• Hundreds of herbicides and pesticides are sprayed on the fields. Many of these are known to have negative health impact. There are known documented cases of birth defects among the farm hands.
• Tomatoes are picked hard and green and then they are artificially ‘ripened’ by spraying ethylene gas.
• The fruit is bred for volume and not taste or nutritional value. Which has led to yields tripling while the amounts of calcium, vitamin A, and vitamin C has dramatically reduced.
• Perhaps one of the key cost-saving device being employed is modern-day slave labour. Yes, they are bought and sold. They work horrendously long hours and can not negotiate their terms of ‘employment’. If they escape they are tracked down. There are many known cases of children being used a slave labour.

What I was surprised by however, is that  this description is not from some small village, in some third-world country. This story is unfolding just a couple of hundred miles south of Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

Now guess what this ‘modern industrial production systems’ can achieve in some far-flung district of a poor third-world country.

Consider reading this book Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit. By James Beard who originally wrote the award-winning article, “The Price of Tomatoes,”

Buy a Kindle edition online:
Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit

Some of my recent work:

In less than two decades, the rural landscape of Gurgaon has taken on an urban identity. Yet, without a shared vocabulary for spaces, zebra crossings are “peopled” by buffaloes and busy mall roads have “herds” of shoppers making suicidal attempts to criss-cross a sea of racing vehicles.

In Gurgaon’s patchy landscape of high-rise apartments, glass-and-steel office buildings, and glitzy malls on the one hand, and village clusters, slum sprawls, buffaloes and cows on the other, the old and the new are reinventing old spaces, and creating new spaces that often exclude more than they include. This audio-visual documentary explores the ongoing negotiation of space and meaning in a rapidly urbanizing semi-rural environment in India.

To provide a perspective, I cycled self-supported from Manali to Leh in September 2010 . Of course, riding this route once does not make me an expert. I should also clarify that I am now a middle-aged bloke, and for over a decade after college, I wasn’t really involved in any athletic activity. I also carry a torn meniscus in my left knee and a stent in my heart. Why am I telling you all this? Well, I am trying to drive home the point that while you do need to be fairly fit you do not need to be an athlete. So what does it take?

The single most important thing:
Passionate desire to do it. I think it is good to begin with the understanding that this is not an easy trip. Especially for those who have not spent too much time cycling in high-altitudes, climbing endless steep inclines, sleeping out in tents, cooking on stoves in the outdoors (or eating every day in roadside ‘dhabas’)… In my view there are broadly two kinds of people who are likely to do well on a trip like this: either you love the mountains or you are driven to prove a point, to your own self, perhaps.

If you are thinking of embarking on this trip and have never done any of the following, I’d urge you to try all, or most of them at least once before going:

• On this trip you are likely to spend multiple nights at or above 4,000 metres. If you haven’t ever been to these kinds of altitude, it may be a good idea to test them once. Ideally you should spend at least one night in a tent at 4,000 odd metres. But of course this can not be a ‘one-night-stand’. You will probably need to spend a week acclimatizing to get there. Just because you are extremely fit, does not mean that you will acclimatize to high altitudes quicker or better.
• You are likely to encounter multiple days of long climbs – in the range of 500 metres or more. If you have never climbed that kind of altitude before you might do well to try it. It is almost a given that in Ladakh the same climb will feel harder, because of the higher overall altitude and lack of oxygen (remember Ladakh is a high-altitude desert).
• If you decide to go self-supported (and this is a major question you have to address) then you should very carefully test all your equipment – the panniers, the pannier bags, the tent, the sleeping bag, the stove… at that altitude and that kind of harsh climatic conditions, everything has a higher propensity to fail. Be prepared to make emergency repairs. If you have never done it before, then you should try and go for a self-supported ride, even if it is only for a couple of days, and in familiar grounds.

Does it take a lot of money?
Depends. Some decisions are likely to have a major impact on your budget:

• Self-supported or vehicle supported: Depending on the season and the competition for taxies a support vehicle can cost you anywhere from 25k to 50k. The other option is to convince a friend or family-member to drive a support vehicle for you. Well good luck with that, and if you do find someone, remember that you have found true love. Just kidding of course.
• Night shelter: Manali and Leh offer a whole range of hotels, from the relatively inexpensive to fairly top-of-the-line. The hotels you choose here can have a significant impact on your budget. Also to a lesser extent, where you stay during the ride can make a difference. If you decide to cook and camp yourself through the trip then of course you can do the entire thing on a shoe-string.
• Return trip: A third thing that can affect your budget is the return trip from Leh. A last minute airline ticket can be costly, while booking a ticket months in advance can sometimes work out cheaper than a shared taxi on the return leg.

