Expat Ride: A book on Gulf NRIs

For long, the Middle East, which is commonly termed as 'Gulf', has been considered an El Dorado for Indians. The first wave of prosperity came in many parts of India, particularly, in South India, when lakhs of Indians got jobs in Middle East in 70s and 80s.

It is a fact that despite 5-7 million Indians working in Gulf countries, there is not enough focus in India on either their contribution to our economy or their problems.

For the record, the number of Indians in West Asian countries is at least four times the number of NRIs in America. Mohammed Saifuddin's book Expat Ride sheds light on the issues pertaining to Indians in Gulf.

Contrary to the belief that every person who goes to Gulf, manages to make moolah, it tells us how large number of people fail to save adequate money.

The semi-skilled workers face pathetic conditions, work hard by spending more hours in duty but don't get as much return for their efforts. From facing extreme weather and psychological issues due to living away from families, the book tells a lot about the situation on the ground.

The book tells us about challenges faced by expatriates in getting good education to their children. That they have to pay exorbitant fees to get admission in colleges in India and the quota initiated by AB Vajpayee-led BJP government remains limited to just a few educational institutions in India.

Saifuddin also touches the issue of taxes apart from exploitation by money-lenders and depression among Indians working in the region. As many as 70% of those who commit suicide in Dubai, are Indians! This is a shocker for everybody.

The author suggests that India should conduct surveys and take more steps to redress the issues of expatriate community. Another myth is busted in the book. Muslims are not favoured in Gulf countries. In fact, in key positions non-Muslims outnumber Muslims.

The number of Muslims among powerful Indians in GCC countries is just 18%. There are other serious issues like problems faced in repatriation of dead bodies to India.

These things need to be taken up on priority. It is true that Indian newspapers and Television channels seldom pay attention to these important aspects which affect a large number of people.

But when it comes to sudden disappearance or crime against an NRI in America or Britain, our media forgets all sense of proportion and lap it up, showing it for hours.

But there is no such interest visible in Gulf. This is despite the enormous regular contribution in terms of remittances--sending money back home on regular basis, that runs millions of households in India.

Saifuddin, who hails from Hyderabad, has over the years penned articles for Yahind.com portal. The book comprises these articles. One hopes that the book would draw the attention of policy makers towards Indian expatriates in the GCC countries--United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabic, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain.

By Indscribe in AnIndianMuslim. Here and Here

A comprehensive book on marriage in Islam

There are many books on the Islamic religion and many more on the institution of marriage. Sheikh Muhammed Karakunnu wrote a book in Malayalam where he combined the two. It is this book on matrimony which K.M. Muhammed has translated into Tamil. It is more or less a textbook with instructions on the various aspects of marriage based on the tenets of Islam and Hadees (sayings of the Prophet).

Quoting heavily from the Holy Book, the author exhorts youth to get married. He deals with the pitfalls of bachelorhood in the second chapter where he cautions those who are not married, to observe fasts to resist evil thoughts and temptation. Marriage is aimed to regulate human life, he believes.

From choosing the bride to the rituals, the writer says that if a man intends to marry a woman after having conducted enquiries, he may take a look at her preferably without her knowledge. This is because in the event of his not liking her, her feelings should not be hurt. He cannot meet her alone. Most of the Islamic scholars opine that he can look only at her face and forearm.

It is the girl who has to decide on her alliance, and her consent for marriage is imperative. If however the marriage takes place without her consent, she has the right to cancel it.

Solemnising a Muslim marriage is simple. Of the two parties, one expresses consent and satisfaction for the alliance known as ‘Ejab’ while the other party conveys acceptance or ‘Khabool’. In the presence of two witnesses, the bride’s father or guardian gives away the girl. Once the groom conveys his acceptance, the marriage agreement stands completed. Supplication for the well-being of the newly weds follows and then the feast.

Explaining the concept of Meher, the author says it is gift to the bride from the groom and a portion of it should be paid at the time of the Nikkah (marriage). Islam prohibits wasteful expenditure during weddings.

The content is packaged in good prose and coherent language that is practical and contemporary. There is a sense of purpose and passion throughout, and the book is a comprehensive and exhaustive study.

MOB Habib in The Hindu Here and Here

The Righteous Mind, Reason, Intuition and Islamic Dawah

You’re smart. You’re Muslim. You’re well informed. You think non-Muslims, non-believers are narrow-minded. You can’t understand why people worship statues, cow, film stars, sun, moon and etc etc. You figure they’re being duped. You’re wrong.

William Saletan in his article on the book "The Righteous Mind" by Jonathan Haidt unravels of the mystery behind rejection and acceptance. Excerpts from his review in The New York Times

In “The ­Righteous Mind,” Haidt seeks to enrich liberalism, and political discourse generally, with a deeper awareness of human nature. Like other psychologists who have ventured into political coaching, such as George Lakoff and Drew Westen, Haidt argues that people are fundamentally intuitive, not rational. If you want to persuade others, you have to appeal to their sentiments. But Haidt is looking for more than victory. He’s looking for wisdom. That’s what makes “The Righteous Mind” well worth reading. Politics isn’t just about ­manipulating people who disagree with you. It’s about learning from them.

The problem isn’t that people don’t reason. They do reason. But their arguments aim to support their conclusions, not yours. Reason doesn’t work like a judge or teacher, impartially weighing evidence or guiding us to wisdom. It works more like a lawyer or press secretary, justifying our acts and judgments to others.

To explain this persistence, Haidt invokes an evolutionary hypothesis: We compete for social status, and the key advantage in this struggle is the ability to influence others. Reason, in this view, evolved to help us spin, not to help us learn. So if you want to change people’s minds, Haidt concludes, don’t appeal to their reason. Appeal to reason’s boss: the underlying moral intuitions whose conclusions reason defends.

