The Hindu Business Line : One more year of poverty begins for the ignored Indians

OUTSIDE the ostentatious celebrations ringing in the New Year are those who form the subject matter of a new book from Oxford University Press (www.oup.com): Handbook of Poverty in India, edited by R. Radhakrishna and Shovan Ray. "For too long, the functioning of our democracy has been moulded and twisted by the vested interests. A major task now is to deepen our democracy by taking it to the grassroots for empowering the people," writes C. H. Hanumantha Rao in his foreword to the book.

The editors cite `two recent large-scale nation-wide surveys'. The National Family Health Survey (1998-99) had these findings to showcase: "47 per cent of children are malnourished and 74 per cent are anaemic. 36 per cent of ever-married women aged 15-49 have chronic energy deficiency. 54 per cent of women aged 15-49 in rural areas have no education, about half the pregnant women suffer from iron deficiency. 71 per cent of rural households do not have any toilet facility; 19 per cent villages do not have any health facility and 51 per cent villages do not have any drainage system either underground or open."

The NCAER survey of human development, which used a hundred indicators, found that half the rural population suffered from `capability poverty', which means these people were healthy but lacked the capability to be educated. "57 per cent of rural households do not have domestic lighting, 75 per cent do not have access to tap water and only a low 33 per cent utilise the public distribution system," it found. But then, the poor don't make it to the `Indians of the Year' slot, do they? Worthy reading.

Forced labour breaks no new ground

THE creative people in advertising agencies are not the only ones who have a patent on getting ideas, writes Jack Foster in Ideaship, from Tata McGraw-Hill (www.tatamcgrawhill.com). "Everyday, the people you work with probably come up with dozens of ideas," he reminds. The right environment is "where people enjoy coming to work everyday, where there's a feeling of camaraderie and good fellowship, where people attack their work with alacrity and confidence... where they think of themselves as partners instead of employees."

Work generated by command never has the freshness or spontaneity of work generated by desire, says Foster. "Forced labour is good way of breaking rocks, but it seldom breaks new ground." Full of insights!

Science plus art

AFTER having worked on NASA's `manned and unmanned projects' and participating in fusion research at Los Alamos National Laboratory, V. K. Viswanathan has written Mythologies, Mysteries, Modern Facts of the Nine Planets, in collaboration with renowned artist S. Rajam. Our solar system, which is about 4.6 billion years old, is roughly a cube with each side being 100 AU (astronomical unit) in length, writes Viswanathan. What is 1 AU equal to? The distance of earth from the sun, that is, 150 million km!

The book carries impressive sketches by Rajam, and sharp photographs from spacecrafts; likewise, there are innumerable references both to epics and literary works, and also scientific evidence. Do you know that Jupiter accounts for more than two-thirds of all the material in the solar system excluding the sun? "The giant red spot called the eye of Jupiter has storms whirling up to 360 km an hour... Jupiter emits twice as much energy as it receives from the sun."

Venus's rotation is retrograde, so the sun rises in the west and sets in the east! The chapter talks not only about the hand mirror symbol that the Roman goddess Venus wields, but also about the astrological belief that Sukra Dasa lasts for twenty years, conferring benefits. "Sukran is a planet that delivers happiness, romance, and prosperity in almost every culture," explains the author. The book comes with an audio CD with the renderings of the Navagraha Kritis of Muthuswamy Dhikshithar by Rajam. Enchanting material.

What they don't teach in MBA

CHRIS Grey has written A very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Studying Organizations, from Response (www.indiasage.com) . The field of management studies is increasingly characterised by "huge, door-stopping, wrist-aching textbooks running sometimes to many hundreds of pages," writes Grey in his sub-150-page book, which is intended to "fit in the average sized pocket, and not burn a hole in that pocket." A chapter on business schools and professional management begins with Thomas Frank's quote, `Processing plants for the faking of intellectual authority'. There is absolutely no evidence that taking a management course has any effect at all upon making people better managers, informs Grey. "It is even possible that it makes people worse managers." Must read, unless you want to hold on to your academic lessons!

Wake up running!

THE greatest of all master keys to lifelong success is to serve others, because the quality of your own life will profoundly improve, assures Vijay Eswaran in his book, In the Sphere of Silence. The author is the CEO of Quest International Ltd, "a multinational corporation which operates diverse business lines in over 100 countries," as the book informs.

A section titled `if' notes that "the sad, fundamentally simple word that defines 90 per cent of humanity is `if'." Such as, "if only things could have been different." Things do not need to be different, you need to be, advises Eswaran. He cites an African saying: "A lion gets up everyday in Africa running, knowing that he must run faster than the slowest antelope he's about to meet or he goes hungry and he dies." What about the antelope? It gets up saying, "I have to be faster than the fastest lion I am about to meet or I die." For contemplative moments.

Tailpiece

"How dare he sent me an SMS saying HNY!"

"For Happy New Year, perhaps."

"No, he's calling me `honey', without vowels!"

ReadingRoom@TheHindu.co.in

D. Murali