Kerala- Economy and Society

I take immense pride in being a Malayali and love telling people that I'm from "God's Own Country"-Kerala. Living for years together in my home land I never realised that Kerala was very different from other parts of India. It was only when I moved to Chennai that I realised how different Kerala and Keralites were from other Indians.

I believe most of this comes from the uniform distribution of education among Malayalees. The first step towards education for all in 1817 saw the young woman ruler Rani Gouri Parvathi Bai of Travancore issuing a royal proclamation that "the State should defray the entire cost of the education of its people in order that there might be no backwardness in the spread of enlightenment among them, that by diffusion of education they might become better subjects and public servants"

The rulers first step and the successive state governmental initiatives are highly responsible for Kerala high literacy rates.

Education improves the quality of life in Kerala. I think education is responsible for Kerala's cleanliness and sanitation. Recently, Kerala was one of the first states to gain the Open Defecation free Tag. Other reasons for Kerala's development is the equal distribution of income in Kerala. The divides between the rich and poor is not very high. Unlike other states with comparable per capita income, Kerala's average income is due to the equal distribution of incomes. Unlike most societies, the poor do not continue to be poor and the rich do not continue to be rich. Even among lower stratas of the society people believe that education can change their destiny. This may be attributed to the fact that Kerala has been highly successful in weeding out social stigmas and malpractices associated with the caste division.

The Kerala model of development with a special emphasis on Education and Healthcare has been considered highly stable by many economists like Amartya Sen.

It is true that Kerala could not provide it's educated population jobs for their qualification and unemployment of educated youth remains a problem. However, Keralites found their own solutions for this. This led to widespread migration into the overnight oil boom economies of the middle-east. A large part of Kerala's revenue comes from it's NRK's in middle East and other metropolitan cities across the globe. However, this global exposure of Malayalees has today resulted in a very open minded, forward thinking population with mutual cooperation and tolerance. Kerala is home to a diverse population of Christians, Muslims and Hindus. It hosts the most diverse religious composition in India. The influence of all these three religions is seen in present day Malayalee culture. 

These factors together contribute to Kerala becoming a state with economic indicators in comparison to developed economies.

Letter to BBC

Honorable Editor,

This is with reference to your article "Sabarimala: The Indian god who bars women from his temple" dated 19th October 2018. In this article you have stated that Hinduism regards menstruating women as unclean and bars them from participating in religious rituals. However, no Hindu scripture states menstruation or menstruating women to be impure. 

However, Hindu scriptures regard menstruation as a period where a women is filled with power. In ancient Hindu families, women were told to compulsorily take rest on the first 4 days of their menstrual cycle. 

However, as you rightly stated, Many Indians consider menstruation impure and various taboos surround it. Menstrual awareness has still not reached many parts of the world and such taboos still exist. 

The argument surrounding Sabarimala temple is now no more about Menstruation. Many legends and stories believe Sabarimala deity Ayyappa is a celibacy and the entry of women at Sabarimala will distrupt him. 

However, all these mass protests are not voices of the common people. They are politically funded protests by BJP in this southern state for political gains. These protests are common after every revolutionary judicial decision. And will soon be overcome. 

However, I hope I have made it clear that HINDUISM DOESN'T CONSIDER MENSTRUATION IMPURE. Please correct your article and use more accurate sources for data collection. 

Yours Sincerely

Charu Veluthoor

US waiver to India on Chabahar port and oil imports

The United States of America announces a waiver for India on Chabahar port and oil imports. This includes the initial investment by India at Chabahar port and a railway line from Afganistan to Chabahar. US announced that these waivers were in promise of further reducing the amounts of oil imports gradually. Countries like India had put forward arguments that they couldn't cut all oil imports from Iran , especially because Iran offers the best rates among the OPEC countries. Also, rapid cut downs could effect the Indian economy drastically.
However the waiver unlikely to reduce the tensions prevailing in the Indian economy regarding the import of oil. Also the waiver is temporary meaning it will last only for a short period of six months. This will help the Modi government slide smoothly over the elections.

Another question which prevails is are the waivers an indicator of healthy talks between US and Iran? What do you think? Will US come in terms with US?

Note:
The only country which has almost completely reduced oil imports from Iran are US allies like Japan and South Korea. Most countries received waivers in return for their partial cuts on imports.