****

Many of Haidt’s proposals are vague, insufficient or hard to implement. And that’s O.K. He just wants to start a conversation about integrating a better understanding of human nature — our sentiments, sociality and morality — into the ways we debate and govern ourselves. At this, he succeeds. It’s a landmark contribution to humanity’s understanding of itself.

But to whom is Haidt directing his advice? If intuitions are unreflective, and if reason is self-serving, then what part of us does he expect to regulate and orchestrate these faculties? This is the unspoken tension in Haidt’s book. As a scientist, he takes a passive, empirical view of human nature.

 William Saletan in The New York Times. Here

‘The Power of Habit,’ by Charles Duhigg

Human consciousness, that wonderful ability to reflect, ponder and choose, is our greatest gift of God. But it is possible to have too much of a good thing, and fortunately we also have the ability to operate on automatic pilot, performing complex behaviors without any conscious thought at all. One way this happens is with lots of practice. Tasks that seem impossibly complex at first, like learning how to play the guitar, speak a foreign language or operate a new DVD player, become second nature after we perform those actions many times (well, maybe not the DVD player). “If practice did not make perfect,” William James said, “nor habit economize the expense of nervous and muscular energy, he” (we, that is) “would therefore be in a sorry plight.”

But of course there is a dark side to habits, namely that we acquire bad ones, like smoking or overeating. I imagine that most people — save, perhaps, for a friend of mine who said, in reaction to a news story about the dangers of hyper­tension, “I’ve given up all of my vices; please don’t take away my salt!” — would love to find an easy way of breaking a bad habit or two.

Charles Duhigg, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, has written an entertaining book to help us do just that, “The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business.” Duhigg has read hundreds of scientific papers and interviewed many of the scientists who wrote them, and relays interesting findings on habit formation and change from the fields of social psychology, clinical psychology and neuroscience. This is not a self-help book conveying one author’s homespun remedies, but a serious look at the science of habit formation and change.

Timothy D. Wilson in The New York Times. Here

A (Quiet) Room of One's own

In a 1929 essay, Virginia Woolf wrote that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” There has been much literary analysis (and some criticism) of this assertion, and, over time it seems her call has been taken up by proponents of nearly every minority facing systemic repression, but in the context of the time, Woolf was being quite literal and pragmatic. Women rarely had space to call their own in which to do their own work. Women belonged to the household, not to themselves.

While I feel a little bit guilty for cribbing Woolf’s famous line for the title of this post–partially because it’s overused, and partially because this is a somewhat lighter topic to which I am applying it–, as I read through Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain, the phrase came leaping to mind and stayed there. There are a lot of angles to come at Quiet, but I think the practical, in terms of space, is a good place to start.

Cain’s book sets out to show us how and why ‘the extrovert’ has become the American ideal, and for our purposes, particularly in the workplace. She argues that introverts–nearly 1/3 of people– are misunderstood and devalued. In an interview on NPR.org, Cain explains:

“Many people believe that introversion is about being antisocial, and that’s really a misperception. Because actually it’s just that introverts are differently social. So they would prefer to have a glass of wine with a close friend as opposed to going to a loud party full of strangers.

While able to make choices that suit them in their personal lives (no one has to go to a rock concert to hear their favorite music performed live thanks to the Internet), introverts are often forced to work in an environment that doesn’t suit their creative and productivity needs. This can mean that introverts are less likely to perform to the top of their potential. Also from the NPR Q&A:

It’s quite a problem in the workplace today, because we have a workplace that is increasingly set up for maximum group interaction. More and more of our offices are set up as open-plan offices where there are no walls and there’s very little privacy. … The average amount of space per employee actually shrunk from 500 square feet in the 1970s to 200 square feet today.

A review in 800ceoread. Here

Power Listening: What kind of listener are you?

Every morning when I drop my 6-year-old son off for school, I remind him to put on his listening ears. It is quite adorable when he reaches a hand up to each ear and “clicks” them into place. Of course this ritual of ours is more about reminding him to follow directions given by his teacher than teaching him social attentiveness. And yet, it plants the seed that what other people say matters. It is the very beginning step in helping him become a good listener.

Listening is a big deal, at any age, but unfortunately you can’t just click on your listening ears in order to be good at it. Good listening takes practice. It takes self-awareness. It takes a book like Power Listening: Mastering the Most Critical Business Skill of Them All by Bernard T. Ferrari, available from Penguin Portfolio on March 1, to help you understand just how valuable listening skills are…or how detrimental it is to not refine yours.

What sets this book apart from other books on listening (of which there are plenty) is that Ferrari, a business consultant with a long history at McKinsey & Co and also as a health care provider, is interested in “listening for the purpose of arriving at a better business decision.”

Why is listening critical to business success? Ferrari makes his case:

Listening can well be the difference between profit and loss, between success and failure, between a long career and a short one. Listening is the only way to find out what you don’t know, and marks the path to making good decisions, arriving at the best ideas. If you aspire to be better at your job, no matter what it is, listening may be the most powerful tool at your disposal.

Of course this makes sense to all of us. And there is hardly a one of us who would readily admit that we are poor listeners! So it makes sense to jump into Ferrari’s book at Chapter 2, “What Kind of Listener Are You?” to help you determine your own starting point on this journey to become a better listener.

• The Opinionator has a “tendency to listen to others really only to determine whether or not his ideas conform to what the Opinionator already knows to be true”?
• “The Grouch is blocked by the certainty that your ideas are wrong.”
• “The Preambler’s windy lead-ins and questions are really stealth speeches, often designed to box his [conversation partner] in.”
• “The Perseverator may appear to be engaged in productive dialogue, but if you pay attention, you might notice that he’s not really advancing the conversation.”
• The Answer Man “is the person who starts spouting solutions before there is even a consensus about what the challenge might be, signaling that he is finished listening to your input in the conversation.”
• “The Pretender isn’t really interested in what you have to say.”

