Fort St. Angelo - a landmark in Kerala

Kerala has many things going for it. There is the great landscape, a wonderful culture and an interesting history. Tucked away somewhat far from the public eye and the usual tourist circuits, is the Fort St. Angelo located a little to the north of the town of Kannur, in North Kerala.

Following the visit of Vasco de Gama, the Portuguese navigator to that area, the local king granted land at the site to the Portuguese in 1505 and a wooden fort soon came up there. Afonso de Albuquerque became governor at the fort in 1509. This helped in the later Portuguese occupation of Goa. The original wooden fort was soon replaced by a fort built of laterite blocks and brick and mortar. Later in 1663, the fort was occupied by the Dutch and a few years later by the British. It remained as the principal British miltary centre on the Malabar coast till 1947.

This is a view of the Arabian Sea from the ramparts of the Fort Angelo. Since this is located quite near Kannur, one can take a bus or a vehicle to this site quite easily.

Manas National Park - A re-visit after 35 years

The Manas National Park in western Assam has many feathers to its cap. It was among the "first batch" of Tiger Reserves in India way back in 1973.It is one of the very few wilderness areas in India that has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, together with Kaziranga National Park (also in Assam) and the Bharatpur (or Keoladeo) Bird Sanctuary near Agra. Manas is also home to the endemic Golden Langur, the Bengal Florican and the Pigmy Hog, besides many other wild animals like the one-horn Indian rhinoceros, wild buffalo, tiger, gaur, elephant and many other species.

The Manas River (or the Beki, as it is called in the lower reaches - shown above) and the rugged hills of Bhutan to the north define the National Park to a signicant extent. Thus Manas offers a variety of wildlife habitats, from riverine forests, to heavy rain-fall and moist deciduous forests, besides extensive grasslands.

Over the years, Manas has witnessed ups and owns, but now the wildlife has made a good come-back. The local settlements have grown and Barpeta Road, once just way-station, is now a bustling town with fly-overs and shopping malls. A number of lodges have come up locally (where there were once only government rest houses), and a variety of facilities are on offer, including river rafting, wilderness walks and jeep safaris in the forest.

Manas National Park is conveniently accessible by train via the rail head of either New Bongaigaon or Barpeta Road, or by air from Guwahati City.

Dholavira - Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site!

Although some of the well-known Indus Valley Civilization sites such as Harappa and Mohenjo Daro have come within Pakistan since the Partition in 1947, India herself has a number of excellent examples of the IVC in places such as Lothal, Kalibangan, Dholavira, Ropar, Rakhigarhi and others. Of these Dholavira, which has been dated to about 3000 BCE, has justly been included recently as one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Situated in the northern fringes of the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, about 200 kilometres from the town of Bhuj, Dholavira is approached by a drive of about 4 hours across almost endless salt-flats. On the way, one may well find one of the nomadic families of the Rann on their way to a new destination.

It is best to leave quite early in the morning, as otherwise the drive and the walking around at the site can become quite tiresome. Dholavira is fairly large, somewhat square shaped with one side over 700 metres long, and the other over 600 metres. It is located on a low hillock with its central citadel in the middle and with dwellings on either side somewhat lower down.

Just below the citadel, on the western side, will be found this board with a number of the IVC lettering as specimens. While several scholars have attempted to decipher this, no commonly accepted version has yet been generally ackowldged. The most interesting part of Dholavira are the "step-tanks" at the bottom of the hillock for storing water, partly from the nearby stream, and partly from the rain-water run-off from the top of the hillock, for which stone channels had been made.

All in all, Dholavira fully justifie its designation as a World Heritage site, and hopefully more people will become aware of it and try and visit the location.

