Is India in a State of Permanent Famine

It tragic that when someone like Anna Hazare take up issues it is termed as a sacrifice and sign of greatness. I feel ashamed that we continuously live with everything wrong and stinking around us but instead of revolting against it we accept it as way of life. To make life better around us is not a sacrifice. I had once met Aruna Roy , ex IAS who left her job and fought in a village of Rajasthanfor RTI. someone told her that she had made a great sacrifice. She felt offended and said that she did what she thought was better then her IAS job and was happy doing it. She did not do it because she wanted accolades but because she believed in it and felt happy doing it.
The issue is therefore to enjoy what you are doing. Quite often all of us get in cosy drawing rooms and over a drink or coffee curse everyone from politicians to bureaucrats and then go to sleep believing that our job is done. I think we are to be blames for the mess we are in. We all preach but do not practice. Honesty is the best policy for others but not for us. This is hypocracy. we need to get out of our Kumbhkaran type slumber and be prepared to change a few lives around us. It is like once I encountered Mr A M Naik , CMD of L&T. he was giving a lecture as to why all engineers and doctors should serve India rather go abroad. Over a drink I asked him about his children and he very proudly said that they are well settled in US. that is where the paradox lies. We all have double standards in life and that has to change.
talking of corruption, having been in large Business houses, I can tell you for sure that they are the fountains of corruption all over the world but quite often go unchecked. they are able to buy law,justice and above all silence. I wish we need to start a movement to include the activities of the corporate houses also under the Jan Lokpal bill. until they are reigned in corruption cannot be fought in this country.
Have been thinking for a while and hence this instantaneous outburst.
vijoy

P.Sainath, Rural Affairs Editor for the Hindu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palagummi_Sainath) has been researching this very phenomenon for the past decade. He is the pioneer of uncovering the high rate of farmers suicides in India. Here's an article he wrote: http://www.counterpunch.org/sainath02042010.html
He taught at Trinity in the late 90s, and gave a lecture a couple of weeks ago here in college. I went for it, the statistics were eye-opening. At the talk, when he revealed shocking facts of India's rural sector (in terms of death rate, daily wages, sanitation facilities etc.) someone remarked, "I've never heard someone make the Sub-Saharan African countries look good!"
There's a documentary called Nero's Guests made by Deepa Bhaita in which Sainath is the main character. Watch it when you have time. (http://www.idfa.nl/industry/tags/project.aspx?id=51be8617-0e86-495d-8b1c-45ea1b2e9610)
Ananya Sahay



Charity begins at home.

Before doing anything else stop watching cricket shows – Live or on TV. Not because you do not enjoy the game or do not have respect for the game or the players but because the show is not the game – it is a poor, rigged, bastardized apologetic version of the game.


Sushil Prasad


Dear Friend,
You are not naive.Never underestimate the power of the sleeping giant within all of us.You have, infact, hit the nail on the head.
There has to be a social movement and some hard decisions(not sacrifice, as we mistakenly think.After all what is so glamorous about our,each one of us, present lives) have to be taken.There has to a movement to consume only simple things,locally produced, for the economic regeneration of our villages. People like us can contribute by strengthening the rural economy in small ways by opening cottage industries,and strengthening the village schools and health centres.
The resources of the govt have to be augmented by massive intervention of the civil society at large.Each one of us has to introspect how best we can contribute.
And,no, I am not against either cricket or films. Infact,I do enjoy both, in small doses.However, it does seem to me that the powers that be want us to remain drugged by these so that we don't discuss or be aware of more important issues. But we need to understand that we are safe only if the populace at large lives a life of dignity. In this digital,and heavily connected world, we can no longer live the life as Nero's inheritors. Not any more.
The times,indeed, are a changing.


Best regards,
Avinash

On 25 April 2011 16:07, avinash sahay wrote:



Friends,
This article in the Hindu calls for some introspection among us,the upwardly mobile Indians.Is cricket, and films, our new opiate. Are we too drugged by these to care what is happening in our country.
Do we see the structural violence inbuilt in the system against a majority of our countrymen.As per the criteria laid out by WHO,any group where 60% of the people have a BMI of less than 18.5 can be said to be in a state of famine.Here, in our country, as per the statistics released by the Planning Commission,77% of the people earn about Rs20 per day.I have seen no statistics of BMI, but where 17,000 farmers have been committing suicides every year for the past 15 years,I am not sanguine that we are not a country which is in a permanent state of famine.
I also have little doubt in my mind that unless we, the intelligentsia, wake up from our stupor of inanities like cricket, we will be shirking our responsibilities to ourselves.As the Supreme Court itself noted recently, there is not two but one India.

Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com/







Our farmers are dying, to hell with the World Cup




NARENDRA SHEKHAWAT




On average, 47 farmers have been committing suicide every single day in the past 16 years in our shining India