Even if you consider yourself to be a good listener (and Ferrari says you likely are…sometimes), you may see a number of these archetypes at play in your behavior depending on the situation. I know I can be quite the Answer (Wo)man when talking with my husband, while I picked up some bad Opinionator habits during my years in academia where opinions are highly encouraged that I use clumsily in social situations.

Ferrari sets a high bar in Chapter 4 with his version of the “80/20 rule,” a goal we can all work toward:

My guideline is that my conversation partner should be speaking 80 percent of the time, while I speak only 20 percent of the time….I can make my speaking time count by spending as much of it as possible posing questions, rather than holding forth with my opinions and observations.

What an incredible challenge it would be to just do that! And quite counter-intuitive for many of us in the workplace, Ferrari acknowledges.

I understand that people in leadership positions feel a certain pressure to steer or direct or control conversations within their organizations, but don’t be misled: Your choosing to listen more than speak does not mean you’ve ceded control of a conversation. Well-directed questioning and minimal but well-timed commentary can help people bring forward new facts, open their minds, think in new ways, and come up with better ideas.

By the end of Power Listening, you will better understand how to make the most of your 80/20 by learning how to challenge assumptions, focus on what you need to know, increase your tolerance for ambiguity, create an imaginary filing system for information, know when to stop the conversation and start acting, be a good listening influence. Ferrari’s handy concluding chapter “What to Do on Monday Morning” that turns theory into action steps.

A review in 800ceoread.com. Here and watch a two minute video on the book Here

Why do we laugh?

He who laughs last usually has to have the joke explained. But then why bother? After all, nothing kills humor faster than analysis. That sentiment has long dogged humor studies, a field often disparaged as an affront, even an existential threat, to its subject matter. It’s just a joke: Don’t overthink it.

But what if humor (or mirth, in research speak) is intimately linked to thinking? What if we’d have trouble thinking without it? That’s the argument of “Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind” (MIT Press, 2011).

Coauthored by three scholars, the book had an unusual genesis: It began in 2004 as an undergraduate term paper. First author Matthew Hurley, a native of Reading, Mass., had enrolled at Tufts University after a few years of travel and work as a computer programmer. As part of a self-designed major in cognitive science, Hurley took a course on humor taught by the psychologist Reginald Adams Jr. It struck Hurley that most humor theories focused on why we find certain things funny. But, he wondered, why do humans find anything funny? Why do we have a sense of humor in the first place?

Chris Berdik reviews the book "Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind" in the Boston Globe. Here

Is Self-Knowledge overrated?

Daniel Kahneman

Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist and the author of the new book “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” changed the way people think about thinking by asking them questions. They weren’t trick questions, either. Instead, Kahneman relied almost exclusively on straightforward surveys, in which he described various scenarios. Here’s a sample:
The U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. If program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved. If program B is adopted, there is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved and a two-thirds probability that no people will be saved. Which of the two programs would you favor?

When Kahneman put this question to a few hundred physicians, seventy-two per cent chose option A, the safe-and-sure strategy. Most doctors would rather save a certain number of people for sure than risk the possibility that everyone might die.

Now consider this scenario:

The U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. If program C is adopted, 400 people will die. If program D is adopted, there is a one-third probability that nobody will die and a two-thirds probability that 600 people will die. Which of the two programs would you favor?

The two different hypotheticals, of course, examine identical dilemmas: saving one-third of the population is the same as losing two-thirds. And yet, doctors reacted very differently depending on how the question was framed. When the possible outcomes were stated in terms of deaths (and not survivors), physicians were suddenly eager to take chances: seventy-eight per cent chose option D.

Why are doctors so inconsistent? Kahneman and his longtime collaborator, Amos Tversky, explained these contradictory responses in terms of loss aversion, or the fact that losses hurt more than gains feel good. In fact, people hate losses so much that merely framing a choice in terms of a potential loss can shift their preferences. Like those physicians, people are suddenly willing to risk losing everything if there’s a chance they might lose nothing.

Although our dislike of losses might seem obvious—“You need to have studied economics for many years before you’d be surprised by my research; it didn’t shock my mother at all,” Kahneman says—the discovery of loss aversion proved to be an important refutation of human rationality.

Jonah Lehrer in The NewYorker. Here

Delhi, 1947, Gujarat 2002 : A disturbing book on Indian Muslims by Anis Kidwai

As you read one chilling account after another of perfidy and deceit, of official connivance with the killers, of doctors’ refusal to treat Muslim patients, of government offices telling their Muslim employees, even those who had chosen to stay, to leave and go to Pakistan, of pre-teen girls speared through their vaginas, of infants being chopped to pieces, of pregnant woman being stabbed through their wombs, of women, in their tens of thousands, on both sides of the blood-soaked border, kidnapped, raped and sold off, again and again and again, rioters, policemen, army men all joining in this macabre act of desecration of womanhood, your blood begins to run cold.

And all this in the capital of a nation that had announced to the world that she was home as much to the Muslim as it was to the Hindu, the Sikh, the Parsi and the Christian. Those upon whose shoulders had fallen the responsibility of steering its fate, were people who were either not capable or did not care and some, many of them were almost at the top, were complicit in the violence.

As you read all this, your mind begins to be flooded with images and reports of the recent past, events, pogroms, genocides – Nellie, Bombay, Gujarat begin to flood your mind. The same barbarities, the same callousness, collusion, protectors turning perpetrators, doctors refusing to treat patients, suckling infants being beheaded, neighbours killing neighbours and all this amidst claims of a faith that was inherently tolerant, open, welcoming.

You also think of this frail woman, a woman who has lost her husband to these killers and who still went out every day, trying to save one more life, unite one more family, buy sweets for a girl with half her skull stitched up, supervising rations for the refuge seekers, begging for blankets, setting up schools for children, organizing joint processions of Hindu and Muslim children, getting their parents together, getting into communally charged localities and asking people to stop the dance of death, if not for anything, then at least for the life of the fasting Mahatma, who had vowed not to eat as long as peace did not return to Delhi.