Covid Pandemic in India - some useful data

In the week just past, some useful data on the Covid pandemic has emerged from the Indian Council of Medical Rsearch. The first is a clear description of the some of the typical symptoms of Covid. The ICMR study, which seems limited to just about 680 case of Covid infection, apparently found that a total of 482 cases (71%) were symptomatic with one or more symptoms, while 29% had asymptomatic, of the type "SARS-CoV-2" infection. The study indicates that fever (69%) was the most consistent presentation followed by body ache, including headache and nausea (56%), cough (45%), sore throat (37%), loss of smell and taste (22%), diarrhoea (6%), breathlessness (6%) and 1% had ocular irritation and redness. Thus, the warning signs seem to be a relatively low-intensity fever of about 100/101 deg. C for 3 or 4 days accompanied by severe body and joint pain and headache, while the other symptoms may or may not be there in any notable fashion. Obviously a larger sample population for the study would have been even more useful. The other information that has energed indicates that as of 16.07.2021, India has been able to vaccinate about 400 million persons, of whom 79 million have duly received the necessary two dozes of the vaccine.If therefore at least 75% of the total population of about 1.2 billion are to be vaccinated (including children 3/4 years or more) then in the next 5 months, the nation will have to vaccinate about 3 million people per day. That will surely call for a concerted effort. More to the point, in the meantime for the next three or four months each and all of the states will have to follow the Covid precautions rigorously, especially with respect to stricly avoiding any assembly of people, ensuring that wearing the face-mask and hand sanitization are followed scrupulously.

The Little Rann of Kutch - a "must" for bird-watcher's

The Little Rann of Kutch (or, LRK for short), in spite of its name, is not really in the district of Kutch, as generally understood. It lies to the south-west of Ahmedabad, much closer to the city of Dhrangadhra than to Bhuj, which lies much farther to the west, and which is taken to be the main city of Kutch. The greater Rann (which is close to Bhuj) and the Little Rann are more than 200 kms distant from one another and are located on either sides of the Gulf of Kutch. The LRK is about 130 kms from Ahmedabad and approachable via the towns of Viramgam and Dasada. There are a number of lodges and resorts around that area. Both the LRK and GRK are subject to incursion of salt water during the Monsoons as they are only about 10 to 12 metres above the mean sea level, and are centres for the production of salt by the simple process of evaporation.

Indian wild ass

Common Cranes in flight The terrain is completely flat in both places, with only the occasional low hillocks standing out against the horizon. But the greater Rann (near Bhuj) is more of grassland while the Little Rann has more of thorny bushes and trees and seveal medium to large water bodies. In consequence,there are more of both bushland birds and waders and other water birds in LRK; following them naturally come many of the raptors. Also to be seen in the LRK are fair numbers of Indian wild ass.

Flamingoes So, overall, a 2-3 days trip to the LRK would be well worth the while for a bird-watcher who would get a fill of a wide range of species to observe and photograph.

"India - Searching for the Present in the Past" - a thumb-nail history of India

The book "India - Searching for the Present in the Past", recently published by CinnamonTeal Design and Publishing, considers the age-old fascination for the ancient in Indian culture. Basically, the purpose of this work is to inquire, state, discuss and argue about the past and the present, about the evolution of these thoughts and beliefs, in keeping with the basic traditions in India. And that is part of a great tradition, dating back to the dialogue between sage Yajnavalka and his wife Maitreyi as documented in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, or to the furious debates that Adi Shankaracharya engaged in during his travels throughout India to propagate his thoughts on Advaitavad, or “non-dualism”. It enables the readers quickly to traverse much of the course of the Indian history, from pre-historic times through the Indus Valley Civilization, the Buddhist Age, down to the Mughal and British administrations. The book goes on to consider various aspects of the Indian political and social scenario over the last two or three decades and looks at whether and to what extent the present stream of thoughts and beliefs may be considered a fair extension of the past. Hopefully, this work would help to widen one’s knowledge and perspective and provide a modicum of understanding.

