The Diversity Blog

Shekhar Kapoor in conversation with Amitav Ghosh, last evening, is something that is bound to stay on with the audience for a lifetime – especially for anyone nurtured in a tradition of storytelling. Amitav after all is the classic storyteller of our times. The Mumbai launch of Gun Island was the occasion.

I prefer not to read a book before its launch.  Although ahead of acquiring my copy – I must say – there was something brewing in my head. I held it in my hand admiring its mysterious cover – almost unable to take my eyes off. Over the weekend one was bombarded by some fascinating media accounts on Amitav’s round with Raghu Karnad in New Delhi. Howsoever sketchy an insight into the plot, it was potent enough a stimulant!

All I managed to read ahead of the curtain call was what the jacket said: On a visit to his birthplace, Kolkata, a Brooklyn-based dealer in rare books finds his life becoming entangled with an ancient legend about the goddess of snakes, Mansa Devi. While visiting a temple, deep within the vast mangrove forests of Bengal, he has a disturbing encounter with the most feared, and revered, of Indian snakes, a king cobra. This is followed by a series of increasingly uncanny episodes that seem to dissolve the borders of the human and non-human.

Peopled with a diverse cast of characters, and set in places that range from Sunderbans to Los Angeles and Venice, this is a story about a world in which creatures and beings of every kind have been torn loose from their accustomed homes by the catastrophic processes of displacement that are now unfolding across the Earth, at an ever-increasing pace. It is also a story about a man whose faith in the world is restored by two remarkable women.

Shekhar made a valiant attempt to probe the author’s mind, his motivations, frustrations, belief in the uncanny, magical and in the power of coincidence. And to a question on shedding ‘reason’ – I thought I could sense a tinge of pain when the author reminded us as to where it has brought us?! He wished he was thirty years younger in response to whether he would like to be an activist. You do not need to be an activist to spur activism. I for one regularly follow his tweets and what does come out is his immense concern for nature, the dramatic deterioration and the sheer urgency that the situation demands.

“You do not need to be an activist to spur activism“

The plot to me is very clear – unleash all the creative juices, stir up the waters, rock the boat and remind all humanity of what it has chosen to unleash upon itself. There is still hope and faith in our ability to overcome this calamity! Mr Ghosh chose to read the opening paragraph to a rapt fan following: The strangest thing about this strange journey was that it was launched by a word – and not an unusually resonant one either but a banal coinage that is in wide circulation, from Cairo to Calcutta. That word is bundook, which means ‘gun’ in many languages, including my own mother tongue, Bengali (or Bangla)… Amitav has fired the ‘bundook’. Let this be a wakeup call. The Climate Change has already mutated into a Crisis.

P.S. By the way, I am getting all set to progress beyond the jacket and the first para… And yes, I almost forgot what I thought was an extension of last night’s dialogue. During my morning walk earlier today – I spotted the lady who tends our Society garden – conversing with a pet snow white rabbit. On a leash with a red silk ribbon!

Ashley Cooper runs www.globalwarmingimages.net the world’s only climate change photo agency. His book “Images From a Warming Planet” is out now and available from www.imagesfromawarmingplanet.net. An art photographic book – it contains the best 500 images from the last fourteen years documenting the impacts of climate change on every continent on the planet. His photo shoots documenting climate change have taken him all around the world. Ashley’s images are used regularly in books, newspapers and magazines around the world, including front cover images of most major UK newspapers.

In 2013 Ashley documented what was probably the first known case of a Polar Bear to have starved as a result of climate change. The image was used as the lead story on the front page of the Guardian Newspaper. From there it was used all around the world, including BBC News, Al Jazeera, NBC News.

At the age of 24 Ashley became the first person to climb all 313, 3.000 foot peaks in Great Britain and Eire, in one continuous expedition. This amazing feat involved climbing over 500,000 feet and walking over 1100 miles. The expedition took 111 days and raised £14,000 for the British Leprosy Relief Association (LEPRA).

In this conversation Ashley takes me through the amazing mission and shares his insights for overcoming the Climate Crisis. 

Praveen Gupta (PG): What were your thoughts and feelings when filming the starved polar bear?

Ashley Cooper (AC): I was thinking how tragic an end for such a mighty animal, and the fact that this is likely to be the future for all Polar Bears in a rapidly warming Arctic. It is desperately sad to see the natural world and the normal order of things being ripped apart by climate chaos. I have seen so many examples of where the natural world and many species are struggling to adapt to the climate crisis and the ever increasing pace of landscape change brought about by human activity.

PG: How and why did you pick this theme for your lovely book?

AC: I have always been interested in the environment, and for many years an outdoor and environmental photographer. I started reading about climate change at the start of the century, and it sounded interesting to me. I decided to organise a dedicated climate change photo shoot to Alaska to look at some of the issues. I spent a month looking at glacial retreat, permafrost melt, forest fires and the impacts on the Inuit community of Shishmaref. I was blown away by how “in your face” the impacts were in the Arctic, at a time when many people hadn’t even heard of climate change. I decided to concentrate on the issues, and after a year or so came up with the idea of trying to document the impacts of climate change and the rise of renewable energy on every continent. It took me 14 years to achieve that.