As you read you see this unsure, scared, confused, hurt, lonely woman, grow up in stature and with her rises your hope and your faith in the victory of the Human spirit.

Read this book if you want to understand where we went wrong and to see the fault lines, to see how we need a secular state and not sarv dharm sambhav. Read this book also if you want to understand the falsity of the self image that we have created of ourselves and of our nation, but read it most importantly to understand the fragility of the premise upon which is built the idea of India and the need to protect and nurture this premise and to make it real. Because this premise is India and it is people like Anis Kidwai that made it possible.

Sohail Hashmi in Kafila. Here 

Book review in Dinathanthi

 

  

Origins of Political Order: Francis Fukuyama and the start of history

As they try to make sense of the Arab Spring, many in Washington have argued that the US must put itself on "the right side of history" in the Middle East and North Africa. It's a familiar but bizarre phrase. It is common sense to argue that foreign policy should be driven by national interests and deep-seated principles. But should politicians and diplomats base their choices on their instincts about where the arc of history is heading?

Most professional historians would say no. To acquire a doctorate in history today, at least in the US or UK, is to obsess about details. Topics such as folk perceptions of Joan of Arc in post-Napoleonic Normandy are hot in academic circles. Things like the rise and decline of civilisations don't seem rigorous enough to get historians interested.

Yet there is still a natural hunger for History with a capital H. We live in a moment of dramatic political and economic change, as the US turns inwards, Europe stagnates and China, India and Brazil assert themselves on the world stage. The recent events in the Middle East have only reinforced the sense that we have entered a historically pivotal moment.

So it's hardly surprising that there is currently high demand for explanations of world history that can be applied to immediate political circumstances. This is just what Francis Fukuyama offers in The Origins of Political Order, an expansive survey of global developments stretching from prehistory to the French and American revolutions.

It is not too much to say that Fukuyama had no choice but to write this book. Twenty years ago he seized the post-Cold War moment to raise the possibility of the "end of history" - the moment that liberal democracy trumped all other political systems. Versions of this idea informed the Clinton administration's efforts to draw ex-Communist states into a liberal world order and the Bush administration's democratisation agenda.

Richard Gowan in The National. More Here

The veil has become the symbol of liberation

From the 1920s to 1960s, unveiling was a symbol of Egypt's desire to emulate western scientific, political and economic success – the majority of Egyptians, as Ahmed points out, had accepted the western view of the veil as "uncivilised". A Quiet Revolution provides a clear and compelling summary of the changes that led to its return: the decline of Arab socialism after 1967, the expanding influence of ultra-conservative Saudi Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood, and the failure of pro-western economic policies. By the 1970s, disillusioned students and professionals were turning to an activist Islam – Islamism – that promised social, moral and political renewal. Observing strict dress became one means of displaying egalitarian principles and conveying the wearer's strength and authority. From a symbol of disempowerment, the veil now, for some, became a mark of liberation.

Over the next decades, the veil gathered a range of new meanings: from an expression of personal faith, solidarity with Palestine, Chechnya or Iraq or allegiance to the ummah, to a safeguard against sexual harassment, a fashion statement, a critique of western "sexism", a call for minority rights, an evangelical tool. Ahmed does not romanticise these rationales – she is clear about the growing pressure on women from both Islamist organisations and preachers and from families, peers and the media. But A Quiet Revolution is a timely reminder that the veil today is a symptom less of an alien fanaticism than of a long political and cultural entanglement with the unveiled west.

A review by Rachel Aspden of the Book "A Quiet Revolution" by Leila Ahmed. More Here

The Victorian art of murder and the behaviour of Americans

The Victorians' thirst for murder - their fascination with the details, their poring over and feasting on it - mirrors western culture.

Obama, Hillary and others watching with glee the murder of Osama

Late one afternoon in the winter of 1836, a man boarded a London omnibus, carrying a soft, round object, approximately the size of a football, “wrapped up” under one arm. There was nothing about his appearance to excite suspicion. Indeed, he struck all those who saw him as placid and unremarkable. Taking his seat, he settled his luggage on his lap where it remained, held in place by its owner with perfect equanimity, for the rest of the journey. At Stepney, the passenger disembarked and walked the short distance to the canal where he disposed of his burden, hurling it, as discreetly as he was able, into the water. It floated for a second or two, as though struggling to remain in view of the world, before it sank at last beneath the surface, vanishing from sight.

The name of the traveller was James Greenacre and earlier that day he had committed murder. What he carried under his arm was the severed head of his victim – a washerwoman named Hannah Brown, who was his fiancée. Greenacre must have hoped that the canal would swallow the proof of his crime but the waters failed to keep their secret. On January 6, 1837, the head of Miss Brown was found by a lock-keeper when it came to obstruct the mechanism of which he was in charge. Brown’s torso was soon discovered, “in a horridly mutilated state”, dumped in a sack “tucked under a flagstone” on the Edgware Road, and in February “a pair of legs was dredged out of a bed of reeds near Coldharbour Lane, in Brixton”. Following the identification of the body by the victim’s brother, Greenacre was hunted down and arrested. Soon afterwards, he confessed and the crowd at his execution was apparently “large, vocal and perfectly good-humoured”. They purchased “Greenacre tarts” from a pie-seller while they waited to watch the killer swing.