I have already posted a detailed cycling equipment list. The only thing I’d like to add is that you should avoid trying out new equipment on this journey. Make sure that you have clocked a couple of thousand kilometres on you bike, saddle and shoes.

Links:
Pictures and a short write up of the cycling trip from Manali to Leh
List of cycling equipment you should carry

More info about the charity that careated this video. .

Abandoned dolls on a windowsill in the Solntsye kindergarten, Pripyat, Ukraine. Image via LOE (© Michael Forster Rothbart)

It is interesting that almost exactly to the day of the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl, India has decided to approve a new nuclear power plant in Jaitapur in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. While experts have written tomes about it (and mass media has not given a jot of attention to them), here is my quick attempt to dislodge some friends who I know are sitting on-the-fence.

The safety features argument:

The oft repeated argument is that ‘we have learnt from others’ failures’, our plants are safe.

Let us start with the assumption that we are technologically superior to the three countries — USA, USSR, and Japan – where the major nuclear accidents have taken place till now. Let us also make an assumption that there is less graft and corruption in our systems of procurement, construction, day-to-day running and maintenance. No, seriously!

Did any of the countries think that their plants were susceptible to accidents, before the event? Of course not. That is a fundamental fact about accidents — ‘accidents’ by definition are not anticipated, and they mostly happen in spite of best precautions. There is no scientific way to say with 100% confidence that an accident will not happen. The fact that no insurance company is willing to insure a nuclear plant and that plant owners and suppliers want limited liabilities proves just this point. They know accidents can happen. For those looking for additional pointers consider the fact that no new nuclear plant has been commissioned in the USA since the 1970’s and in Europe since the late 80’s.

If you are not familiar with ‘the probability of the consequential rare events’ then I strongly recommend Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s ‘The Black Swan’. Shit happens! And when it happens the consequences are huge.

The cost argument:

People believe that nuclear is cheaper, as Dmitry Medvedev, President of the Russian Federation recently said on record.

The question is: what do we mean by cost? Is it just the cost of constructing and running the plant? Or does it include the cost of nuclear pollution? Does it include the cost of nuclear waste disposal? Does it also include the cost of the ‘unlikely’ accident?

To me it sounds ridiculous to not factor in the cost of an accident, however unlikely, especially if the likely impact is extraordinarily large. That is how business is done, right? If you run an airline you insure the unlikely event of the plane being blown up mid-air. If you run a thermal power plant you will insure the building, machinery, and the lives of people who are likely to be impacted in case of a rare accident, wouldn’t you? And the cost of insurance will be part of the cost of doing business.

It appears that there is no insurance company in the world that is willing to insure all the fall-outs of a nuclear meltdown. If you found one, my contention is that the cost of insurance will make the project unviable. It will be by far more expensive than any other form of energy. If you look at the cost associated with the Chernobyl disaster you might realize why insurance companies are not competing with each other to grab the business of insuring nuclear power plants.

It is difficult to get to the exact death-toll attributable to the Chernobyl accident. The numbers vary from 4,500 to 1 million (New York Academy of Sciences). Greenpeace and World Health Organization (WHO) have indicated that the official numbers are a gross underestimation. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t trust the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) numbers, simply because it is their mandate to encourage nuclear power. Incidentally, it appears that they have effectively prevented WHO from conducting independent research in this area.

What about the cost of ill health for the estimated 8.5 million people who were exposed to high level of radiations? The effect is expected to be borne even by the children born to parents exposed to radiation. What about the cost to the 800,000 or so liquidators who were recruited to deal with the site immediately after the accident. Apparently 90 per cent of them have bad health. How do you estimate the cost of contaminated lakes, rivers, and groundwater and the cost of contaminated food supply?  How do you estimate the cost of evacuating a city and villages?

According to a BBC report President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine estimated the accident cost Ukraine around $120bn to $130bn. According to some estimates ‘in the first 25 years the direct economic damage to Belarus, Ukraine and Russia has exceeded $500 billion’.

And now 25 years after the event, they are building a ‘New Safe Confinement’ structure at Chernobyl that is likely to cost in the region of $1.6 billion. And this of course is not permanent because the half-life of plutonium is 24,000 years. People will keep paying for this disaster for thousands of years. And what if there is a major natural disaster in the mean time and the containment is partially or fully disturbed?