Yes, you read it right; to hell with the World Cup; to hell with the celebrations; to hell with all the free land and money being showered by different governments on the players. How can I jump, scream, have gallons of beer and cheer for the nation when a few kilometres away the farmers and feeders of my country are taking their own lives in hordes?
Do you know that, on average, 47 farmers have been committing suicide every single day in the past 16 years in our shining India — the next economic power, progressive with nine per cent growth?
Last month, on March 5, Friday evening, when Bangalore's watering holes were getting filled up, when all the DJs were blaring out deafening music, when we were busy discussing India's chances at the World Cup, sitting in CCDs and Baristas — just 100 km away from Bangalore, Swamy Gowda and Vasanthamma, a young farmer couple, hanged themselves, leaving their three very young children to fend for themselves or, most likely, die of malnutrition.
Why did they do it? Were they fighting? No. Were they drunkards? No. Did they have incurable diseases? No! Then WHY? Because they were unable to repay a loan of Rs 80,000 (a working IT couple's one month salary? 2-3 months EMI?) for years, which had gradually increased to Rs. 1.2 lakh. Because they knew that now they would never be able to pay it back. Because they were hurt. Hurt by our government which announced a huge reduction in import duty for silk in this year's budget (from 30 per cent to 5 per cent).They were struggling silk farmers and instead of help from the government, they get this! Decrease in import duty means the markets will now be flooded with cheap Chinese silk (as everything else!) and our own farmers will be left in the lurch.
On average, 17,000 farmers have been committing suicide every year, for the past 15 years on the trot. Can you believe it? Most of us wouldn't know this fact. Why? Because, our great Indian media, the world's biggest media, are not interested in reporting this! Why? Because they are more interested in covering fashion week extravaganzas. They are more interested in ‘why team India was not practising when Pakistanis were sweating it out in stadium on the eve of the match?' They are more interested in Poonam Pandey.
The media are supposed to be the third eye of democracy and also called the fourth estate, but now they have become real estate. Pure business.
So any attention from the media is out of the question. Who is left then? The government? But we all know how it works. The other day, I was passing by Vidhan Soudha in Bangalore and happened to read the slogan written at the entrance, “Government work is god's work”. Now I know why our government has left all its work to god!
Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa announced plots for all the players. But land? In Bangalore? You must be kidding, Mr. C.M.. So he retracts and now wants to give money. But where will it come from? Taxes, yours and mine. Don't the poor farmers need the land or money more than those players who are already earning in crores?
A government-owned bank will give you loan at six per cent interest rate if you are buying a Mercedes but if a poor farmer wants to buy a tractor, do you know how much it is charging him? Fifteen per cent! Look at the depths of inequality. Water is Rs. 15 a litre and a SIM card is for free! For how long can we bite the hand that is feeding us? The recent onion price fiasco was just a trailer. Picture abhi baaki hai doston!
In 2008, Lakme India fashion show venue was in a Mumbai five-star hotel and was covered by 500 journalists and the theme was ‘Cotton'. A few hours drive from there, cotton farmers were committing suicide, 4 or 5, everyday! How many TV journalists covered this? Zero!
Sixty-seventy per cent of India's population is living on less than Rs. 20 a day. A bottle of Diet coke for us? The electricity used in a day-night match could help a farmer irrigate his fields for more than a few weeks! Do you know that loadshedding is also class dependent? Two hours in metros, 4 in towns and 8 in villages. Now, who needs electricity more? A farmer to look after his crop day and night, irrigate, pump water and use machines or a few bored, young professionals with disposable incomes, to log on to Facebook and watch IPL?
How can we splurge thousands on our birthday parties and zoom past in our AC vehicles and sit in cushy chairs in our AC offices and plan a weekend trip to Coorg when on the way, in those small villages, just a few minutes' walk from the roads, someone might be consuming pesticide or hanging himself from a tree for just Rs.10, 000? How can we?
There was much panic when there was swine flu. Every single death in the country was reported second by second, minute by minute. Why? Because it directly affected our salaried, ambitious, tech-savvy, middle-class. So there were masks, special relief centres, enquiry centres set up by government to please this section. On the other hand, 47 people are dying, every single day for the past 15 years. Anybody cared to do anything?
It has been observed that within months of a farmer taking his life, his wife follows, either by poisoning the kids first or leaving them on their own. In Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, a distressed woman farmer went to the government seed shop, bought a bottle of pesticide, on credit, went home and drank it. She was under debt for most of her life and now — even her death was on credit!
Centuries ago, there was a Roman emperor, called Nero. He was a strong ruler and also very fond of parties, art, poetry, drinking and a life full of pleasures. Once he decided to organise a grand party and invited all poets, writers, dancers, painters, artists, intellectuals and thinkers of society. Everybody was having a great time eating, drinking, laughing, and socialising. The party was at its peak when it started getting dark. Nero wanted the party to go on. So he ordered and got all the arrested criminals, who were in his jails, around the garden and put them on fire! Burnt them alive, so that there was enough light for the guests to keep on enjoying! The guests had a gala time though they knew the cost of their enjoyment. Now, what kind of conscience those guests had?
Nero's guests
What is happening in our country is not different from Nero's party. We, the middle-class-young-well-earning-mall-hopping-IPL-watching and celebrating-junta are Nero's guests enjoying at the cost of our farmers. Every budget favours the already rich. More exemptions are being given to them at the cost of grabbing the land of our farmers in the name of SEZs, decrease in import duties in the name of neo-liberal policies, increase in the loan interest rates if the product is not worth lakhs and crores. Yes, that's what we are, Nero's guests!
I'm not against celebrations. I'm not against cricket. I'm not against World Cup. I would be the first person to scream, celebrate and feel proud of any of India's achievements but, only if all fellow countrymen, farmers, villagers also stand with me and cheer; only if they do not take their own lives ruthlessly, only if there is no difference between interest rates for a Mercedes and a tractor. That would be the day I also zoom past on a bike, post-Indian win, with an Indian Flag in hand and screaming Bharat Mata Ki Jai. But no, not today. Not at the cost of my feeders. Until then, this is what I say. To hell with your malls. To hell with your IPL. To hell with your World Cup. And to hell with your celebrations.
(The writer's email is: naren.singh.shekhawat@ gmail.com)

The Deceptions of a Rising India

Prime Minister down, WikiLeaks has exposed the rotten state of the world's largest democracy for all to see.

Food prices become intolerable for the poor. Protests against corruption paralyse Parliament. Then a series of American diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks exposes a brazenly mendacious and venal ruling class; the head of government adored by foreign business people and journalists loses his moral authority, turning into a lame duck.

This sounds like Tunisia or Egypt, countries long deprived of representative politics and pillaged by the local agents of neoliberal capitalism. But it is India, where in recent days WikiLeaks has highlighted how democratic institutions are no defence against the rapacity and selfishness of globalised elites.

Most of the cables — being published by The Hindu, the country's most respected newspaper in English — offer nothing new to those who haven't drunk the “Rising India” Kool-Aid vended by business people, politicians and their journalist groupies. The evidence of economic liberalisation providing cover for a wholesale plunder of the country's resources has been mounting over recent months. The loss in particular of a staggering $39 billion in the government's sale of the telecom spectrum has alerted many Indians to the corrupt nexuses between corporate and political power.

Even the western financial press, unwaveringly gung-ho about the money to be made in India, is getting restless. Early this year, the Economist asked: “Is Indian capitalism becoming oligarchic?” — a question to which the only correct response is “Hell-ooo”. In the Financial Times, Indian business dynasties have been described as “robber barons”.

The intimate details about politicians revealed by the WikiLeaks still leave you speechless. What can one say about the former Cabinet Minister, a fervent spokesman for low-caste Hindus, who demanded a large bribe from Dow Chemical Company, which is being helped by senior American officials to overcome its association with the gas leak at the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal that in 1984 killed and maimed tens of thousands of Indians? Indeed, the cables reveal U.S. business and officials to be as embedded in India's politics as they are in Pakistan's. In 2008, the aide to an old courtier of the Nehru-Gandhi family showed a U.S. diplomat two chests containing $25 million in cash — money to bribe members of Parliament into voting for an India-US nuclear deal, itself a prelude to massive U.S. arms sales to India. Publicly opposed to the nuclear deal, the leaders of the Hindu nationalist BJP are at pains to reassure American diplomats of their pro-U.S. credentials, even dissing their murderous Hindu nationalism as opportunistic, a mere “talking point”.