In Judith Flanders’s new book, The Invention of Murder, a survey of homicide in the nineteenth century, the slaying of Hannah Brown is one of dozens of such atrocities. Here are to be found a horrifying array of “more than fifty” violent and bloody expirations – including well-known cases which have been popularized by other writers (Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, described by Oscar Wilde in “Pen, Pencil and Poison” in 1889 as a “young dandy” with “rich curly hair, fine eyes, and exquisite white hands”, who is revealed here as “short, fat, bald and with a speech defect”; the Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 which inspired P. D. James and T. A. Critchley’s The Maul and the Pear Tree, 1971; the murder of Francis Savile Kent, dramatized by Kate Summerscale in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, 2008) and other less well-known cases. Here are crimes born of lust, pecuniary gain, revenge. Here are murders of servants by their masters and of masters by their servants, murders by strangers and murders by loved ones: poisonings, bludgeonings, suffocations.

Jonathan Barnes reviews the book THE INVENTION OF MURDER How the Victorians revelled in death and detection and created modern crime by Judith Flanders in The Sunday Times. Here

You are looking very well: Lewis Wolpert

One of the many virtues of Lewis Wolpert’s excellent investigation of “the surprising nature of getting old” is that he does not treat the elderly as an undifferentiated blob, distinguished only by different degrees of dependency, deafness, cantankerousness, technological incompetence and resistance to novelty.

Variety, rather than uniformity, is to be expected since we bring to our later years a lifetime of experiences. Increasing age is typically marked by decline in physiological function, a growing burden of disease and a rising probability of dying, but many factors determine our physical nick and attitudes to life.

Our genetic inheritance, our quality of life in utero, education, class, career, lifestyle, status, levels of physical, mental and social activity are just some of the main influences.

The ageing body is like a field self-sown with mines. Wolpert treats us to a sprightly tour that encompasses the diseases and neurological conditions that may await us en route to extinction. But even this familiar territory is planted with surprises.

For example, those who earlier in life endorse negative stereotypes of their elders are more prone to poor health when they themselves are old, in part because they are more likely to attribute remediable problems to irremediable ageing.

What’s more, as Wolpert demonstrates in his bracingly angry pages on the abuse of older people, society at large may be as influential on wellbeing. (There is, by the way, no obligation to be miserable. According to a German study of 21,000 people, happiness peaks at the age of 74.) It is important to grasp the distinction between often treatable diseases that come with advancing years and ageing itself. “Pure” ageing is the result of an accumulation of random molecular damage to that “society of billions of cells” that comprises our body. This is allowed to happen, as the biologist Tom Kirkwood first pointed out, because in the wild few creatures survive long enough to die of old age.

Wolpert’s sceptical tour of anti-ageing remedies could save readers a lot of money: immortality or even a perfect complexion do not yet seem to be available in a jar, a pill or a syringe. And while there are astonishing laboratory examples of life extension due to, for instance, restricted-calorie diets, who would want to live longer in a state of semi-starvation? 

Raymond Tallis in The Telegraph. More Here

Geek Nation

“Wherever in the world we live, Indians and people of Indian origin are famous for being swots, nerds, dweebs, boffins, and dorks,” writes Angela Saini in Geek Nation.

With a population approaching 1.2bn, India has the world’s largest pool of scientists and engineers. While the literacy rate hovers around a dismal 60 per cent, some 400 universities produce 2m graduates every year, including a staggering 600,000 engineers, the most sought after of which are from the 16 Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT’s).

Yet, Indian science is far from taking over the world: it currently contributes less than 3 per cent of global research output, lagging far behind the US and UK.

Manjit Kumar reviews Geek Nation by Angela Saini in Financial Times. Full Review Here

Geek Nation is an impressionistic look at India’s changing scientific landscape through the buttery lens of an outsider. Taking her cue from India’s increased R&D spend, Angela Saini, a British journalist and self-professed geek, embarks on a pushpin-marked pilgrimage through “the birthplace of the geek”, seeking a Pavlovian affirmation of the greatness of the birthplace of her father, a chemical engineer. “India never managed to live up to his dreams — until now. The success of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre is among the first signs that India may have what it takes to become a scientific superpower in the same league as the United States, Europe and Japan. It seems like India is being pulled out of poverty and transformed into a technological giant,” she writes, in a voice rendered cottony by a visit to Thumba, the opening act to a cross-country chronicle of scientific renaissance. 

At first, all seems to be going well for Saini, as she sets about investigating, if tentatively, the legacy of scientific temper that Jawaharlal Nehru, “India’s other important geek” after Vikram Sarabhai, bequeathed to his country. For Saini, Nehru is the dreamboat that has docked India at the hall of scientific fame for the first time since Aryabhatta and Bhaskara, and thus the key to why we became a country of “swots, nerds, dweebs, boffins and dorks”. 

V Shoba reviews Geek Nation by Angela Saini in Indian Express Full Review Here 

A disturbing book on Indian Muslims by Jeremy Seabrook

Topsia, a largely slum region on the edge of wetlands in east Kolkata, is an area that has fallen outside the map of municipal development. Worse, on the radar of the city’s general consciousness, the name registers no more than a feeble beep.
Along with Beniapukur, Tiljala and Tangra, the other three main areas focused upon in the book, Topsia also happens to be among the city’s most densely populated Muslim neighbourhoods.

The stubborn, uninterrupted poverty of these places and their residents’ Muslim faith is the basis of Seabrook’s study into the lives of the Others. “There is a widespread view that little common ground exists between Muslims and the rest of humanity,” the author notes. “This has become axiomatic for many…who contrast our ‘progress’ with their ‘backwardness’.”

With the avowed intention of correcting this unhappy state of affairs, the British journalist and commentator stitches together a collage of urban lives caught in a whirlpool of crime, drugs, larceny, corruption, coercion, underdevelopment, ignorance, neglect, vote-bank politics and intrigues of land sharks.