The book is now available from Dogears Bookshop of CinnamonTeal, as well as from Amazon, Google and Barnes and Noble. https://www.thedogearsbookshop.com/shop/books/non-fiction/history/india-searching-for-the-present-in-the-past/ https://www.amazon.in/India-Searching-Present-Prosenjit-Dasgupta/dp/9387676846 https://books.google.co.in/books/about/India_Searching_for_the_Present_in_the_P.html?id=LW0qzgEACAAJ https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/india-searching-for-the-present-in-the-past-prosenjit-dasgupta/1138643871?ean=9789387676848

"God's own Country" - "Theyyam" ceremony at Parasinikaduvu

Kerala is widely renowned and publicized as "God's Own Country". This is both literal and metaphorical - as Kerala is wonderfully beautiful, as God's own country should be. But it is so also in the literal sense as it is dotted with shrines and temples to so many gods, some known and many not so well-known outside of Kerala. The "Theyyam" ceremony is to be widely seen in the northern region of Kerala, near and around Kannur and Thalassery. It is said the word "theyyam" is derived from the word "daivam" and it is basically an invocation of a major god of the Hindu pantheon, such as Vishnu or Shiva or Bhagavati or of some lesser-known god, such as Muthuappan. Parasinikaduvu is situated about 30 kms from Kannur town and is a major venue of the "theyyam" ceremony. It commences in the evening and goes on for 3/4 hours with a series of rituals and chantings, enlivened by the music of the "chhenda", or the long drum popular in Kerala, and the nadeswaram, or a sehnai-like wind instrument.Here the rituals are for the folk god, Muthuappan.

This picture shows the votive lamps at the Parasinikaduvu ceremony in December 2012.

As may be seen in this picture, the priests usually wear a special head-dress and garments for the ceremony and often hold a sword in the hand. It is said that the priest often goes into a trance and is able to tell the future and fortunes of a devotee who approaches him at the time. A visitor from out of state would find the Theyyam ceremonies of much interest,

The New Farm Laws in India - A Consideration

The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection and Farm Services) Act, was gazetted in the Gazette of India New Delhi, the 27th September, 2020 and takes effect from 5th June 2020. The Statutory Rules for this Act are however yet to be notified and placed before Parliament. These new laws have evoked considerable controversy and debate. While the Government of India has claimed that the new farm laws would help the farmers, it is seen that the farmers are denying this claim and to the contrary publicly stating that these new laws would harm them. Under the circumstances, it is important that those interested or concerned about this development should find out for themselves as to what is what. The new Farm Laws are available to download from the Internet and individual citizens and the press are free to study these and make their views known. A preliminary study of the new farm laws indicates — (a) some points need clarity in the “definitions” clause. For instance, the definition of “farmer” is defective – it mentions only “individual”, who may not be an Indian at all, but may be a foreigner. It is not clearly provided that farmer should be “an individual citizen of India”, personally engaged in and supervising the farming activities. The term “Farming” is also not defined , e.g. as use of personally-held or family-held agricultural land, for production of cereal crops, pulses, oil seeds, cotton, jute, sugar cane and specifically excludes, large organized plantation industries like tea, coffee, spices, coconut, areca-nut, cashew nut, etc. ”Farmers Produce Organization” is not clearly defined. The role and function of the so-called “Sponsor” organization is also not defined and apparently merely either replaces the current middlemen or are middlemen by a different name. Certain terms used in the Act have not been defined, e.g. “farm gate” (b) there is reliance on legally enforceable agreements or contracts and this may pose serious problems for the small and marginal farmers (if not most farmers across the board) in understanding and implementing such agreements as most of them are not so literate as to understand legal provisions; (c) Clause 13 of the new Act realted to Dispute Settlement.This provides that representation of parties shall be “fair and balanced”. This is vague and may again lead to unnecessary litigation. This should be re-worded to provide for three members of a Conciliation Board and two members each representing farmers/FP and the buyers and that the majority view of the Board shall ordinarily prevail. (d) Clauses 16 to 20 provide that any decision that any government agency may take in respect of any dispute arising from such agreements cannot be challenged in a court of law.This is a deviation from most laws that do provide for an appeal procedure in a court of law or a tribunal. On the practical side, the small and marginal farmers who form the bulk of the farming community in terms of numbers, usually have just 4–5 acres of land and are therefore engaged more or less in family-based subsistence farming with little or no surplus grain to be sold in the market. Their “staying power” is limited and they often get into debt in case of crop failure. On the other hand, it is the larger farmers who have surplus rain for the market, but they also have higher costs because of labour employed, diesel or electricity costs for pumping water, use of fertilizers and pesticides, etc. They also need a reasonable return on their fixed and variable costs to be able to sustain production year after year. Hence the importance of MSP, which has been in operation for over 40 years and has sustained growth in cereals output - the foundation of “food security” in india - over these years. There is a need also to boost oil -seeds and lentils production in the country, which may also require some sort of MSP. Thus there is a need to study the new farm laws at first hand and to engage in informed debate and discussion.