The cables offer many such instances of the ideological deceptions practised by the purveyors of “Rising India”. Virtually all economic growth of recent years, a senior politician admits, is concentrated in the four southern states, two western states (Gujarat and Maharashtra) and “within 100km of Delhi”. But why worry? Another, from the BJP, has nieces and sisters living in the U.S., and “five homes to visit between DC and New York”. As for the entry of retailers like Walmart into India, oh, that “should not seriously hurt the mom and pop stores that form a BJP constituency”.

Not surprisingly, the Americans have developed contempt for such representatives of the world's largest democracy, who seem to validate Gandhi's denunciations of Parliament as a “prostitute”. Hillary Clinton gets right to the point in a cabled inquiry about Pranab Mukherjee, the Finance Minister widely tipped as India's next Prime Minister: “To which industrial or business groups is Mukherjee beholden? Whom will he seek to help through his policies? Why was Mukherjee chosen for the finance portfolio over Montek Singh Ahluwalia?” — the last named is a reliably pro-U.S. technocrat.

But no one stands more diminished by the leaks than the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, one of the former employees of the World Bank and IMF who have helped make India safe for oligarchism. It has long been common knowledge in political circles that Mr. Singh removed his Petroleum Minister in 2006 for the latter's allegedly anti-American advocacy of a gas pipeline to Iran. We now know from the cables that the then U.S. Ambassador congratulated himself for this “undeniable pro-American tilt” of the Indian government. Visiting the White House in 2008, Mr. Singh induced a nationwide cringe when he blurted out to the most disliked American President ever: “The people of India deeply love you.” (Even George Bush looked startled.) This love unblushingly speaks its name in the cables; even the racketeers of Pakistani military and intelligence appear dignified when compared with the Indians stampeding to plant kisses on U.S. behinds. Mr. Singh has presided over an ignominious surrender of national sovereignty and dignity.

There are many more revelations in store; these are tense days for many politicians, business people and journalists. They probably hope the bad news is buried by the cricket World Cup celebrations. They will also try to prove their fealty to the father of the Indian nation — last week politicians vied to threaten a sensitive study of Gandhi by the American writer Joseph Lelyveld with proscription. But there is nothing more un-Gandhian than this supra-national elite's wild cravings for power and wealth, and its indifference to suffering — a pathology of economic globalisation that Egyptians and Tunisians will soon learn elected governments don't cure, and even help conceal. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2011

(Pankaj Mishra is the author of Temptations of the West)

Anyone Can Be a Leader

EVENT What you do does not matter; but how you do it, does; anyone can be a leader and make a difference, says management trainer Robin Sharma. PRINCE FREDRICK reports
Oseola McCarty was a washerwoman and appeared destined for a life of obscurity. But, when she was 87, this African-American made astonishing news. She donated $150,000, saved through decades of frugal living, to the University of Southern Mississippi and requested scholarships be given to deserving students who couldn't pay their way through college.

Leadership expert and management trainer Robin Sharma — during a three-hour workshop organised last weekend by Madras Metro Round Table 95 and Madras Metro Ladies Circle 70 at the Sir Mutha Venkatasubba Rao Concert Hall — uses McCarty's life story to illustrate his point that anyone can be a leader and make a difference in this world.

In fact, while dispensing ideas for bolstering sagging businesses and careers, Sharma gives a plethora of biographical accounts, ranging from CEOs of top-ranking companies to people holding menial jobs. Each of these little stories supports an idea that is integral to Sharma's philosophy of life and work. He urges his audience to consider being a ‘rock star at work'. Approach your day's work as if you are on stage and giving a performance. What you do does not matter; but how you do it, does. To show what dedication to one's calling can do for you, Sharma plays the vlog of a man who has been installing carpets for 55 years and is considered a super-star of carpet installation.

Another huge pillar of his thought is the idea of “surviving” one's death. Greatness is measured by the impact you have on future generations. Sharma has committed to heart a popular saying he learnt from his father — “When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. When you die, the world should cry and you should rejoice.” Sharma talks about motorcycle champion ‘Joey' Dunlop, whose funeral in 2000 was characterised by a massive surge of 50,000 mourners. The Irish legend has the love of millions not because he was a supremely talented motorcycle racer, but because his heart thumped with compassion for starving and homeless people. When the ethnic conflict in Bosnia was at its height, he would load his trailer — used to transport his racing motorcycles — with food and clothing and take them to the strife-hit. He also reached food for orphans in Romania in a similar fashion.

Another absorbing story was how customers of South-West Airlines helped the corporation during a crisis. When the company was in the red, its past customers, whose hearts it had won through good service, sent envelopes with $5 and $10 bills. They were telling the company, “We want you to be in business.” Sharma says people appreciate businesses that truly serve them and reward this service. They don't understand the language of advertising — however sweet it may be — if the words are not backed by actions.

Sharma ended his session with the thought that everyone should look beyond money and life's transience. Money is important. It buys many comforts. But it takes character to give you a continual peace and joy. “In hundred years, all of us will be dust,” he stresses. “The CEO will be buried or cremated next to the street sweeper.” A sobering and liberating thought!

Keywords: Management ideas, Robin Sharma

A

Jinhe Naaz Hai Hind Par Kahan Hain Woh?

Friends,
This thought provoking story in Sunday magazine of The Hindu of 6th Feb will probably stir the conscience of many of us who are still not numbed by the totalitarian factory that,sadly, passes off for the educational system in our country. On the one hand there are many who are beguiled by the idea of India as a Superpower.Such elements are the upwardly mobile elites comprising a certain kind of Corporates who brazenly bribe Ministers,bureaucrats and the Media to influence policies wholly unsuited to our needs and genius,heavily influenced by the soul-sapping and environmentally untenable model of development pioneered in the West.
On the other side are the almost 50% of the poor who earn less than a dollar a day whom this "development" model has totally passed by.The number of poor in India exceeds the number that lives in the whole of Africa. And in this age of instant communication it will be difficult to argue that India will remain immune to events happening in the rest of the world,including Egypt.Therefore, it's time we citizens took charge of the situation instead of depending on the Govt or the Corporates. We'll never hear the bad news in the popular media because, for the most part,it is owned by the same Corporates who believe there is nothing vulgar living in billion dollar homes when the majority of our countrymen live in slums.
If our ambition is to have the same lifestyles as our profligate elites,it may be a very small ambition indeed.Nor, do I think,it is possible given the fragile eco-system that all of us share.Therefore it's high time that we see the larger picture and get wedded to the larger Idea. Not of India as a superpower, borne out of a brittle self worth of the super elites, but that of a life of dignity for All Indians.For we are all entitled to equitably share the fruits of our same Mother Nature.

Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com/

You are the Answer to Fiक्ष् the world

Dear Friends,
In this perceptive article, Parag Khanna argues that the crisis our civilization faces today is similar to the many crises during the Middle Ages which still managed to usher in the Renaissance.He sees a similar renaissance coming through the Internet and creative capitalism.
The modern day Medicis like Bill Gates outspend the world's govts on public health.George Soros supports human rights crusaders worldwide and Richard Branson is in the forefront promoting green technologies.Gatherings like World Economic Forum at Davos,Clinton Global Initiative are the visible tips of the iceberg to see this new public-private model in action.These give hope to the million synergies happening by the brave warriors worlwide where "everyone seems to be working for everyone else."
This column has relentlessly argued that we have to be the agents for change we want to see.We will only have a bright future only when we usher in the opulence of our own souls which then pushes us on the path of eternal resilience,hope and sustained action.
So friends let us not give up on ourselves and indulge in futile flagellation.We have seen nothing yet of the flowering of human genius.

Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com/


In one of the most memorable scenes in cinema, Orson Welles' Harry Lime rides the giant Viennese Ferris wheel in the 1949 classic The Third Man and muses, "In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love; they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

In some respects, our world today isn't far off from the European medieval landscape that Lime conjured up. It is a multipolar, multicivilizational world in which every empire, city-state, multinational corporation or mercenary army is out for itself. Instead of predictable relationships in international relations, the difference between the words alliance and dalliance is just one letter. There are so many failed or failing states that we have to question whether, as in the Middle Ages, we should accept that what passes for "government" will be different at any two points on the map.
(Read: "Global Economy: A Changing Order")

Walter Lippmann warned that we have a tendency to define first and then to see rather than to see first and then define. The chaotic world we see today can't be easily defined, but it can be understood by looking back to an era in which both the West and the East were strong enough to call their own shots, when empires but also city-states competed for influence, when the Arab world and Islam were powerful, when governments mattered but so too did corporations and wealthy families and when religion and trade were driving forces in connecting the globe.

A thousand years ago, Song-dynasty China was the most advanced civilization in the world, India's Chola dynasty ruled the seas to Indonesia, and the Abbasid caliphate stretched from North Africa through Persia. In Asia it was a golden age. But in the West, we associate the medieval world with plagues, crusades, mercenaries, witches. And today we find ourselves again in a potentially long period of fear and uncertainty. Fear, however, can motivate innovation and progress. Inventions ranging from the cannon to the compass and even double-entry bookkeeping were developed during the Middle Ages. If we want to pull ourselves out of this new Middle Ages and into the next Renaissance, we need to similarly harness the turbulence of today to build a stable tomorrow. Perhaps a little fear of the future could help.
(Read: "Fierce and Friendly: China's Two Diplomatic Faces.")

No End to Crisis
Over several hundred years between the 11th and 15th centuries, the great Eurasian landmass was beset by conflict and crises: a papal schism, the Crusades, Mongol invasions and the Black Death. Today we have crises in spades. The plague has reappeared in the form of global pandemics like AIDS. The world is still recovering from the worst economic downturn in 80 years. Terrorism is unstoppable in the Middle East and South Asia, piracy has returned to Africa's coastlines, and the U.N. recently declared organized crime a "superpower." As was the case hundreds of years ago, our present disorder is not episodic but chronic. Believing that the world is safer because there is less terrorism this year than last is like believing that the global economy is healthy just because the stock market went up for a week.

Ours is an arbitrary world: billions today live unsure of whether their true masters are the equivalent of local feudal lords, elected but corrupt politicians or distant corporate executives. Asian and Arab sovereign wealth funds buy up Africa's cropland to hedge against their own food shortages while profiting from the sale of poor nations' precious food supplies. But two things are sure: who has the money makes the rules, and the rules will be different wherever you go. Instead of the U.N. leading a world of strong international law, our international institutions are more like Europe's Holy Roman Empire, to whom local powers simply paid lip service.
(See pictures of the global financial crisis.)

Just as in the Middle Ages, our world today is more a network of villages than it is a single one. Megacities such as Rio, Istanbul, Cairo, Mumbai, Nairobi and Manila teem with hundreds of thousands of urban squatters and have become worlds unto themselves that most residents never have the privilege of leaving. Still, those in their migrant underclass often live in functional, self-organizing ecosystems. Whether rich or poor, cities, more than nations, are the building blocks of global activity today.

The look of the entire postcolonial world is in the throes of change. Today the world is being fundamentally remapped in a process that is as violent as it is necessary. It took the Thirty Years' War from 1618 to 1648 for a fractured Europe to begin to codify a more predictable system of sovereign states. Now, from Congo and Sudan to Iraq and Pakistan, borders must be redrawn to correct for nonexistent or illegitimate governance and respect the aspirations of people to govern themselves. It could take decades for the growing list of failing states to be sorted out.

Light in India

January 10, 2011, 7:25 pm A Light in India
By DAVID BORNSTEIN

Fixes looks at solutions to social problems and why they work.

.Tags:
electricity, India, innovation, Poverty, power

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© Harikrishna Katragadda/Greenpeace
Students in the village of Tahipur in Bihar used kerosene lanterns for studying.When we hear the word innovation, we often think of new technologies or silver bullet solutions — like hydrogen fuel cells or a cure for cancer. To be sure, breakthroughs are vital: antibiotics and vaccines, for example, transformed global health. But as we’ve argued in Fixes, some of the greatest advances come from taking old ideas or technologies and making them accessible to millions of people who are underserved.

One area where this is desperately needed is access to electricity. In the age of the iPad, it’s easy to forget that roughly a quarter of the world’s population — about a billion and a half people (pdf) — still lack electricity. This isn’t just an inconvenience; it takes a severe toll on economic life, education and health. It’s estimated that two million people die prematurely each year as a result of pulmonary diseases caused by the indoor burning of fuels for cooking and light. Close to half are children who die of pneumonia.

In vast stretches of the developing world, after the sun sets, everything goes dark. In sub-Saharan Africa, about 70 percent of the population lack electricity. However, no country has more citizens living without power than India, where more than 400 million people, the vast majority of them villagers, have no electricity. The place that remains most in darkness is Bihar, India’s poorest state, which has more than 80 million people, 85 percent of whom live in households with no grid connection. Because Bihar has nowhere near the capacity to meet its current power demands, even those few with connections receive electricity sporadically and often at odd hours, like between 3:00 a.m and 6:00 a.m., when it is of little use.

