Good news - today India opened the registration for all 18+ residents for the vaccination. https://youtu.be/AEiFBJKEnvw If you would like to cite this page here is a suggested citation as part of ISSN 2700-290X:Kumar, A. (2021) “CoWIN - India's COVID-19 Vaccine…
This week I will be sharing the work-in-progress that I have been doing with the Philosophy department at University of Twente, exploring the ethical and political dimensions of technology in the pandemic. One of the first projects that I did…
I live in two worlds, Germany and India. Well at least mentally, even though I am physically in Germany during the pandemic. My world also involves people who send me news and information about the situation in India i.e. friends…
भारतवर्ष में विकास कार्य करने वाली अनेक संस्थाएं कई वर्षों से अपना काम कर रही हैं। इनमें कई ऐसे संस्थाएं हैं जो वर्षो से विदेशी समाज सेवी संस्थाओं की आर्थिक सहायता से अपना कार्य सफ़लता पूर्वक करती आईं हैं। आम…
First things first, this is not a conversation about the difference in salaries between expats and local aid workers. Depending on which side you ask the answer varies from "it's complicated" to "oh there's no point, we need to tolerate…
Now that we know that the effects of the pandemic are going to have large scale effects, I have been thinking on how to get some help. I have been speaking to the people I know and thought it would…
Putting everything that is “life” aside I look at my PhD journey, the quest for finding answers. Answers to a burning question, or too many burning questions. That’s probably how every PhD journey is like. Or maybe not. To each their own.
But I am sure we all can agree, everything in life is pretty much scary and confusing and all the other things we cluster into the word complex.
Probably because things go way beyond human comprehension and language.
With all that in mind, I have been thinking a lot on why I have been really scared to dig up into my data and do the needful to push my PhD project forward. One of the answers I found while looking back at all the conversations in person, online in Aid communities and in general is.
People. Emotional. Personal.
(That’s really not an answer but..)
Human dignity is a very simplistic term that appears in almost very often in discussions around humanity or in day-to-day life. However, when we look at the governments and how our nation states endorse it as an important value for our society, we see it appear as “Article 1 – Human dignity” or the well known Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). It is very clear that everyone understands the concept of worth of a human person naturally, however, we also make a very common mistake of assuming that the world revolves around us, and the “I” is very important. Somehow the “I” is so important that we are constantly fighting to keep the “I” very special, unique and most of the times “better” than the “other” person. It is very easy to give in to our emotional state and fall prey to discrimination, alienation and distance from what is different to us, i.e. the other. Emotions, Identity, Collective worth etc. all matter here.
During one of my fieldwork visits last year, I was doing a daylong interactive discussion with NGO staff and community representatives. At some point we had a tea break, and the tea arrived in plastic cups. Obviously, I was not an expert in how plastic can damage our environment and all the ill effects of having that around us so prominently, because as an Indian, I was accustomed to seeing plastic being used for everything. From protecting our TV remotes, to covering anything possible with plastic as a mechanism to protect it from dust. Then it hit me that, this is a sacred land. India is what it is today, primarily because of our agricultural revolution in part. The land is also sacred, because it is where our food comes from. Moreover, the farmers are the protectors of these lands and the caregivers, not just the caretakers, of our land. These lands are also the main source of income and livelihoods for our farmers, either who own these lands or are just working as labourers to feed their families on a daily basis.