We can argue about the finer points about the delay by the Soviet government, or the rot in the communist world etc., but please do keep in mind that this was NOT the worst case scenario. There is no guarantee that a worst accident will not happen. Also it may be useful to remember that the density of population in most parts of India is much higher. And also, that we neither have the Soviet style resources nor the Japanese style efficiency. If you have any doubts about this, just go look at Bhopal, apparently the factory is still leaching toxins.

There is no other option argument:

Given global warming, pollution etc., there is no other option. This is the tricky one, because it seems reasonable and till recently I was unsure how to address this issue in my own mind.

Here is what I think now. Indulge me, please. World history is replete with examples of hanging on to a familiar bad thing because a ‘good’ alternative was not obvious, or clear. But eventually human ingenuity figures a way out. When people talked about abolishing slavery, apparently one ‘reasonable’ sounding argument against it was that the economy will come to a grinding halt, because there will be no cheap labour. Some Englishmen argued in favour of staying in India because they were ‘worried’ that India wouldn’t know how to govern itself. Some people still argue against abolishing all forms of child-labour in this country by citing terrible hardships that may befall the children and their families.

I don’t have an alternate solution. But that should not dissuade us from realizing the horrendous inhumanity of the current solution. Only once we reject a ‘bad’ solution will we invest our energy into finding a ‘good’ one.

Related links & sources:

• Chernobyl, 25 Years Later
• Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment
• Neighbours count cost of Chernobyl disaster
• Chernobyl Death Toll: 4,000 or 1 Million?
• After Chernobyl – Michael Forster Rothbart’s work
• Remembering Chernobyl

Source:Center for American Progress

For some strange reason the ‘topi’ sitting on the head of Anna Hazare reminded me of the real Gandhi and the story about the kid who eats too much sugar. For the benefit of those who may not be familiar, the story goes like this: A woman brings her son to Gandhi and asks him to talk to her child to stop eating too much sugar because it is not good for his health. Gandhi asks the lady to return in two weeks. When she comes back he just asks the child to stop eating sugar. Apparently he did not give this advice to the kid earlier because he himself was eating too much sugar.

It seems ‘Gandhigiri’ itself came in the way of my participating in a non-violent protest. I was forced to look inwards and ask some hard questions. Am I corrupt? Have I ever been corrupt? What does it mean to be ‘corrupt? Is the word reserved for the illegal, unethical, and unfair acts of ministers, babus, police and the like? Does accepting part of the salary as cash (and therefore non-taxable) qualify as corruption? Does claiming taxi fare from your company, when you actually took the Metro qualify? Does leasing a car through your company so that the company deducts the amount from your ‘unofficial salary’ and pays the leasing company directly, thereby helping you save substantial tax, qualify? Does exploiting a loophole to label a chemicals-laden product as ‘herbal’ qualify? When your company or RWA employs guards/cleaners through a contractor, of course, who pays less than the legal minimum salary, or makes them work 12-hour shifts, and you say nothing, does that qualify? Does buying products made by children (or even adults) in massively exploitative sweat-shops qualify?

These and many more such questions, all theoretical, of course, kept swirling though my head, and while I was sorting all of this in my mind, the ‘revolution’ was over. And I missed my chance to participate in it.

Now that the dust has settled, the question that is plaguing me is this: Given that corruption (illegal, as well as unethical and unfair acts) is pervasive, and permeates almost every aspect of our private and public life, how long will it be before the massively powerful office of the ‘Lok Pal’ itself is occupied by a corrupt person.

I look around my self the only deduction I am forced to make is that given sufficient inducement, most of us are corruptible. Creating a super-cop, I am sure will help, but will it bring lasting change?

I have no reason to doubt the intent of the leader or the followers and do not have any alternate solutions. I am no constitutional expert but I do know something about the media. Any time all major TV channels, newspapers agree on something, it is likely to be an issue that the media owners expect to resonate with majority of the advertisement-consuming middle-class, and therefore with the advertisers. It is time to examine the issue more carefully… like most complex issues in life, there may not be absolute blacks and whites, but if media defines it as pure as mother’s-milk, odds are very high that the contaminants are lurking just below the surface.

It is unfortunate that “serious” analysis in mainstream media has been limited to tweet-sized self-congratulatory messages along with large photos. And on the other end of the spectrum it has been limited to personal attacks on Anna Hazare and his politics.

A few links that attempt to, perhaps not entirely successfully, objectively analyse the content of the ‘revolution’. I found some of the comments to the post very insightful too.

At the Risk of Heresy: Why I am not Celebrating with Anna Hazare
‘Anna Hazare’, Democracy and Politics (A response to the previous item)
Of a few, By a few, For the few
Hysteria will not end corruption