Yet the grand canvas that the title of the book suggests, and the blurb reiterates, is missing between the covers. Even while doing an admirable job of documenting the lives there (the most desperate creatures on earth, the author contends), People without History rarely moves beyond the precincts of its four Kolkata Muslim slum areas. In fact, it doesn’t even venture into the other Muslim-dominated neighbourhoods with similar or worse living conditions, Rajabazar being a notable example. People without History can only be a study of India’s Muslim Ghettos through gross generalization.
Most unsettling is the premise of the book that pits wider society against the largely Urdu-speaking Muslim slum population in Kolkata, and by the strength of notion, in all of India. Even as most interviewees in People without History testify, it becomes obvious that their circumstances are often not uniquely different from those living in, say, Kolkata’s and the country’s Hindu-majority slums: the other Others. The vortex of death, addiction, decay and exploitative politics is common to every urban Indian slum. Is faith the only differential in the lives of the Muslim slum dweller in Beniapukur and the Hindu day labourer in Dum Dum and Behala?

Seabrook highlights the appalling lives of the poor and their tremendous urge to survive the odds in painstaking detail, but misses the forest for the trees. In the plight of the Muslims of Topsia, Beniapukur, Tiljala and Tangra resonates the plight of the city; one which has seen the flight of capital and opportunities to more profitable and less-politicized shores, leaving behind barely enough for all its citizens. Since then it has been a narrative of shared struggle and common shame across communities in the city.

Take, for instance, the story of Qutubuddin Ansari, which hasn’t found a place in the book. Ansari was referred to as the “face of the 2002 Gujarat riots” after the photograph of the Muslim’s tailor’s horror-struck face pleading for life was splashed in the media. Ansari would find a home in Kolkata after the state government pledged support to rebuild his life and business. In less than a year, Ansari would go back to Gujarat and his tailoring business. The promise of peace brought him to Kolkata; the lack of prospects saw him return.

It could have been the story of a city.

Shamik Bag reviews “People without History— India’s Muslim Ghettos” by Jeremy Seabrook and Imran Ahmed Siddiqui in Mint Lounge. More Here

Compassion, character and competence: Three elements of leadership in Islam

Leaders inspire and that is where they differ from teachers and mentors. Leadership lies in the capacity to inspire a group of people to pursue an articulated vision, and to ensure their continuous cooperation for the realization of this vision. Leadership does not develop in a vacuum. It has to germinate among a specific group of people, impart a vision to them, mould their attitudes and understand the values and concerns of the community. The task of crystallizing a shared vision necessitates communication skills. Vision has then to be summed up in goals and divided into targets.   Great leaders have mobilized masses with the sheer charm of their personality, sincerity of their purpose, and force of character. Prophet Muhammad was divinely gifted in all these aspects. But where he excelled over all others was his kind, compassionate demeanour, robust listening, polite manners and tolerant disposition. Yet he was never short of grit or suffered from paucity of determination. When it came to principles, he was a mountain of courage. His biography is dotted with such instances. When his uncle Abu Talib asked him to give up his mission under intense pressure from elders of the Quraysh, the Prophet’s reply was, even if the opponents placed Sun and Moon over his palms, he would not budge an inch from his mission. Similarly, he emerged a great strategist when faced with an overwhelming might of the non-believers in the Battle of Trench. His insightfulness was in evidence in concluding the treaty of Hudaibiya.   Several people have leadership qualities. But they lack skills. This is where management practices could be employed to hone skills among individuals to take up the task of leadership of the community organizations. Leading with Compassion by Louy M. Safi draws heavily on the model of the Prophet of Islam, peace be upon him, with compassion as the major hallmark of his persona. Yet his audience is American Muslims of 21st century.   Though Safi’s postulates could be universally applicable, they are specifically aimed at Muslim communities inhabiting North America, especially in the United States and Canada. Creation of team spirit among a people who come from diverse ethnic background and endowed with culturally plural heritage is indeed an onerous task.   Safi says compassionate leadership combines in itself all three elements in equal measure i.e., compassion, character and competence. Only deeply rooted values act as the anchor of collective action. Islamic management principles are based on both ilm (knowledge of the reality) and hikmah (wisdom) i.e., judgement by which knowledge is brought to bear on action.   The author effectively debunks the present day connotation of certain Islamic terms and explains the Prophet’s action in elaborate detail. For instance, tawakkal alallah is today taken to mean as shunning preparation and planning and explained away as pinning hopes on Allah. But the Prophet’s advice to a colleague to tightly tether the camel to a peg and then repose trust in Allah effectively demolishes the all-pervasive misconception.   Second half of the book deals with organizational structures and management principles involved in managing Muslims institutions such as mosques, schools and Islamic centers in the United States. The book carries great appeal for those who may be looking for induction of Islamic principles in modern organizations. Usefulness of vision and mission statement, aims and objectives, target fixing and tools like SWOT Analysis have also been explained. However, the typographical howlers and grammatical gaffes do add a sour note.   The book will prove a great help and guide for those managing institutions or are engaged in social work.   Maqbool Ahmed Siraj's review of the book 'Leading with compassion' in Islamic Voice. More Here.

The Leadership of Muhammad

You can be appointed a commander or manager, but you are not a leader until your appointment is ratified in the hearts and minds of those you lead, recalls John Adair in The Leadership of Muhammad (www.koganpage.co.in). He writes that Muhammad perhaps discovered his ‘natural gift for leadership' when leading caravans.

Travelling back in time, the author opens the chapter titled Caravan Leader by narrating that the Quraysh – Muhammad's tribe – were once part of a larger confederation of tribes in the Najd desert known as the Bani Kinana. The Quraysh were in the business of caravans for they were merchants, he informs.

Leading a caravan

To explain how the role of a caravan leader was an exceptionally responsible one, Adair lists the things that needed to be done before a caravan left Mecca, for example – tasks included selecting and hiring a hundred or more camels and camel-drivers, assembling and packing loads, buying provisions and tents, preparing weapons, and securing money for expenses and for the camel-drivers' wages.

In the desert, all accountability for the caravan rested solely on the shoulders of the caravan leader. “He was without any means of communication with the owners once Mecca had receded from sight. Nor was the caravan insured. If any property in his care was damaged or stolen, it was the caravan leader and his kinfolk who were obliged to recompense the owners.”

