Kerala - Politics, mainly

Kerala is impressive in many ways -- peaceful coexistence of Hindus, Muslims, Jews (okay, so there aren't so many of these anymore), Christians, and others; close to universal literacy, including girls, no mean feat in a country with tremendous illiteracy; few slums; and one of the first, if not the first, elected Marxist governments. I saw more government hospitals in three days than I have seen in my half year here in Bangalore. People were very friendly and helpful.

Here are some shots of politically oriented posters, signs, and flags in Fort Cochin and on the way to Aleppy.
Che is still quite popular here.Lots of political signage everywhere.Near a beach on Vypin Island.

A political meeting.



Your average hammer and sickle combination wash spot and "boat stop" along the backwaters.Political graffiti in Fort Cochin.
The Maoists are big here.
But the ghost of Indira Gandhi looms large everywhere, even here in Communist country.
Lest we think that communism means dull utilitarian life, here are shots of some of the more materialist side of life. There were ads for jewelry everywhere. But also for schools.
And everyone needs their BMW.

Kerala -- Fort Cochin

We made a short long weekend trip to Kerala. It remains as magical a place as any on earth for me. Bazaar Road in Fort Kochin captures the allure of spices that drove Columbus to try to find this place (but land in the Americas instead, of course) and that Vasco da Gama actually did find a few years later. I wish I could capture the smells of the place, but the pictures should convey a great deal of the feel.

The street, Bazaar Street:
Kerala, which means lots of Christian and Catholic churches. On Sunday they were overflowing. Here is a little shrine kind of place, that feels like a cross between Catholicism and Hinduism.

Spices, pulses, rice, and tea in the pictures that follow.
Above, pulses (lentils, etc.). Below, the traditional spices of the Malabar coast displayed in a boat.
Of course, you need to weigh what you are selling.
Pepper, perhaps what the Malabar Coast is most famous for.
The first time I visited (15 years ago), the Pepper Exchange was a lively and chaotic place. Now it is computerized and silent.
Checking out different types of rice.
A rice merchant.
More pulses.
Transporting spices, tea, and more.
Of course, you need to pack up the goods. Everything here gets reused.


Here are just a few shots of buildings in various stages of use and decay. You can feel some of the old Portuguese, Dutch, and trading influences from around the world.






Our traveling gang checking out some huge old tanks (I can't remember the correct name for them) as Sub explains their traditional role.The emblematic Chinese fishing nets. Very labor intensive, and at least during the times when we watched, very few fish seem to result from all this work.



I could go on and on with pictures. Later I will post more, of Jewtown, antiques, and the like within Fort Cochin (or Kochi as it is now known), and also of our trip in the backwaters.

Signs of the times

While India is still growing, dramatically different than most of the rest of the world economy, the worldwide economic collapse is starting to show up here in some ways. Growth forecasts have been cut from 9% to 5%. Foreclosure notices are appearing the newspaper -- although it is still a couple here and there, not the pages and pages and pages I saw in the US in December. Building projects all around seem to have stopped. Below I show some pictures of billboards seen in the last few days.
When we first arrived, I was negatively impressed by the number and size of billboards everywhere. Now the boards are still there, but many are empty, advertising themselves instead of other goods. I need to do a post on shots of the non-empty boards -- mostly for luxury items -- another time.
This is my favorite in this series. Accustomed to 2 for 1 when buying a bottle of juice or a pencil, this technique is now being applied to apartment/condo sales! Clearly this is a measure of desperation. That sense is heightened by the number of these boards everywhere. This one is on one side of a major highway. Below I show the scene looking in the opposite direction, where you can see another two of these boards.
The shot below of the "loan recovery vehicle" makes you wonder -- what does this mean? We hear about farmers not being able to pay their loans back, being harassed by lenders and their goons, and sadly then showing up in frighteningly high suicide rates. But this looks like an urban vehicle. Yet another issue to investigate and research.

trip to ice cream factory

A trip to the Fresh and Natural Ice Cream Factory.
I went with Amartya's class to visit an ice cream factory. Quite clean. Everyone, including visitors, used hair nets. The windows had screens, and things were clean. It was a small scale factory, capable of producing 300 litres a day with one shift, yet it ships to five states in India.
Heating the milk.
Putting the chocolate chips into a sugar mixture which will then be added to the milk/cream mixture.
Checking on the churned ice cream to see if it is ready.
The production area. I'm missing pictures of the final stage that we all enjoyed -- eating an ice cream cone with a scoop of chocolate chocolate chip ice cream.

Tent Cities in the US

Lest we only focus on slums in India, here are some sad stories about tent cities in the US in the New York Times.  

Financial disaster continues

While the Indian economy slows to 6-7% growth, the overall international financial system still looks like it is in horrible shape. I'm not convinced the plan floated yesterday is a positive step, despite the positive response of the stock market. I liked this interview with Paul Krugman criticizing the plan entitled "the Zombie Ideas Have Won" and criticizing the timid response of the government. I agree with him that it appears that folks are afraid to acknowledge the true scope of the problem and the need for drastic restructuring of the whole financial system, including regulation of it. How do you provide appropriate incentives for innovation that is productive in a social sense, especially if it entails public money? On this one, I'd rather have the government spending huge quantities of money on a range of green technologies rather than bailing out financial institutions (and their staffs) that made bad decisions, but earned ridiculous amounts of money before passing the buck to the government and taxpayers.

I look forward to hearing what the "big plan" that Geithner promised turns out to be -- will it be a return to Glass-Steagal? That would be okay, as long as it also includes better systemic supervision of all parts of the financial system. Someone at the federal level needs to look at insurance companies for example. The SEC, Fed, and Treasury (not to mention FDIC, CFTC, etc.) need to be mandated to work together better and cooperate rather than view each other as competitors. Someone needs to clearly be in charge but it needs to be stronger than the current "umbrella supervisory powers" that the Fed has, cause the Fed clearly wasn't doing it. We shall see.