This is why I’m writing today about a small but fast-growing off-grid electricity company based in Bihar called Husk Power Systems. It has created a system to turn rice husks into electricity that is reliable, eco-friendly and affordable for families that can spend only $2 a month for power. The company has 65 power units that serve a total of 30,000 households and is currently installing new systems at the rate of two to three per week.

What’s most interesting about Husk Power is how it has combined many incremental improvements that add up to something qualitatively new — with the potential for dramatic scale. The company expects to have 200 systems by the end of 2011, each serving a village or a small village cluster. Its plan is to ramp that up significantly, with the goal of having 2,014 units serving millions of clients by the end of 2014.


© Harikrishna Katragadda/Greenpeace

A biomass gasifier owned and operated by Husk Power Systems.Husk Power was founded by four friends: Gyanesh Pandey, Manoj Sinha, Ratnesh Yadav and Charles W. Ransler, who met attending different schools in India and the United States. Pandey, the company’s chief executive, grew up in a village in Bihar without electricity. “I felt low because of that,” he told me when we met recently in New Delhi. He decided to study electrical engineering. At college in India, he experienced the Indian prejudice against Biharis — some students refused to sit at the same table with him — which contributed to his desire to emigrate to the U.S.. He found his way to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, N.Y., where he completed a master’s degree before landing a position with the semiconductor manufacturer International Rectifier in Los Angeles. His job was to figure out how to get the best performance from integrated circuits at the lowest possible cost. This helped him develop a problem-solving aptitude that would prove useful for Husk Power.

He was soon earning a six-figure income. He bought his family a diesel-powered electric generator. As a single man living in Los Angeles, he enjoyed traveling, dining out and going to clubs. “I was basically cruising through life,” he recalled. “But along with that pleasure and smoothness was a dark zone in my head.” He began meditating — and he realized that he felt compelled to return home and use his knowledge to bring light to Bihar.

Back in India, he and his friend Yadav, an entrepreneur, spent the next few years experimenting. They explored the possibility of producing organic solar cells. They tried growing a plant called jatropha, whose seeds can be used for biodiesel. Both proved impractical as businesses. They tested out solar lamps, but found their application limited. “In the back of my mind, I always thought there would be some high tech solution that would solve the problem,” said Pandey.

One day he ran into a salesman who sold gasifiers — machines that burn organic materials in an oxygen restricted environment to produce biogas which can be used to power an engine. There was nothing new about gasifiers; they had been around for decades. People sometimes burned rice husks in them to supplement diesel fuel, which was expensive. “But nobody had thought to use rice husks to run a whole power system,” explained Pandey.

In Bihar, poverty is extreme. Pretty much everything that can be used will be used — recycled or burned or fed to animals. Rice husks are the big exception. When rice is milled, the outside kernel, or husk, is discarded. Because the husk contains a lot of silica, it doesn’t burn well for cooking. A recent Greenpeace study (pdf) reports that Bihar alone produces 1.8 billion kilograms of rice husk per year. Most of it ends up rotting in landfills and emitting methane, a greenhouse gas.


Courtesy of Husk Power Systems
The mini-power plant during the day.Pandey and Yadav began bringing pieces together for an electric distribution system powered by the husks. They got a gasifier, a generator set, filtering, cleaning and cooling systems, piping and insulated wiring. They went through countless iterations to get the system working: adjusting valves and pressures, the gas-to-air ratios, the combustion temperature, the starting mechanism. In they end, they came up with a system that could burn 50 kilograms of rice husk per hour and produce 32 kilowatts of power, sufficient for about 500 village households.

They reached out to people in a village called Tamkuha, in Bihar, offering them a deal: for 80 rupees a month — roughly $1.75 — a household could get daily power for one 30-watt or two 15-watt compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs and unlimited cell phone charging between 5:00 p.m and 11:00 p.m. For many families, the price was less than half their monthly kerosene costs, and the light would be much brighter. It would also be less smoky, less of a fire hazard, and better for the environment. Customers could pay for more power if they needed it — for radios, TVs, ceiling fans or water pumps. But many had no appliances and lived in huts so small, one bulb was enough. The system went live on August 15, 2007, the anniversary of India’s independence.

It worked. Back in the United States, their colleagues Sinha and Ransler, who were pursuing M.B.A.s at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, put together a business plan and set out to raise money. They came first in two student competitions, garnering prizes of $10,000 and $50,000. The company received a grant from the Shell Foundation and set up three more systems in 2008. It has since raised $1.75 million in investment financing. In 2009, they had 19 systems in operation; in 2010, they more than tripled that number.

Technically, most of the problems were solved by 2008. But to make the business viable has required an ongoing process of what has been called “frugal innovation” — radically simplifying things to serve the needs of poor customers who would otherwise be excluded from basic market services due to their limited ability to pay.


© Harikrishna Katragadda/Greenpeace
Shops in the Sariswa Village market use power generated by Husk Power Systems.In order to bring down costs, for example, the company stripped down the gasifiers and engines, removing everything non-essential that added to manufacturing or maintenance expenses, like turbocharging. They replaced an automated water-aided process for the removal of rice husk char (burned husks) from gasifiers with one that uses 80 percent less water and can be operated with a hand crank. They kept labor costs down by recruiting locals, often from very poor families with modest education levels (who would be considered unemployable by many companies) and training them to operate and load machines, and work as fee collectors and auditors, going door-to-door ensuring that villagers aren’t using more electricity than they pay for. (Electricity theft is a national problem in India, resulting in losses to power companies estimated at 30 percent. Husk Power says it has managed to keep such losses down to five percent.)

When the company noticed that customers were purchasing poor-quality CFL bulbs, which waste energy, they partnered with Havells India, a large manufacturer, to purchase thousands of high quality bulbs at discount rates, which their collectors now sell to clients. They also saw that collectors could become discount suppliers of other products — like soap, biscuits and oil — so they added a product fulfillment business into the mix.

And they found ways to extract value from the rice husk char — the waste product of a waste product — by setting up another side business turning the char into incense sticks. This business now operates in five locations and provides supplemental income to 500 women. The company also receives government subsidies for renewable energy and is seeking Clean Development Mechanism benefits.

With growth, human audits have proven inadequate to control electricity theft or inadvertent overuse. So the company developed a stripped-down pre-payment smart-card reader for home installation. The going rate for smart-card readers is between $50 and $90. Husk Power is near completion of one that Pandey says will cost under $7.

Alone, none of these steps would have been significant. Taken together, however, they make it possible for power units to deliver tiny volumes of electricity while enjoying a 30 percent profit margin. The side businesses add another 20 percent to the bottom line. Pandey says new power units become profitable within 2 to 3 months of installation. He expects the company to be financially self-sustaining by June 2011.

