There were only 7 teachers for 50 kids. They need more. I then visited the SCAD ITI where student are trained in automobile repair, drilling and fitting. Then I saw the SCAD Polytechnic College where student are taught printing technology and computer desktop publishing. Later that say I attended a core group meeting at the SCAD office in Tirunelveli where I met all the dynamic field officers who are the backbone of the organization. It was their quarterly meeting and they came to report about the on going activities and projects inn all the 380 villages that they operate in.


On the next day I was taken for a field visit to five tsunami hit villages in two districts. I was traveling with Catherine Slater from Salt of the Earth and two other SCAD field officers. We drove to the Fishermen Colony and visited the temporary shelters build by the government, which were made of tin. It was like living in an oven in the summer heat and after the monsoon the area was flooded and the drinking water contaminated. We then when to see the boat-repairing project on beach which SCAD was supporting to benefit the 250 Hindu fishing families. We went to Punnakayal, which had 10,000 people to visit the tailoring training centre and fish preservation unit.


SCAD provided the tailoring machines for the 60 women in the village. Anna Nagar was next and we visited the children care centre and children park where 75 families benefited from SCAD. We then went to Pattinam a village of 6000 people to see their seashells crushing projects. Lastly we visited Amalinagar to see the Women Self Help Group making balm, washing power and candles. In the evening we had a core group meeting at SCAD tsunami rehabilitation centre Tiruchendur to evaluate the on going activities in the coastal villages.


I visited also the SCAD College of Engineering and Technology and the SCAD Community College where we later celebrated International Elders Day on 19th October. The Superintendent of Police of Tiruneveli was the Chief Guest and he distributed presents to all the 100 plus elders that came to the event that evening. The following day I drove 40 km to see the largest wild farm in Asia with Cletus and his wife Amelia. I have never seen so many windmills in my life but it was a spectacular to see all these white towers with blades spinning in the wind with the Western Ghats in the background. Later I was taken to see the SCAD school of leprosy and gypsy children. I also visited the gypsy colony and later when to see some leprosy infected people in the leprosy colony where SCAD had build homes for them. There were 96 households in the gypsy colony and 52 households in the leprosy colony. SCAD also build permanent homes for the nomadic gypsy people.


On my way back I stopped in Chennai and I met the Executive Director of the world famous MS Swaminathan Research Foundation and invited him to collaborate and provide technical support for SCAD. I visited their mangroves greenhouse where they grew different species of the plant. In coastal areas where mangroves still exist, the destruction from the tsunami was very less and they acted as a natural barrier from the big waves.


My role is to be the go in between and facilitate the link between the two communities. As a the Youth Employment Summit Campaign advisor I will also continue to catalyze the development of programs & policies in India to ensure that the rural youth have access to the training programs, skills development, credit and other resources which they need to build sustainable livelihoods. After my field trips to the different villages followed by discussions with Cletus and his amazing team at SCAD, we have come to the conclusion that there are so many ways in which we can create a community link between the people of Chew Manga through the Converging World Group and the people of Tirunelveli through SCAD.

Researching at the London School of Economics

I joined the PhD programme at the Development Studies Institute (DESTIN) of the London School of Economics and Political Science on the 10th of October 2004, after I crossed over the Atlantic from Boston where I was working with the Youth Employment Summit Campaign. There are 9 of us in my batch and all my fellow research students are really cool and committed people coming from around the world. We have build a strong community here where we can support each other. I am also really honoured to have the best and the most supportive supervisors in my department who have both been an inspiration to me. I have had a great time here in the past 10 months reflecting on what I have done in my life so far and figuring out where I am heading next. I have been learning about how the academic world operates and finding out where I fit in the whole equation. So now after completing all my core academic requirements, I am all set to take off to do my field work in my home state Meghalaya, the "Land where the clouds come home" in North East India.

My research is focused on the implications of the Supreme Court logging ban on the rural livelihood strategies of the forest dependant communities in my state. I will be gone for about 4 months starting from September 2005 through January 2006 to collect my data from the field. I will be studying how the poor people are coping to sustain their livelihoods after the logging ban through agricultural intensification, diversification and migration in two sample villages located in different districts using both qualitative and quantitative methods to answer my research question. I will then return to the LSE in London to analyse my data before writing the finding on my 100,000 words thesis. This whole process should take me about 3 years to complete and hopefully I will walk out of the great academic institution with a doctorate degree in 2007. I have got miles and miles to go, so wish me luck!

Addressing the World Bank on Youth & the MDGs

In collaboration with the United Nations Association, the UN body mandated to organize the annual celebrations on October 24 of United Nations Day, the World Bank Y2Y Community organized a full-day event at the World Bank on Youth and the Millennium Development Goals – linking the local with the global on Friday, October 22, 2004. The week leading up to UN Day 2004 in the National Capital Area focused on the process and achievements made towards reaching the MDGs. Given the increasing attention both within UN agencies and affiliates, including the World Bank, and outside on the important role of youth in development, the UNA and the Y2Y Community decided to dedicate a full day during the UN Week 2004 celebrations in DC to youth and the MDGs.


The event showcased the work and activities of United Nations agencies and affiliates, NGOs, including the World Bank, on youth and the MDGs, making an explicit link between both local and global experience. The event provided an opportunity for participants to learn about the MDGs, share lessons learned, stimulate discussion, provoke thought and discuss related work both locally and globally. The conference stated with a basic course on the MDGs in order to provide participants with a foundation. The second activity was a panel discussion where I was invited to address the Bank’s young staff members and other participants on “The Relevance/Role of youth in achieving the MDGs“. The participants also benefited from an overview on this topic and different perspectives ranging from multilateral, to regional, to an NGO. Once equipped with an this understanding, they moved onto roundtable discussions where they will be presented with more detailed information on various case studies of “youth inclusion” in achieving the MDGs.