Every large caravan was headed by a qaid (pronounced ‘akide'), an Arabic word that could be applied to a guide, the leader of a raid on another tribe's camels, or a military commander. Tracing the roots of the word leader to the Anglo-Saxon word ‘laed' that means a road, way, path or course of a ship at sea, and the verb ‘laedan,' which means to go or travel, the author avers that leadership is clearly a journey concept. A leader, literally, is one who leads the way by going first; the one, too, who may cause or make others go on a journey and holds them together in a body so that they do not get out of touch or lose their unity as a body, he elaborates.

Citing an apt quote of Muhammad, that on a journey the leader of a people is their servant, Adair reasons that a true leader serves those whom he or she leads, both as a group – meeting their needs to complete their journey safely and their needs to be maintained as a cohesive whole – and also as a set of individuals, for each individual on a journey may have small needs or problems as the journey proceeds.

Insightful study.

From D Murali's review in Business Line. More Here. 

It was a miracle...
In the book – Adair separates the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) from his divine mission: “Muhammad was both exalted and humble, capable of vision and inspiration, yet at the same time dedicated to the service of people. This idea (of leadership) accords well with what we now know to be the universal truth about the nature and practice of leadership”.
It was his leadership which turned a few of his followers in 610 CE into 124,000 who performed Hajj under his leadership in 633 CE before his life journey on Earth came to an end. This one of the miracles which no other biblical prophets had accomplished in the short span of 23 years. In 2007, the estimated world Muslim population was over 1.8 billion, second the Christianity. Muslims are expected to become the largest religious community in the world by 2015. Fifty-seven United Nations members are Muslim-majority countries.
I would highly recommend this book to all the educated non-Muslims expcept those who love to cash-on the Israel Lobby – as I don’t want them to develop heart problems.

From Rehmat's review in his blog. More Here.

The dimensions of his leadership
God’s Messenger was unique in discovering promising and competent persons in his community and appointing them to the work they could do best. Whoever he appointed to a post, he did not find any need to change him, and that person proved, through both his uprightness and competence, that he was a really good choice. This is another dimension of the Prophet’s leadership which demonstrates that he was a Prophet chosen by God.

The Makkan period of Islam was inscribed in the memories of the Muslims as a period of unbearable persecutions and tortures. Not only the poor and unprotected, like ‘Ammar, Bilal and Suhayb, but also those Muslims like Abu Bakr and ‘Umar, who were from the elite and powerful members of the Quraysh, were severely persecuted.1 In order to save his followers from this maltreatment, God’s Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, permitted the poor and unprotected among them to emigrate to Abyssinia, but chose to keep back the powerful ones such as ‘Ali, Zubayr , Abu Bakr, ‘Umar and Sa‘d ibn Abi Waqqas in Makka, for Islam needed their support to spread and implant itself in Makka. These powerful Muslims were to occupy the highest positions in the administration of the Muslim state in later decades.

Abu Dharr was a poor, blunt and upright man from the desert. When he heard Muhammad’s declaration of Prophethood, he came to Makka and became a Muslim. God’s Messenger used to preach Islam secretly in the earliest stage of his Prophethood. Abu Dharr was a blunt man, never restraining his feelings and always revealing the truth wherever he was. Also, he was very pious and lived an austere life. However, since public administration requires special skills, God’s Messenger did not accept Abu Dharr’s request to be appointed to an administrative post, saying: You are not able to manage the affairs of people. Do not apply for such jobs, for we do not assign such jobs to those who apply for them.

God’s Messenger refused Abu Dharr, but he implied the caliphate of Abu Bakr, ‘Umar and ‘Uthman. Holding once the hands of Abu Bakr and ‘Umar, he said: I have four viziers, two in the heavens and two in the world. Those in the heavens are Gabriel and Michael; as for those in the world, they are Abu Bakr and ‘Umar. Concerning the future caliphate of ‘Uthman, he declared: It will be a trial for him.

God’s Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, recognized his men much more than they knew themselves. Like Abu Dharr, ‘Amr ibn ‘Abatha was a man from the desert. He came to Makka and, entering the presence of God’s Messenger, asked rudely: ‘What are you?’ To this rudeness, the Messenger replied very gently: I am a Prophet of God. The gentleness of God’s Messenger was enough for the conversion of ‘Amr ibn ‘Abatha, who knelt down and declared: ‘I am to follow you from now on, O God’s Messenger’.
The Messenger did not desire ‘Amr ibn ‘Abatha to stay in Makka, because he was not able to endure the torments inflicted upon the believers. So, he told him, as he had once told Abu Dharr: Now, return to your tribe, and preach Islam among them. When, however, you hear that I am victorious, come and join us.
Years later, ‘Amr ibn ‘Abatha came to Madina, and asked God’s Messenger, who was in the mosque: ‘Do you recognize me, O God’s Messenger?’ The Messenger, who had an extraordinarily strong and keen memory (another dimension of his Prophethood) answered promptly: Aren’t you the one who came to me in Makka? I sent you back to your tribe and told you to join us when you heard that I was victorious.

A leader gains the love and trust of his people and is followed by them in proportion to his competence in solving their problems, whether personal or public, related to individual, private life, or to social, economic, political affairs touching the community as a whole.

In solving problems, you may resort to force and terror, or apply sanctions or punishments like exile, imprisonment or depriving the guilty of their rights of citizenship, or torture people, or spy into their affairs. However, none of these ways are of much use in the long term; rather, they will bring about a vicious circle, in which the more you struggle to solve problems by such means, the more you entangle yourself in them.