From a social standpoint, there are many benefits to this business model. In addition to the fact that electricity allows shop keepers to stay open later and farmers to irrigate more land, and lighting increases children’s studying time and reduces burglaries and snakebites, the company also channels most of its wages and payments for services directly back into the villages it serves.

For decades, countries have operated on the assumption that power from large electricity plants will eventually trickle down to villagers. In many parts of the world, this has proven to be elusive. Husk Power has identified at least 25,000 villages across Bihar and neighboring states in India’s rice belt as appropriate for its model. Ramapati Kumar, an advisor on Climate and Energy for Greenpeace India, who has studied Husk Power, explained that the company’s model could “go a long way in bringing light to 125,000 unelectrified villages in India,” while reducing “the country’s dependence on fossil fuels.”

It’s too soon to say whether Husk Power will prove to be successful in the long run. As with any young company, there are many unknowns. To achieve its goals, it will need to recruit and train thousands of employees over the next four years, raise additional financing, and institute sound management practices. Many companies destroy themselves in the process of trying to expand aggressively.

But the lessons here go beyond the fortunes of Husk Power. What the company illustrates is a different way to think about innovation — one that is suitable for global problems that stem from poor people’s lack of access to energy, water, housing and education. In many cases, success in these challenges hinges less on big new ideas than on collections of small old ideas well integrated and executed. “What’s replicable isn’t the distribution of electricity,” says Pandey. “It’s the whole process of how to take an old technology and apply it to local constraints. How to create a system out of the materials and labor that are readily available.”

Let me know if you’ve come across other examples of innovations that follow this pattern.

Join Fixes on Facebook »



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David Bornstein is the author of “How to Change the World,” which has been published in 20 languages, and “The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank,” and is co-author of “Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know.” He is the founder of dowser.org, a media site that reports on social innovation.

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By TOM CHAFFIN.93 Readers' CommentsPost a Comment ».All CommentsHighlightsReaders' RecommendationsReplies..OldestNewest of 4Next ..1.odej
New York
January 11th, 2011
5:48 pmI think its wonderful. Having been in India among the untouchables, their quality of life has a long way to go. From the article its clear that this is inspired from the ground up. That these people still live as they did forty years ago is for reasons that are top down. That is deferent problem, but for now, it's good to see such energy and care being showered on people that have so little.
Recommend Recommended by 17 Readers .2.Sid M
Bronx
January 11th, 2011
5:48 pmWell written article. It makes me wonder if there are enough rice husks to power the 125,000 villages as mentioned in your conclusion, though.
Recommend Recommended by 25 Readers .3.write thesis
Philippines
January 11th, 2011
5:48 pmi hope the innovation that the people made can be shared unto this places who needs them direly, that is why we those technology in order for use to be efficient. http://www.writessay.com

Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers .4.Rajendra Vottery
INDIA
January 11th, 2011
5:48 pmThis is journalism at its best - stories such as this inspire people to build their nation, nay the world, that they believe they deserve. Thank you, Mr Bornstein, for bringing this story to us.
Recommend Recommended by 70 Readers .5.Makarand
USA
January 11th, 2011
5:48 pmOne word - Amazing ! Both the entrepreneur as well as the journalism highlighting it.
Recommend Recommended by 32 Readers .6.Nimesh M.
Fremont, California.
January 11th, 2011
5:48 pmKudos to the Husk Power team for enabling villages in Bihar with a sustainable renewable source of energy. As a Non resident Indian, I find this article very inspiring and hope your idea lights a millions of progressive lives.
Recommend Recommended by 32 Readers .7.Manish
New Delhi
January 11th, 2011
5:48 pmVery nice article..being belong from one of the state in India it is highly motivational.
Recommend Recommended by 12 Readers .8.sathiyavelan
Cuddalore, TN, India
January 11th, 2011
5:49 pmThis is ingenious. I hope Bihar and other poorer states in India gets better. Frugal innovation and other technological innovations should also improve the social system in poorest places of India. Mainly they are poor because of their social system.
Recommend Recommended by 10 Readers .9.Sol Biderman
Brazil
January 11th, 2011
5:49 pmThe use of bioenergy in Brazil is supported by government entities and private enterprise on an enormous scale.. Large national companies, some with international investors, are using sugarcane bagasse to electrify an increasingly large percentage of the national grid.. Former President Lula helped organize cooperatives to produce jatropha, palm oil, castor oil but were less successful than the giant agribusiness enterprises that produce energy from sugarcane bagasse and soybeans (used currently as a 5% mix for diesel oil, fuel for trucks and some power plants.
About 8 years ago Nasa reported that Brazil had the second largest street lighting system in the world (as viewed from satellites) after the U.S,.The Brazilian government for decades has been directly involved in electricity generation, and only in the past 15 years has it privatized a large part of the distribution system. -Mr. Sol Biderman
Recommend Recommended by 7 Readers .10.jim mason
berkeley, ca
January 11th, 2011
5:49 pmthis is a wonderful endeavor, and one which severals orgs are currently working on around the world. i work on one of the others-- one which is leveraging diy hacking, open source plans, and desktop manufacturing tools to minimize start up friction, and maximize viral spread. it is a related take on "frugal innovation", but one experimenting with how we far we can use the web to do most of the work.

does the magic dust of open source work for industrial hardware too? or is the cost/difficulty of replicating "atoms" prevent the juice that makes it work in digital realms? we're exploring a test case in the realm of personal scale energy products.

the project is called the Gasifier Experimenter's Kit from ALL Power Labs. all information as well as the collaborative workspace are found at http://www.gekgasifier.com. there is everything from free plans and you weld together sheet metal kits, to full turnkey systems.

another central resource to learn about small scale gasification systems and their technology is the bioenergylists hosted by tom miles. this is the largest index and online discussion list relating to this tech. see here: http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/

for those who want to build their own gasifier, an inventory of all available online plans is here: http://www.gekgasifier.com...

jim mason
http://www.allpowerlabs.org


Recommend Recommended by 15 Readers .11.Faisal Q
Washington DC
January 11th, 2011
8:19 pmSimply wow. Innovation at its best. Its time to give back.
Recommend Recommended by 12 Readers .12.Varun C.H.
India
January 11th, 2011
8:19 pmI'm very much inspired by this article since it sheds light into a new definition for innovation. The creativity and hardwork of these young innovators is much appreciable and these kind of environment friendly innovations must be encouraged allover for the betterment of the underserved.
Recommend Recommended by 14 Readers .13.Sam
Miami
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmI admire the founders of Husk Power and wish them all the best. My concern is, just like micro-finance, this innovation can be a target for the dirty politicians and mafia.