PG: Increasingly ‘alienated’ from any ‘rhythms of nature’, borrowing the phrases from your book – how do you bring a sense of urgency about the Climate Crisis?

AC: I hope my imagery makes climate change real for people. Humans are very visual creatures, so photography is a vital tool in helping to communicate the climate crisis. When you can see at first hand the destruction that is being wrought around the planet every day – this helps to engender a feeling of urgency. I am encouraged that people are now starting to take the issue seriously with movements like Greta Thunberg’s school strike and the rapid rise of Extinction Rebellion. As well as my book, I lecture regularly on the climate crisis and try to motivate people to action.

PG: From your travels do you get a sense that ‘The discourse on climate change continues to be deeply Eurocentric’ (quoting noted author Amitav Ghosh of The Great Derangement fame)?

AC: I think this was probably the case a few years ago, but thankfully it is now starting to change. People all around the globe are starting to make their voices heard on the climate crisis. What I do agree is that Europe and the USA have a heavy responsibility to tackle the crisis as historically we are responsible for the majority of global emissions. It is critically important that the rich nations provide funding for poorer nations to help them adapt to the climate crisis, and also to help them leapfrog to a clean progressive economy.

PG: Sensitive works like your photography or Luftwerk’s rendition using Douglas MacAyeal’s recordings of moving glaciers to create a soundtrack for climate change does touch the right chord?

AC: I believe that art has a critical part to play in tackling the climate crisis. Not many people are going to sit down and read a long scientific report into climate change. Science is critical and so are scientists communicating their powerful message effectively. But art has a way of making these messages accessible for people, in a way they can take in and understand. From understanding comes acceptance and hopefully action.

PG: With the arrival of Greta Thunberg – don’t you think a long-term, effective and inspiring Climate leadership is in place?

AC: Greta is an amazing, inspirational, powerful voice and advocate for rapid action on the climate crisis. Her power comes from telling it like it is, in a way that most politicians seem completely unable or unprepared to do. I hope she inspires more people to take up the torch. It seems rather unfair to burden the shoulders of one so young, with so much responsibility, though she seems to be coping with it amazingly well. The world needs many more Gretas.

PG: Thank you and best wishes for your fantastic mission, Ashley!

Insurers in India have been generally reticent when it comes to Diversity. While Diversity is not just about gender – women leaders in insurance remain far and few. It took almost 17 years since the opening up of the market to organise the first ever Diversity dedicated event – thankfully under the auspices of the Chartered Insurance Institute.

I had the pleasure of speaking, on the subject, to Bhargav Dasgupta. He is the Managing Director & CEO of ICICI Lombard – the largest private sector non-life insurer. Bhargav earned his B.E. from Jadhavpur University and a PGDBA from IIM Bangalore. He was named as one of the top 25 ‘Young Executives in India’ by Business Today in 2006.

Praveen Gupta (PG): Would you agree that Diversity is not just about gender?

Bhargav Dasgupta (BD): Diversity at the workplace is about the variety of differences amongst people in an organisation. Apart from gender, it includes differences in thoughts, personality, unique capabilities, and talent that people bring to work. It is an understanding that each individual is unique and that these individual differences are recognised so that every employee feels welcomed, important, respected, engaged while being treated equally with fair access to opportunities. It is about assimilating people with differences, creating an enabling environment where these differences can be nurtured and leveraged to contribute to a firm’s goals.

In an organisational context, diversity today includes and is not limited to nationality, geography, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical disabilities, family status, religious beliefs, perspective, experience, ideologies etc. The business case for diversity is well established and is now a corporate imperative as much as it is about fairness and societal equity.

PG: In general sense of the term, how does it manifest at your Board, senior management levels and right through the hierarchy?

BD: At the Board and senior management level, we have a diverse representation in terms of Gender, Experience, Expertise and Capabilities. Across the hierarchy, we do not discriminate against individuals based on their gender, age, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, family status, disability etc. Further, we ensure fairness and avoid discrimination in matters including employment terms and conditions, career growth and learning and development opportunities.

The diversity journey is an on-going one with adequate scope for us to further strengthen the mix. We constantly explore opportunities to enable us to drive high performance and growth.

“As a Company, all our actions are based on the deep understanding of the diverse needs and requirements of our varied set of customers…For instance, we have introduced a solution named Women Assist, which provides specialized services to our women customers”.

PG: Do you offer any specific products or services that facilitate Diversity?

BD: As a Company, all our actions are based on the deep understanding of the diverse needs and requirements of our varied set of customers. Equipped with these insights, we offer an array of risk mitigation solutions to our customers along with value added services. For instance, we have introduced a solution named Women Assist, which provides specialized services to our women customers. In case of a vehicle breakdown at odd hours (8 pm – 6 am), a female insured/ occupant can seek immediate assistance i.e. auto engineer on site/stranded vehicle transport to the garage. Further, she can avail a taxi service and alert messages can be sent to her family to keep them updated on her whereabouts.

PG: How do you ensure a reasonable form of Diversity amongst your customer base?

