Sujavna 2:5

It is 12 noon on 29^th January 2012

What innovative approaches are available for a society that is struggling to decide the boundaries of free speech – if indeed there need to be such boundaries at all, what can define and demarcate the fine line that runs between the need for unfettered rights to expressions of opinions or criticisms and the need to protect orthodox ideologies from being corrupted through apparently-blasphemic viewpoints? This is something that has been exercising my mind, as I hear debates in the mainstream media whether it is on regulation of content on the internet and the reactions by Google and Twitter, or the bungling by various Indian organisations in the Salman Rushdie – Jaipur Literary Festival affair.

My exasperation stems from the realisation that such debates do not go beyond predictable stand-offs, and there is a hiatus in the debates until the next round of debates are triggered by a new round of events that trigger the same controversies. Why are we not able to engage various stakeholders to commit themselves to piloting new approaches to manage such controversies?

For instance, is there a way by which the provisions of a public interest litigation (PIL) or class-action suit can be used by any aggrieved party to use the judicial process to effect a temporary stay-order in further publication of the controversial work (or the reverse case of lifting a ban), and a process of arbitration is set in process with a time-frame of say 3 months for all parties to settle the matter, beyond which the court may give its verdict on continuing with the ban or lifting it. The PIL process may ensure that frivolous petitions and any material losses to either party are appropriately compensated through appropriate court deposits.

Another approach could be to encourage debates on controversial content with a twist – that the debaters need to be from the same homologous community. This will ensure that the debates are not on predictable lines of stand-offs between well-entrenched positions from opposite camps (say majority community versus minority community) but from different viewpoints from the same community. This will probably also ensure acceptability of solutions can be thrown up in such debates.

Isn’t it time we tried these or other new and innovative approaches to controversies in publishing and distribution of content?

Hope you are having a nice weekend and that the first month of 2012 has been great for you.

Sujavna 2:4

It is 430pm in Mumbai on 22^nd January 2012

Does an ever-increasing absolute size of global trade and cross-border investment make economic sense when looked at from the prism of sustainable development? If every country were to start encouraging inward investments from overseas, what would happen to protection of national sovereign interests, as we know them?

These are some of the questions that I am having difficulties in answering as I am getting increasingly involved in global trade and cross-border investment.  My troubles stem from my orthodox understanding of (a) the second law of thermodynamics, which implies that you cannot have a free lunch when you need energy for growth, and (b) the basic premise of a capitalist society which dictate that capital (K) will need to be leveraged for best returns, and the best and most-durable of returns are usually found by using positions of influence that come with strategic power.

So how does one resolve such conundrums? What innovations can provide equitable options? Has the time come for the smartest and the wisest of our economists, businessmen and financiers to chart a new global economic system of trade and investment that will see the spawning of cross-border investments which will fast-track local production and local consumption activities, and that too on a very high-order of energy-efficiencies;  will reduce the demand for globally-outsourced production, large-scale shipping, transportation, warehousing; and yet avoid the pitfalls of very little local consumption or very large wastage due to limited shelf-lives or fashion-cycles!

Are such innovations possible? Or have we passed the tipping points in our universal surge for growth and development? I hope and pray that we are yet to see those innovations, which are already happening in the thought-laboratories of hundreds and thousands of the problem-solvers of the world.

Hope that you are having a wonderful weekend, and that my rants above will inspire you to join those hundreds and thousands of others who are striving to get our economic systems on the right steer. Wishing you a great week ahead.

Sujavna 2:3

It is 1115am on 15^th January 2012

And the Mumbai Marathon is in full swing. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of eager enthusiasts and organisers will be pleased at the end of the day, to know that they did their small bit to help various needy NGOs get some additional funds to pursue their own individual goals. Great!

So how did the first fortnight of 2012 turn out to be for you? Any interesting ideas and projects that caught your attention, which you think is going to impact your environment in the near future? In my case, I was excited to learn from a very senior government official of the Indian state of Gujarat, about the Swagat project which aims to provide a periodic high-performance videoconference facility for all the local bodies and citizens of the state to discuss directly with the Chief Minister and his Cabinet on development issues. I think this is yet another positive step in using technology for governance.

Elections to several Indian state legislative assemblies have been announced and the stage is soon evolving for general parliamentary elections in 2013. I am very keen to know what innovations by the electorate, the Election Commission as well as the main political parties and the candidates, will become game-changers. I have a couple of ideas:

·         How about a series of 3 face-to-face debates by all candidates in each of the constituencies – one in a FM radio station, one in a TV studio and one in a public space – focusing on (a) ideas to minimise corruption in the constituency, (b) ideas for economic development of the constituency and (c) ideas for bridging the socio-cultural divides that currently exist in the constituency. The debates may be moderated by a senior local news editor or a popular celebrity and the costs incurred by the Election Commission.

·         How about a series of highly-secured mobile election voting booths (powered by solar / renewable energy source and equipped with modern telecom technologies) that will move to the voters’ residences /localities. This will ensure higher participation of the electorate, minimise bogus voting and record voter preferences on real-time basis.

I wish you all a great weekend and a wonderful week ahead.

Sujana 2:2

It is 4pm in Mumbai on 08 January 2012.

And, I am in one of those extravagant moods that compel me to risk attempting to be a poet. So:

               

            As our exploratory spaceships stray

lightyears outside of  our solar system

            As our microelectronic gadgetry scan

the fine contours of our internal organs

            As our philosophers and theoretical physicists endeavour to explain

this Universe and Beyond

And our artistes dazzle in creative brilliance by embracing

Interactive technology and cross-cultural influences

What then inhibits or prevents?

Our political leaders from reconciling

petty ideological and personal conflicts for larger, wider and deeper human well-being?

Our religious leaders from refraining

inciting followers to blind loyalty in affirming their faiths?

Our business captains from remembering that

entrepreneurship and business ventures are all about wealth creation and distribution,

not just strategies in which customers and society are part of the game-theory?

Each one of us from ensuring

we seek to continuously improve our work processes and outputs

to make life better for ourselves, our customers, our senior citizens

and those fellow-citizens who are not as well-resourced as we may be!

And as we cross the hurdles that prevent us from any of the above, I am sure

We can, standing in our own small patches on this earth, excel

The performances of our spaceships, our philosophers, the geeks

and the brilliance of our creative artistes!

Sujavna 2:1

It is 1230pm on 01 January 2012.

Welcome to the fist of my blogs for 2012. I do hope that you found all my blogs of 2011 interesting and thought-provoking. I sincerely hope that 2012 will see even-better sharing of ideas and thoughts on innovation between us.

As we begin yet another year and wish each other for happiness, prosperity, success and peace, I am tempted to ask if there are more innovative ways of greeting each other and spreading the goodwill during this festive season. For instance:

(a)    Can bookstores (such as Landmark and Crossword in Mumbai) invite their customers to spend all of New Years’ eve at their retail outlets with offers of interacting with popular authors, generous discounts on any books purchased between 11pm and 2am, platforms for children who are aspiring to become poets and writers?

(b)   Can cinemas (multiplexes) offer their seats for the New Year evening and night to stand-up comedians, local folk artistes and small music bands for a whole night of assorted entertainment?

(c)    Can we not have a night of entertainment at open stadiums with performances from the winners of the previous years’ Janmashtami Govindas ,the Navratri Dandiyas interspersed with street plays?

And can we use social media such as Facebook to webcast these performances live to spread the cheer across to other cultures in other parts of the country and perhaps the world?

Wishing you all the very best in 2012 and looking forward to a great year in the blogosphere known as Sujavna.