Is the Booker prize winner right this time?

Yesterday I was reading excerpt of what Arundhati Roy spoke on a talk show where she was elaborating on her article that was published in the Hindu in which she had severely criticised Anna Hazare for holding the parliament to ransom during the recent anti-corruption activism at Ram Lila ground.

I had first met her as a curious teenager in Bhopal at the British library in somewhere 2001-02 when she was there to promote her book.

And then as I became a part of a law school my gray cells started working and with time I became critical of her views. The prime reason for this was her views on Kashmir and on naxalism.

Till yesterday I have never been impressed by her arguments and writings. 


And I would not have probably been writing this if I would not have read the transcripts of what she said on the talk show yesterday.

To the critics and to the supporters of Anna

I,along with thousands of others, was present at India gate in Delhi on 17^th August as we heeded the call of Anna Hazare and marched to Jantar mantar sweating under the merciless sun to show solidarity with fight against corruption and discontent with the leaders. 

We were the same people who had elected these very parliamentarians and now we were marching to express our resentment against them. There were Congress supporters and there were the Saffron sympathizers and all were walking in unison.

There were youths, small children and aged people. And almost all of them had one thing in common; no one was there for Rs.150 or a piece of samosa  as it generally happens in a political rally. Nor they belonged to a particular stratum of the society or caste and class.

Equally true was that majority of them who were present there were not aware of the nuances of the Jan Lok pal bill. The only underlying sentiment that had brought them together was the common feeling of helplessness against Corruption. Period.

If it was not Anna Hazare and if it was Abdul Kalam, the former Indian president, then too people would have come out in the same numbers. It’s not about the individual as much it’s for the cause.

Anna Hazare in this 'movement' which is an expression of sentiments that resonates across crores of hearts, has emerged as someone whom the common mass can look up to in their struggle against corruption, a struggle that was always there in their life, but was not vocal enough, as it has become now under Hazare.

Kyoto Protocol- a History and its present relevance

What is Kyoto Protocol ? Where are we going in the future with the Kyoto Protocol? How has the international politics bogged down this concept which was a step much required for the safe keeping of future of this planet.

It’s important to understand where we are going on this process and we also have to see where we came from. To understand this, we have to understand that there is a science-based problem—namely climate change—that was identified in the mid-1980s and led to the first fundamental process, the 1992 Rio Convention, which produced the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC].

That Convention gave a general outlook of what should be done to address climate change, but it did not give any specific tools on how to tackle it. So the 189 countries that were parties to the Convention decided that there should be a stronger tool to address climate change. At that point, the architecture of what we now call the Kyoto Protocol was decided. It’s important to understand that this was, fundamentally, a partial architecture, which agreed that industrialized countries would have to take the lead to reduce their emissions before the rest of the world, the developing countries, would take on commitments.