Bird-watching in the Sukhna area

The old Hill Cart Road takes one past the small town of Sukhna on the norther fringes of main rail-head for North Bengal at New Jalpaiguri. Then the road climbs past the village of Rongtong and passes - with the tracks of the narrow-guage Darjeeling Himalayan Railay weaving in and out - past other villages like Chunabhati, Tindharia, Ghayabari up and up till it reaches the famous hill-station of Drajeeling after a total of about 55 kilometres. Most people travel to the Drajeeling hills to watch the sun rise and set on the snows of the Kanchenjungha Range. But some people take it into their heads to do bird-wtching for interesting species in the lower foot-hills in the Sukhna-Rongtong area. Since this is close to the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary,"anything is possible". And it is the "surprise" element that makes it all the more interesting: while looking casually at a common species suddenly one can catch the glimpse of of something different, something new.

The trip to the Sukhna- Rongtong- Mahananda in March 2021 after over a year of Covid restrictions was certainly envigorating.

Birdwatching at Manglajodi

There are quite a number of good birdwatching areas in India and a very good site for water birds in Eastern India is the Manglajodi site. This is one of the back-waters of the Chilka Lake and is located near the town of Bhubaneshwar in Odisha. Thus it is about six hours train journey from Kolkata and about an hour's journey by vehicle to reach there. It can well be combined with a visit to the temple city of Pur, which is not far away, and the archaeological sites near Bhunabeshwar. It was once a well-known site for poaching of birds but thanks to efforts of Shri Nanda Kishore Bhujbal, a local enthusiast, the poachers were persuaded to become conservationists and thus the Shri Bhagwan Mahavir Pakshi Raskha Samity was formed in 2010. Since then the birds have been provided with strict protection and many of the local men have become boatmen and guides. They have come to acquire excellent knowledge of the habits of birds and the habitat and can make a good living with the stream of bird-watchers and tourists coming to the location.

Thesew few pictures will convey the sense of the nature of the habitat of Manglajodi and the rich birdlife that it offers.

Karla - An unfrequented Buddhist site

While tourists throng to places like Sarnath and Sanchi to visit places noted in history and lore of Buddhism, Karla, which just about forty kilometres from Pune in Maharashtra, just off the main Pune-Mumbai highway, is far less frequented. And yet Karla boasts of a history dating back to the 2nd century BCE, when Buddhism was fast spreading into peninsular India. Of course, the approach to Karla is over a fairly long stone stairway and "senior citizens" will need to take this carefully.

The picture above shows the front facade of the Karla cave with its distinctive architecture and entrance-way.

The "chaitya" hall, or where the Buddhist monks once assembled for prayers more than two thousand years ago, is fairly large and is marked by a stupa to designate the impression of the Buddha, while overhead the roof is sculpted in imitation of the wooden rafters that were used even earlier for such prayer halls. Along the two sides are pillars with capitals similar to those in Ajanta and other Buddhist sites, and marks the places where monks used to sit for the prayers.

