Reconfirming World System Connectedness

The exciting thing about these elections is the number of new voters who have just turned 18+ and have never voted so far. The most striking thing of these elections are the advertisements on mass media where celebrities are promoting the elections by encouraging the youth to come out and vote, but we could never be sure if they are serious or joking because they all are showing ‘the middle finger’.

Is the symbolism of it to be interpreted as ‘cocking a snook’ at the elections or are we to assume they do not know the meaning of their actions. May be there is some deeper meaning and we don’t know.

A connected world

On a more serious note, we had earlier in the year seen the impact of world system connectedness and I appreciate all of you who took the time out to read it, think about it and particularly those who took time out to respond to that article. I truly appreciate your time and your commitment.

I see what is happening with our neighbors in South Asia is some how connected. My guess is that it all started with the Mumbai attack and soon after we declared elections in India.  More recently there is a Sri Lankan military intervention against the Tamil tigers, and the refugee exodus to India. Or the crisis in Nepal, where by civilian government has resigned creating a political crisis. Or the Pakistani Taliban crisis leading to undermining of the democratically elected government.

This is just a hunch on my part and I could be completely wrong. But somehow there seems to be a connection and it is no co incidence that we have a care taker government due to elections in our country.

So these are all political issues and why should we in Delhi be concerned about them? It affects us. Crisis with our neighbors completely disrupts normal economic activities that support growth in the region such as trade relations, tourism etc. This has ecological impacts–going by theory of comparative advantage in economics supporting more expensive and environmentally destructive processes to produce the same goods.

Besides armed conflict or terrorism, is environmentally very expensive, in the short as well as long run. More about this may be later. But all this impacts our growth and economy as citizens of the country. I know it is not very easy to see the connections, but think of it and do share your ideas on ecological impacts by responding to this. Your inputs are very encouraging.

Gialome

Environmental anthropologist by training, been in the field for over 20 years, Gialome (pseudonym) is mainly concerned with the impacts of infrastructure and technology projects on local communities.

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