However, God’s Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, solved all problems so skillfully and easily that no one disagreed with the issue of his decisions. Although he was sent to a people by nature and habit quarrelsome, ignorant, wild and rebellious, and sent with a mission so grave as ‘to rend mountains asunder’ – If We had sent down this Qur’an onto a mountain, you would have seen it humbled and rent asunder out of fear of God (al-Hashr, 59.21) – he made them into a harmonious community of peace, happiness, knowledge and good morals. Reflect closely upon the utopias imagined in the West, such as The Republic (Plato), Utopia (Thomas More), and Civitas Solis (T. Campanella), you will see that, in essence, they dreamed of the ideal society of Madina in the time of the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings. Mankind have not since then witnessed the equal of that society. However, if they desire to live a happy and peaceful life based on good morals and universal values such as love, mutual respect, compassion, and altruism, they have no way other than to follow the example of God’s Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings.

We described in the first volume how he prevented, through his wisdom, an imminent war between the clans of the Quraysh during the reconstruction of the Ka‘ba. Each clan had claimed the honor of putting the sacred Black Stone in its place. However, the future Prophet of Islam, upon him be peace and blessings, spread his mantle on a piece of cloth on the ground and, putting the stone on it, invited the chieftains of the four major clans of the Quraysh involved in the rebuilding of the Ka‘ba to each take one corner of the cloth. When the cloth with the Black Stone had been raised level with the spot where it was to be placed, he took the stone and placed it firmly in position. It was an ingenious plan and provided yet another proof of his wisdom or gift for problem-solving.

We also saw in the first volume how he prevented a possible moment of sedition after the Battle of Hunayn. Also, he skillfully suppressed an impending conflict between a group of Emigrants and some of the Helpers during the return from the military campaign against the Banu Mustaliq. An internal clash nearly broke out when the army halted by the side of a well. When informed of the matter, God’s Messenger immediately gave the order to march and nipped an imminent clash in the bud.

From an article in islamanswers.net. More Here.

"Connecting the Dots (CTD)" is a must read for all

In 1992, a young lad of 17 leaves Chennai and comes to Mumbai with an acquaintance to explore opportunities. He gets abandoned at the Bandra station and, with no money in his pocket, takes shelter in a nearby temple, and then gets a string of small jobs in the kitchens of various eateries.

Being a Tamilian, he faces discrimination. However, he is enterprising and when he finally gets a customer-facing job — that of serving tea — he quickly begins to generate three times the business of the other tea boys because he is so good in handling customers.

He enters into a partnership to start a tea stall only to get duped by his partner after the business is successful. He is intelligent and learns from the experience. He then breaks out on his own and ends up running a successful South Indian food stall and learns the trade as he goes along.

This food stall grows into a chain of 25 Dosa Plaza outlets with a franchise in New Zealand and enquiries from other countries.

Or take the story of Kunwer Sachdev of Su-kam. Born into the family of an Indian Railways clerk who ran a string of small unsuccessful businesses on the side, Kunwer went to a Hindi-medium government school.

From there, he pulled himself up by his bootstraps and went to college, and after some years of stopping and starting created Su-kam — India’s largest inverter company. Who says India cannot do well in manufacturing? That India has to be a services-led economy? That Indian companies cannot do R&D?

Samar Gupta’s Trikaya Agriculture tells us that there is still hope for Page Three people. Born into a privileged family, educated at Mayo College in Ajmer and living on Napean Sea Road, Gupta tried to do several things unsuccessfully. Much of his time, however, was spent partying hard. When his father died and he inherited the family farm, he got serious about growing exotic vegetables and creating a market for them in Mumbai. Trikaya Agriculture today is a success story.

Or, take the case of R Sriram of Crossword. An introvert, a college dropout, who does not believe in the institution of marriage. He tried his hand at advertising, market research and then journalism. Finally, he converted his passion for reading into a business — he started India’s largest book store chain Crossword.
And there are many such inspirational stories in this book. Each one is different and engaging.

Connect the Dots (CTD) tells the stories of 20 regular people who became entrepreneurs and made a go of it.
CTD is a must read for all entrepreneurs, managers, students, and anyone interested in the new India.
I would definitely want my children to read it. It is inspirational stuff.

From Sanjeev Bikhchandani's review of the book Connect the Dots (CTD) written by Rashmi Bansal in Business Standard

To read the full review click here

Rashmi Bansal is a writer, entrepreneur and youth expert. Rashmi is co-founder and editor of JAM (Just Another Magazine), India’s leading youth magazine in print and online. She writes extensively on youth, careers and entrepreneurship and hosts the popular blog: Youth Curry.

Rashmi is Consulting Editor for ‘Cracking Careers’, the careers show on business news channel UTVi. She mentors students and young entrepreneurs in colleges across India. An economics graduate from Sophia College, Mumbai and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, she lives in Mumbai and can be reached at “rashmi at jammag dot com”

Prosperity without Growth

We are facing the prospects of steadily rising commodity prices, water scarcity, rabid deforestation, the imminent end of the era of cheap oil, the collapse of fish stocks and a number of key minerals will be depleted in the coming decades. Yet people show no sign of worrying as they believe blindly that growth will last forever.
 
In reality, we are prisoners in an “iron cage of consumerism”, a system which depends on liquidity and consumption and which collapses when either one decreases.

Higher incomes do not guaranty happiness. The percentage of British people who were very happy decreased from 52 percent in 1957 to 36 percent today, despite the fact that their incomes have more than doubled. “Prosperity without Growth” addresses three issues: The need for sustainable growth, sustainable human activities and the damaging effect of consumerism. These issues cannot be resolved independently. The success of the implementation of environmental laws is tied to the re-structure of our present market economies.

Tim Jackson is Economics Commissioner of the Sustainable Development Commission, an independent advisory body to the UK government.  This book challenges the assumption that growth is essential for prosperity. In other words, it asks whether it is possible to have “prosperity without growth”.

From Lisa kaaki's review of the book Prosperity without Growth written by Tim Jackson in Arab News

To read more click here.