Indian economic development - some fresh thoughts

There had been times when a GDP growth of 3.5 or 4% per annum in India was thought to be remarkable. Nowadays, people feel somehow disappinted if the growth rate registers 7.5% rather than 8%. There had been times when inflation had been over 25% in a year (and the people have had to live with it). Presently, even a 10% inflation rate is popularly unacceptable. For the Reserve Bank of India, the target is to keep inflation within about 6%. Gone are the times when one had to wait for days to get a cement permit sanctioned for building construction or even to make an outstation call to a relative or to queue for hours to get a berth reervation in a train. Now's the time for messages "at the speed ofight", with the wi-fi or "hot-spot" willing, on-line pruchases of most commidities, and on-line train reservations. This did not happen overnight. But how did it at all happen? To get a glimpse of this, have a look at the book "Eco Yatra", published by Tata McGrawHill - this speaks of traversing the path of India's economic change for the last six decades. It tells the story of how this change took place over the last 60 years or so, when in 1952 Jawaharlal Nehru presented the nation with the First Five Year Plan with an investment plan of just Rs 2,070 crore (in comparison, the Tenth Plan 2002-2007 had an outlay of Rs 1,484,131 crore). It sifts through hard economic data, while bringing out the broad trend lines, without losing sight that economic development also has an underlying human dimension. Thus, at one level, the book traces the changes that impacted the people at a human level; at another, it takes the reader past the major milestones on the road to economic change over the last 60 years; not in a bookish way, but as a chronicle of national and individual aspirations and achievements.

Copies of the book are available with Amazon. Check at -- -- https://www.amazon.in/Eco-Traversing-Indias-Economic-Decades/dp/0070680698/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&qid=1612095758&refinements=p_27%3AProsenjit+Das+Gupta&s=books&sr=1-6

"Tracking Jim" - Notes on Jim Corbett, the famous hunter of man-eating tigers

The Corbett National Park, originally called the Hailey National Park when it was set up in 1930s, has been re-named after the famous hunter, Jim Corbett, who had lived practically all his life in the hills and foot-hills of Nainital in Uttarakhand. The family lived at Gurney House in Nainital in the summer months, coming down to the village of Kaladhungi (also called Chhota Haldwani), in the foot-hills, for winter. The Gurney House and the Kaladhungi bungalow have now been turned into museums in memory of the renowned hunter. It was also in the neighbourhood of Kaladhungi that Corbett had his first initiation in the ways of the jungle under his elder brother, Tom, who was in the Indian Postal Service. Corbett has written of these experiences in his two books, "Jungle Lore" and "My India" though there are some glimpses also in his other books.

Above is a picture of Gurney House, situated at Ayarpata, up on the hillside on the southewestern side of Nanital Lake. And given below is a picture of Corbett's bungalow at Kaladhungi, which has now been turned into a museum by the Forest Dept., Govt. of Uttarakhand. Kaladhungi is siutated on the road almost mid-way between the towns of Haldwani and Ramnagar.

Sunderbans- the story of Ban-bibi

The Sunderbans, at the south-eastern border of India and Bangladesh, is one of the largest mangrove forests in the world, spanning about 5000 square kilometres. This has also been been the scene of a long-standing man-tiger conflct, with a number of human deaths each year attributed to man-eating tigers. The Sunderbans are approachable by driving about a hundred kilometres to the south-east of the metropolis of Kolkata and then taking a mechanized boat from either Canning or from Gosaba.

The fishermen and honey-collectors living in the area are great believers in prayers to Ban-bibi before entering the mangrove forests. Ban-bibi is said to have had a miraculous birth and is equally revered by the Hindu and Muslim people in that area. At about that time, "Dakhin-rai" was a despot who tried to maintain his rule by offering human sacrifices to the wild tigers inhabiting the mangrove forests. One day Dukhey (the very name suggests a "sorrowng one"), a poor fisherman was to be so sacrificed to the tiger, and he prayed long and earnestly to Ban-bibi for succour. The goddess answered his prayers and threated Dakhin-rai that she would put an end to his depradations. Dakhin-rai submitted to the goddess, who then took Dukhey on her lap and consoled him. This legend is widely believed in the region and shrines to Ban-bibi may be seen at many places in the Sunderbans.