Bihar and Jharkhand have the richest coal mines in India and if there is no electricity for the villages, it is because the extremely corrupt politicians in the states. They have a vested interest in keeping the people in dark. Especially in this context the good deeds of Husk Power provide a social value that can never be measured by any metrics used by elite economists.

I am surprised at the comment husk is of no use. In Andhra Pradesh, a southern state in India, the large producer of rice in the country, rice husk is traded like any other commodity. It has lots of use, they make pellets or bricks that can be burnt as regular fuel. It is used as a bedding for the chicken in the poultry industry, which is later used as organic manure.
Recommend Recommended by 37 Readers .14.john delano
hopewell junction
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmWell written and worthy of an anology to what is being done in America-at this time.
A few years ago an arab country had oil production and the methane that came out of the well with the oil was burned as a waste product.
An American Named Harold Pontez came up with the idea of building a power plant using GE 6000 generators that would be turned by a "Jet engine."
Using the waste methane Harold brought the project to completion in 6 months.
Thats my friend and I admire him.
The process of using a compact generation system at the source prevent the long pipelines that pirates blow up.
His whole process can remove the horror of strip minning in the Applachians.
His source of fuel-"coal seam methane."

For an example of an efficient method of power generation-See "Dom" NYSE -black warrior Trust" in Southern Alabama. The indian [native american] land has 532 -2,000 deep wells drilled through the small area that is their land and the public utility pipes out 30 million dollars every year as the coal gives up its methane.
My friend Harrold can lite p the entire northeast grid in time with his system utilizing his method and his system would follow the power lines, The cost of moving electricity to the grid is expensive. Entergy in Westchester county NY makes so much money because Con Edison has the power line outside there door.
The article inspired me to review again our coal seam gas potential on our 200,000 square miles of Applachian coal fields.
The "farce" of drilling in the Marcellus Shale must be stopped. It will have negative equity in 4 years say the accountants that work for these Marcellus Gas Companies.
They do not have a reservoir like the 250 million years of solar input into the coal of the applachians.
Recommend Recommended by 8 Readers .15.Chuck
Williamstown, NJ
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmTruly inspirational.

I hope the politicians leave these entrepreneurs alone and let the model sustain and grow by itself.

Bihar is known as a lawless state with rampant corruption. Very soon, these entrepreneurs could have the "law officials" knocking at their doors for protection money or permits or something else. Lets hope and pray that does not happen.

To answer Sid #2, yes there is more than enough husk to light up the villages.
Recommend Recommended by 23 Readers .16.M Saleem Chaudhry
karachi pakistan
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmKudos for David.B ,for highlighting an exceptionally innovative initiative of India to work out an affordable solution,for alleviating the sufferings of poor masses.This is reflective of the concern,involvement and commitment of Indian leadership for helping their teeming population.In turn this is a challenge for the leadership of Pakistani leadership, that on the other side,indulges in tomfoolery of rented second-hand power units, for the gainful satisfaction of their ulterior objectives of graft and greed and the same of their stooges and yet continue to yell for democratic services and fulfillment of articles of their faith,so -called, Islam
Recommend Recommended by 11 Readers .17.krishnan
bangalore
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmthe disel prices are going to increase furthur
some body can design a compact gasifier which can be mounted at the rear end of tractor without touching implements
husk can be pelletised and converted into gas and by modifying cylinder head of the engine
it can be dual engine husk gas and diesel
may be a lilo of
Recommend Recommended by 8 Readers .18.RK
Anywhere
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmThere was a similar Jhansi-based initiative called Desi Power that Mark Gregory described in his feature "Can a bush solve rural energy needs?" on the BBC Web site (updated on 19 March 2006, 01:59 GMT).
Dr Arun Kumar, director of the Development Alternatives NGO, which ran the Jhansi project, had invested in a generator that produced 100 kilowatts of electricity (enough to service the modest needs of four or five typical Indian villages -- power from the generator was also used to drive industrial processes, such as paper-making) from the ipunia bush, which grows in marshy land not suitable for agriculture. The NGO established a further 18 rural biomass power projects based on the experience at Jhansi.
Other types of biomass suitable for the gasifiers included casuarina, eucalyptus, phadauk, silver oak, pine, mulberry stalk, ipomea, jungle wood, coconut shell, coconut fronds, cotton stalk, buynat, coffee husk, sawdust, groundnut husk, rice husk, etc.


Recommend Recommended by 15 Readers .19.sun
NJ
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmOnly if many of the six figure earning Indians in America had eye eastwards.
Recommend Recommended by 8 Readers .20.ashish gambhir
gurgaon, india
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmi belong to such a place in Bihar........Ara..... more than two years back i set up a stand alone solar system for my elderly parents....... since then they have thrown away their candles, kerosene lamps, torches, emergency lights...... all must haves in Bihar......

here is a youtube link to the video demonstrating the system......http:....
Recommend Recommended by 16 Readers .21.DJS
California
January 11th, 2011
8:20 pmGood information except for the "fashionable" opening of a typical western mindset to portray others in a negative light "Indians prejudice against Biharis".
Recommend Recommended by 10 Readers .22.ced
Ketchum, ID
January 11th, 2011
8:21 pmWhat a well crafted, intelligent, moving, and pointing-toward-the future (we all hope) piece. Thank you for writing it, and writing it so well. I am going to order your books (and Ms. Rosenberg's book) for my library. coileen
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers .23.Mahesh B
Pennsylvania
January 11th, 2011
8:21 pmEvery problem presents an opportunity, which few recognize and pursue. Thank you for your timely and enlightening report, which will do wonders in many a classroom in the world.
Recommend Recommended by 6 Readers .24.MJones
San Francisco
January 11th, 2011
10:55 pmThis is a wonderful example of dealing with all aspects of technological change to improve the potential of large numbers of people with few resources improve their standard of living and lower the death rate of young children. In effect, providing a minimal amount of electricity improves life for the poorest people on the planet. The real measure of success in India will be whether they lower their birth rate as a result.

When it was first invaded by humans thousands of years ago, what is now India was one of the most fertile and rich environments even known on Earth, with clean water and many biological species. Today, it is an environmental disaster, with bad air, its rivers turned to sewers, and vast species kill-off.

Ultimately, Indians have to reduce their population to what their environment can support without degradation to water, air, soil, and human living conditions. Will people who have more light at night use it to improve their education as is the case for most people in Europe and America, or will they use it to have more babies? That's the bottom line.

