From now on, the Cabinet ministers will shun five star hotels, travel economy class, eat only chappati and dal, wear khadi clothes they themselves spun and will live in huts. With their Z+ security. That means we won't get budget hotel rooms to stay in anymore (Security of the ministers), no air tickets, inflation goes up and huts will become the latest fashion statement. Come on, Mr. Prime Minister, we are not bothered about any of these things. I don't care whether you stay in Taj or Ritz, I wouldn't even bother if you chartered a plane for each one of your ministers. As long as you do your work. We Indians are quite tolerant of these excesses. Remember Akbar. He had quite lavish a life, yet is called Akbar the Great whereas the poor Aurangzeb who lived on the money he earned by spinning clothes comes nowhere near. He is the villain of Indian history. Learn from history, dear fellows! We prefer an Akbar to an Aurangzeb any day. At least a vast majority of us.
Something more about politics. Japan is going to have a new Prime Minister, Mr. Yukio Hatoyama. He belongs to the Democratic Party of Japan, which will come into power in the later half of this month. His party beat the Liberal Democrats which had been ruling the country for an astounding 54 years. The PM-elect promises to cut Japan's greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent by around 2020 from 1990 levels.
What is our government doing? Global warming and greenhouse gases are not problems that are going to affect the people who created them alone. The entire humanity is at stake. Why does Indian and Chinese governments make such a hell of a noise when we are asked to cut down emissions. Yes, it is true that we have low per capita emission but our contribution in destroying this rock we call home in galactic parlance is becoming too significant to be ignored. India contributes about 5% of the global greenhouse emissions, according to the data compiled in 1994. We have come a long way since then. So our contribution naturally should be quite larger than the original 5% now. We need to be careful now.
The global warming is not going to spare India out of sheer benevolence. We are going to be affected too, most probably more than many other countries as we have a large section of our population who are so poor that they can't afford two square meals a day. A majority of the population work in agriculture and related industries. And global warming is going to hit farming very, very hard. Our food production is going to go down but the population will increase (unless the Centre takes a cue from the TN government and gives everyone TVs. ;-) ). And in spite of the fact that agriculture is now becoming a backup engine for the economy (Services:54%, industrial:29% and agriculture:17%) we will go down without a fight if the farming sector is hit too hard.
So what do we do? The thing is we are starting industries anyway and most of them, for the sake of reducing the initial investment required, go for outdated (read more polluting) technology than the new (read less polluting). We need our government to take steps to ensure that the entrepreneurs and the industrialists find the latter more profitable than the former. Companies like Suzlon must be promoted by giving them more incentives. The government after all has a duty to its citizens - if not anything else, we must at least have clean air to breathe and tolerably clean water to drink. Legislation for placing the industries under a tighter rein will have to brought in some day. The outdated factories will have to be scrapped then. So why not build them to be more efficient and less polluting, even if it costs a little more dough in the beginning?
We will have to make amends one day. Why not start doing it right away so that the transition will be less of a problem for everyone? It will pay rich dividends in the long run. China is already taking steps to curb its pollution level. We will have a real advantage in the long run if we start now. Our emissions are only a quarter of China's.
We will be doing our poor brethren a favour. It is common knowledge that the poor in India are subsidising the emissions of the upper and the middle classes. We owe it to the nation and its people.
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