"Dhokra Art" - Basic Facts

“Dhokra” is a common folk art form in India. This is widely practised in many tribal areas of India, but mainly in central India, such as in Madhya Pradesh, and Chattisgarh, as well as in Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal. This art-form for making castings in brass or bell-metal (these being varying compositions of copper, zinc and occasionally a bit of tin or arsenic) relies on the “lost-wax” process of casting. The “lost-wax” process is so-called because the forms and designs are made in bees’ wax or some similar malleable materials that volatilizes and evaporates or is otherwise “lost” in the process of heating up the rough casting in a furnace. The process starts with craftsman or artist making a rough clay figurine or shape, say of a horse or a bull, or some local deity, or a utility item like a candle-stand, as the core for the casting. This clay, usually from a river bank, is finely ground and sieved and then shaped and dried in the sun. The surface of this “core” shape is thoroughly smoothened and the craftsman proceeds to cover this fully with fine extruded threads of bees’ wax. Over this are placed the actual designs as diamond-or star-shaped or coiled arrangements in bees wax and the finer details of eyes, ears, clothing, ornaments, etc. (also in bees wax) are added on. This wax-coated core is then covered with clay, also finely sieved and of a soft texture, and allowed to dry in the shade for a couple of days. This is then coated with a thicker and coarser layer of clay mixed with rice husk, taking care that at one point, either at the top or bottom of the shape, an aperture is kept open with a couple of thin bamboo sticks. This whole is then again dried in the shade for a couple of days.

The above photo shows three different types of "lostwax" art - the typical folk style, the South Indian statuette and modern art college piece. It will be realized that with this process the wax designs made on the inner core have made for a gap of about 1.25 to 1.5 mm (i.e. the diametre of the extruded wax threads) with the other clay coating, carrying the imprint of the patterns and designs on the inner surface of the clay coating. The rough casting is then placed in the furnace together with a small pot carrying the brass or bell-metal scrap fixed firmly where the bamboo sticks emerge from the aperture. This whole is then heated in a furnace with the pot of scrap metal at the bottom and bellows are used to induce the furnace temperature to rise to more than 900 deg. C, which the melting point of brass. The bellows are kept going for an hour or an hour and half till the clay casing starts glowing yellowish red. With practice and experience the craftsman knows when to take the next step and this he does by clamping the red-hot piece with long iron pincers and swiftly turns it over so that the molten brass or bell-metal now flows down by gravity and occupies the space for the patterns and designs left on the inner clay core as the bees wax would have by now long volatilized and evaporated. The casting is allowed to cool in the shade for an hour or so and then outer clay casing is broken open and the final cast figure emerges. This is then cleaned with light brushing with an iron brush and further finished if required with a steel file. Strange as it may sound, this same “lost-wax” process has been used also to make the famous “Tanjore Bronzes” in Tamilnadu as well as the well-known Benin Bronzes from West Africa. Of course, in such cases the clay core has been much smaller and the bees wax coating considerably thicker and smoothened over with fine iron implements. The finer details of eyes, nose, ears, hands etc, are usually later sculpted on the cast figurine with fine iron instruments and the figure finished with steel files, sand-papering and buffing.

This picture is of a traditional Dhokra item from Bastar in Chhattisgarh, of Rama and Lakshmana confronting the demon Ravana.