Thus far, every improvement in health and the economy in India has been accompanied by a corresponding increase in the number of mouths to feed and the number of humans to pollute the waterways. As in this example, western countries like America and England, educate some of its most promising students. But America's environment is also deteriorating at a rapid rate as new immigrants usually have a very high rate of reproduction. Any true measurement of success in India and America must include the long term impacts as well short term benefits as described in this article.
Recommend Recommended by 11 Readers .25.Amit
NYC
January 11th, 2011
10:55 pmVery nice article. Thank you for shining a light on the good things people are doing to help others out.
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers . of 4 Next ..Post a Comment Suggest a Correction to This Blog Post »You must log in to post a comment (Register).
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Fixes explores solutions to major social problems. Each week, it examines creative initiatives that can tell us about the difference between success and failure. It is written by David Bornstein, author of “How to Change the World,” and founder of dowser.org, and Tina Rosenberg, contributing writer for The New York Times magazine and author of the forthcoming “Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World.”

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Inside Opinionator

Best Quotes from Albert Einstein

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received.

Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
On Science.

There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

The world we have made, as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far, creates problems we cannot solve at the same level of thinking at which we created them.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

(Written in old age)
I have never belonged wholeheartedly to a country, a state, nor to a circle of friends, nor even to my own family.
When I was still a rather precocious young man, I already realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations that most men pursue throughout their lives.
Well-being and happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig.
Quoted in C P Snow, Variety of Men, (Harmondsworth 1969) 77.

If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.
Address at the Sorbonne, Paris.

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Other quotes:

(During a lecture)
This has been done elegantly by Minkowski; but chalk is cheaper than grey matter, and we will do it as it comes.
[Attributed by Pólya.]
Quoted in J E Littlewood, A Mathematician's Miscellany, 1953.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Reader's Digest. Oct. 1977.

I don't believe in mathematics.
Quoted in Carl Seelig. Albert Einstein.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
What I Believe.

The bitter and the sweet come from the outside, the hard from within, from one's own efforts.
Out of My Later Years.

Gott würfelt nicht.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Quoted in E T Bell Mathematics, Queen and Servant of the Sciences. 1952.

God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.
Quoted in L Infeld Quest, 1942.

How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought independent of experience, is so admirably adapted to the objects of reality?

(About Newton)
Nature to him was an open book, whose letters he could read without effort.
Quoted in G Simmons Calculus Gems (New York 1992).

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
Quoted in J R Newman, The World of Mathematics (New York 1956).

What is this frog and mouse battle among the mathematicians?
[i.e. Brouwer vs. Hilbert]
Quoted in H Eves Mathematical Circles Squared (Boston 1972).

Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber boshaft ist er nicht.
God is subtle, but he is not malicious.
Inscribed in Fine Hall, Princeton University.

Nature hides her secrets because of her essential loftiness, but not by means of ruse.

The human mind has first to construct forms, independently, before we can find them in things.

Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand it myself anymore.
Quoted in P A Schilpp, Albert Einstein, Philosopher-Scientist (Evanston 1949).

Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics, I assure you that mine are greater.

The truth of a theory is in your mind, not in your eyes.
Quoted in H Eves Mathematical Circles Squared (Boston 1972).

These thoughts did not come in any verbal formulation. I rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterward.
Quoted in H Eves Mathematical Circles Adieu (Boston 1977).

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the resta kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.
Quoted in H Eves Mathematical Circles Adieu (Boston 1977).

The world needs heroes and it's better they be harmless men like me than villains like Hitler.
Quoted in H Eves Return to Mathematical Circles (Boston 1988).

It is nothing short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiousity of inquiry.
Quoted in H Eves Return to Mathematical Circles (Boston 1988).

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
Quoted in H Eves Return to Mathematical Circles (Boston 1988).

The search for truth is more precious than its possession.
The American Mathematical Monthly 100 (3).

We come now to the question: what is a priori certain or necessary, respectively in geometry (doctrine of space) or its foundations? Formerly we thought everything; nowadays we think nothing. Already the distance-concept is logically arbitrary; there need be no things that correspond to it, even approximately.
"Space-Time." Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th ed.

Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.
The Evolution of Physics.

Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.
Reader's Digest, Nov. 1973.

(To a student)
Dear Miss --
I have read about sixteen pages of your manuscript ... I suffered exactly the same treatment at the hands of my teachers who disliked me for my independence and passed over me when they wanted assistants ... keep your manuscript for your sons and daughters, in order that they may derive consolation from it and not give a damn for what their teachers tell them or think of them. ... There is too much education altogether.
The World as I See It, (New York, 1949), 21-22.

(Written in old age)
I have never belonged wholeheartedly to a country, a state, nor to a circle of friends, nor even to my own family.
When I was still a rather precocious young man, I already realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations that most men pursue throughout their lives.
Well-being and happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig.
Quoted in C P Snow, Variety of Men, (Harmondsworth 1969) 77.

The relativity principle in connection with the basic Maxwellian equations demands that the mass should be a direct measure of the energy contained in a body; light transfers mass. With radium there should be a noticeable diminution of mass. The idea is amusing and enticing; but whether the Almighty is laughing at it and is leading me up the garden path -- that I cannot know.

When I am judging a theory, I ask myself whether, if I were God, I would have arranged the world in such a way.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

.. common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach eighteen.
Quoted in E T Bell, Mathematics: Queen and Servant of Science

Thus the partial differential equation entered theoretical physics as a handmaid, but has gradually become mistress.
The World as I See It

But the creative principle resides in mathematics. In a certain sense, therefore, I hold true that pure thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed.
Quoted in H R Pagels, The Cosmic Code

But there is another reason for the high repute of mathematics: it is mathematics that offers the exact natural sciences a certain measure of security which, withut mathematics, they could not attain.
Quoted in E T Bell Men of Mathematics

One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other sciences, is that its laws are absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of other sciences are to some extent debatable and in constant danger of being overthrown by newly discovered facts.
Sidelights on Relativity

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
Sidelights on Relativity

How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality? Is human reason, then, without experience, merely by taking thought, able to fathom the properties of real things?
Sidelights on Relativity

Mathematics are well and good but nature keeps dragging us around by the nose.
Quoted in A P French, Einstein: a Centenary Volume

Education is that which remains when one has forgotten everything learned in school.
Ideas and opinions (New York, 1954).

Before God we are all equally wise - equally foolish.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

Each of us visits that Earth involuntarily and without an invitation. For me, it is enough to wonder at its secrets.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

It is my contention that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slightest details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

Reading after a certain time diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).
[EFR: For a modern view replace reading by watching television.]

Sometimes one pays most for things one gets for nothing.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

The most incomprehensible fact about the universe is that it is comprehensible.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).