The event brought attention to the crucial role of youth in achieving the MDGs, as well as the important work which the UN agencies and the World Bank is doing, both locally and globally, to integrate youth and better address their respective needs and concerns. The event also brought greater awareness locally of both the work and role of the World Bank and of the UN, and of collaboration between these organizations as well as other organizations.

Graduating from Columbia University in New York

It was the 22nd of May 2002, my big day graduating from Columbia University's School of international and Public Affairs (SIPA). I was so happy to have my papa beside me on that special day who flew 15,000 miles all the way from India to watch his first son do the ceremonial walk and get his degree for the Master of International Affairs. The night before on the 21st of May, my school SIPA had its own little graduation ceremony for its 700 graduate students who walked down the isle of St. John's the Divine, the largest cathedral in North America. As I was appointed as the Lead Marshal of my graduating class by the Deans of SIPA, I had to lead my fellow students as the pipe organs played in the background that night. It was such a romantic experience as the sound echoed in my ears. The cathedral was so huge that it could fit all the 7000 friends and family members of the graduating students. Our graduation speaker for SIPA was New York City Major Michael Bloomberg. He reminded us of what happened in 911 one semester before our graduation, and that we must be strong and defend our freedom. Huge screens were hung from the top of the cathedral projecting the walk, so that the people at the back of this massive cathedral could see their loved ones get their degrees. It was a grand event that night and I could still remember everything just like yesterday.


The next morning the full graduation ceremony took place outdoors on the university campus for all the 15 schools of Columbia University where about 10,000 students and 50,000 cheering family members took part. Our out going Columbia President Dr. George Rupp gave his farewell and blessings to his graduating students before saying goodbye to his own colleagues at the university. My colleagues and I from SIPA did not realize that we were on the front page of the New York times the next day, probably we attracted too much attention waving the different mini flags representing the countries that our graduates came from. It was truly a very colourful and spectacular event.


The following are excerpts from President Rupp's speech:

"Our destiny cannot be divorced from the fate of the rest of the world, including those furthest from us in geography, ideology, and socioeconomic status. The United States may be the world's lone superpower. But we cannot simply impose our will, even on those who seem relatively powerless.”

"One challenge we face together is, then, to make globalization work for the impoverished as well as the wealthy. To meet this challenge will certainly require more generous programs of foreign assistance than the post-Cold War world has so far produced. But it will also entail designing incentives and, when necessary, enforcement mechanism to assure that all the players follow the rules of the game.”

"So today we are challenged to rethink and re-order the ways we live together. First, globalization requires a reorientation of our stance in the international arena'a reorientation that recognizes how intimately we are interconnected with even those most distant from us. And second, along with our embrace of markets, we must affirm the legitimate role of public institutions in requiring adherence to rules of conduct and standards of quality to which all participants are held accountable.”

The day I met my hero President Nelson Mandela

On the morning of 29th September 2000 after the daily briefing with the members of my parliamentary delegation at the Permanent Mission of India to the UN, I ran across to the UN building two blocks down the road on 1st Avenue and 43rd Street. The day before on 28th September, I had delivered my official youth statement to the 55th Session of the UN General Assembly. Now I wanted to listen to my hero President Nelson Mandela, as he was due to brief the UN Security Council on the peacekeeping operation in Burundi.

I made sure I had all my UN security clearance tags to enter the Security Council chamber, as it was a closed meeting only for government delegates. I thought I was running late, but as I was about to open the chamber’s door, I heard a deep voice behind me and as I turned back, there was my man wearing a colourful shirt different from the rest who were all in their dark suits. So I held the door for him and his bodyguards and as he was about to enter the chamber, he stopped looked at me and greeted me "good morning young man". It is the happiest moment in my life to have the honour of shaking his hand and to wish him good luck on his briefing. I then entered the chamber and walked behind this tall man and sat close enough where I could film his briefing.


The Council President Moctar Ouane of Mali opened the show and introduced Nelson Mandela to the chamber packed with top UN officials and diplomats from many countries. Then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan thanked President Mandela for travelling all the way to New York to brief the Council on the current phase of his peace efforts in Burundi. After that great introduction, Mandela started his briefing with a deep and slow voice “Mr. President” he said, addressing the Security Council President and I got it all on tape. It was just great. Thanks to his work, the peace process has moved forward significantly. The signing of the Arusha Agreement on 28 August, followed by the agreement on 20 September in Nairobi on the participation of the remaining three parties, is surely a very important milestone in Burundi's long and painful road to peace.

In his briefing President Mandela stressed that there could be no justification for the violent attacks on Burundian civilians when a comprehensive political agreement had been reached, opening the way for all sides to bring their concerns to the political table. He called on the rebel groups to demonstrate the quality of their leadership, announce a ceasefire and halt the slaughter of innocent people. He also told the Security Council that if the armed groups were not included in the peace process, there was no guarantee that the issues agreed to recently in Arusha by the 19 political parties would be followed by the rebels.


Secretary General Kofi Annan, who also addressed the Council, called the Arusha agreement a "comprehensive blueprint" for the reform of Burundian society. "It addresses the root causes of the conflict, such as exclusion and genocide, as well as the tragic consequences of the war, including the plight of hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced people," the Secretary-General said. He also said that the United Nations was ready and willing to make its contribution to the success of these efforts -- for the sake of the people of Burundi, but also for the stability and prosperity of a troubled region, which could find a source of inspiration in a successful peace process in Burundi, for the negotiated settlement of its wider conflicts.