Sino-Indian Border Conflict - a view-point

Recently, Bookgeeks reviewed the book entitled "A Conflict in Thin Air" about the Sino-Indian Border Conflict. The review stresses the detailed research that went into thw writing of this book and the wealth of details about Tibet, China and British India that shaped the the origins of this conflict. The link to the review is as follows - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mbXnhg7RJ4

Dholavira - A Indus Valley Civilization site in India

The Indus Valley Civilization (or IVC for short) that grew up in the valley of the Indus River about five thousand years back, is well-known. Not so well-known is the fact that almost contemporaneously, sites similar to the well-known sites of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro also grew up in parts of Western India. One such site is Dholavira near the town of Bhuj in Gujarat. It is at some distnace of about 220 kilometres to the north of Bhuj and it takes about four hours to drive up each way.

The drive is quite pleasant especially in the morning in cold weather. The remarkable thing to be seen at Dholavira is the rain-water harvesting system with channels running down from the hillock down to the terraced water reservoirs at the bottom of the hillock, as may be seen in this picture. The Local museum of artefacts recovered during the archaeological excvations at Dholavira is also inetresting.

Orchids - Jewels of the Flower World

 Flowers of the orchid plants have some of the most interesting shapes and colours that one can find in the plant world. 

India has over 1200 orchid species growing in various parts of the country, out of which over 500 orchid species grow primarily in the Himalayan foothills at elevations of about 250 metres to about 2500 metres, and many of them in Northeastern India. Some of the best places to see orchids growing - some grow in autumn and many in spring and summer - is in in the Darjeeling Hills of West Bengal and in Sikkim, which is close by. 

Aerides odorata

Dendrobium nobile

Rhynchostylis retusa

Some of these, especially the Aerides species, or the well-known Vanda roxburghi or the Rhynchostylis retusa are able to tolerate a good deal of heat and can grow even in the plains of central India.  Many grow in Assam and in Arunachal Pradesh and other states of the Northeast.

India - the economic scenario

 The Covid-19 has cast a haze of doubts and confusion over the economic scenario in India. The restrictions necessary to combat the virus have severely impacted economic activity despite recent government efforts to revive the economy. 

That laws, plans, and programmes do not lead to near-term results have been known for many years. Ever since the initiation of the Five Year Plans in India in 1952, the gap between promise and performance has persisted. In a country as large and diverse as India, opening of economic flood-gates does not ensure that the benefits will duly percolate to the individual farmer and farm-holding. 

Partly this has been due to the growing population and partly because the basic realities of the wide-spread poverty and out-dated technology levels in many sectors, especially in agriculture. These issues were  dealt with in the above-mentioned book and the need for political positions to take due account of economic realities was highlighted. Moreover even with the best of intentions, the complexities of implementation and management were not duly provided for, leading to severe economic road-blocks. 

India Current Affairs - the Sino-Indian Border Conflict

 Ever since the latest series of Sino-Indian border frictions started in May 2020, this has been much debated and discussed on the media. Even a couple of days ago, an overseas specialist who has done research on this topic implied in a major newspaper interview that the border problem is a product of British thoughtlessness in the matter. 

To cross-check I went back to my book "A Conflict in Thin Air" published in 2016 by Cinnamon Teal Publishing. In this I could identify the treaties between India and Tibet or China on the following occasions - (a) Between Kashmir (then under the  Maharaja, Gulab Singh) and Tibet in 1842, (b) Between Ladakh and Tibet in 1852, (c) the Cheffo Convention between Britain and China in 1876, (d) British India and China Treaty of 1890 setting out the configuration of the Tibet-Sikkim border, (e) the Simla Agreement of April 1914, which China signed and then repudiated and (f) the India-China Agreement on border trade in 1954. As to specifically about an understanding or appreciation about the  border, I can only refer the scholar concerned to the several maps that British India produced from 1840s to 1890s, especially about Ladakh. At least 3 or 4 attempts were made by British India to have the Chinese authorities to agree to joint surveys from 1870s to 1920s but to no avail.

All these records are available in the India Office Library in London, and references will be found in the books by Dr. Alastair Lamb , Dorothy Woodman and others. To paraphrase Shakespeare in the play "Julius Caesar" -- "The fault, dear China, lies not in our stars, but within you".