BD: Through our array of risk management solutions and value-added services, we cater to a diverse range of customers – both individual and large customers, in urban, semi-urban and rural areas, comprising of different age groups, gender, race, religion etc. For us, our product range facilitates a wide spectrum of customers, for instance, we have solutions across health, motor, travel, home, engineering, fire, cyber, personal liability and other areas.

These solutions ensure that our customer base is diverse and encompasses consumers from diverse fields and backgrounds. Having said this, we engage with a diverse set of channel partners such as dealers, agents, brokers through whom we reach out to our customers. These business partners add to our diversity pool.

PG: Any thoughts on financial inclusivity as a catalyst for facilitating Diversity?

BD: To penetrate rural, semi urban markets and to cater to the emerging needs of our customers in these markets, we provide products and services in far flung location through Virtual offices and Customer Service Centre (CSC) channels.

We also offer products and services as sachet units or monthly expense items, where the unit size is small, thus improving the access and affordability for such products and services. For instance, we have personal accident covers where the monthly premium is as less as Rs. 2 for a sum insured of Rs. 1 lakh. Similarly, we have tie-ups with radio taxi players where the taxi ride can be insured for as low as Re. 1.

PG: Would you consider the Digital Divide as a form of Diversity? And how does one address it as the Information Age advances?

BD: We recognise that our customers and channel partners have different needs and preferences with respect to access to and adoption of technology. We currently cater to all sections of this spectrum offering physical and digital mediums to interact and engage. We facilitate the adoption of technology given the simplicity, speed, ease and convenience that various technology tools especially mobile devices offer today. We ensure that at the design stage itself, we take care of the ease of the usage and interface aspect of our various applications for our customers, channel partners and even employees. 

PG: Last but not the least, what’s your vision for your Company in particular and the Industry in general?

BD: Our vision is to reinforce and ultimately build a continuously evolving workplace culture, where everyone feels included and respected. It includes building an environment where we value differences and leverage them for a variety of perspectives and ideas to meet the known and unmet needs of our customers and channel partners and deliver on performance and growth.

The industry, given the vast scope and customer segments it caters to, has a great opportunity to drive diversity in the workplace so that it reflects this diverse group that is serves.  

PG: Many thanks and best wishes in your endeavours.

Published by Chartered Insurance Institute (UK): A World Of Risk

David Piesse (DP) is a Global Insurance Evangelist. He is on the advisory board of Guardtime a leading cybersecurity company and blockchain provider specialising in cryptography for data integrity. Their keyless signature infrastructure (KSI) is utilized across the defence industry and into the supply chain, insurance, healthcare and manufacturing verticals. They have an underlying application for data privacy laws such as GDPR.  In May 2018 EY, Guardtime and Maersk with members of the insurance industry launched InsurWave the first global commercial insurance blockchain backed platform to enter production commencing with marine insurance.

David has held numerous positions in a 40 year career including Global Insurance Lead for SUN Microsystems, Asia Pacific Chairman for Unirisx, United Nations Risk Management Consultant, Canadian government roles and starting career in Lloyds’ of London. He is currently the Chairman of the International Insurance Society Ambassadors (IIS).

He remains involved in numerous startups for exponential technologies for blockchain and AI across multiple vertical industries. An Asia veteran, he is a recipient of the Kenneth Black Jr Distinguished Service Award from the International Insurance Society.

In this conversation with Praveen Gupta (PG) David shares his vision for and insights on the Internet, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence and the likes – for the insurance industry.

PG: What is amiss with the Internet that makes it a risky proposition for insurers and insureds?

DP: The Internet was not designed with security in mind. It was designed for academics to exchange documents globally and for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, US) to preserve and utilise data in the event of a nuclear attack.  As commercial aspirations quickly took hold of the INTERNET it left a security gap and left the INTERNET non attributable causing a reliance on trust and not a measurable truth.  Blockchain facilitates the move from trust to truth by adding a layer over the INTERNET that makes it attributable.  Soon we will need the process to be Quantum immune to preserve privacy by design in a quantum world.

Blockchain facilitates the move from trust to truth by adding a layer over the INTERNET that makes it attributable. 

PG: How do intensive and extensive AI applications make internet even more risky?

DP: AI is about augmenting the human to make better decisions based on data sets. These data sets can be large or preferably small in size and trained by machine learning to do a job previously done by humans or jobs too mathematically intensive to be done by humans.  The decision is only as good as the integrity of the data and, therefore, the provenance of the data must be subject to privacy and security by design that is showing this original data, who accessed it and has it been tampered with. The solution here is to link the AI solution as a smart contract to the blockchain substrate to keep the underlying INTERNET attributable, so decisions are based on provenance – in Insurance this would be data driven underwriting executed by a bot.

PG: Any signs of shrinking job opportunities already – with the arrival of AI?

DP: AI has already penetrated blue collar work as robots entered the manufacturing world.  The effect on the white collar worker is a yet unknown but positively thinking it should lead to the removal of mundane tasks and allow creation of new jobs to emerge in developing trends such as environment.  There are those who discuss the possibility of a Utopian or Dystopian society as AI takes over. I think we are a long way from that.  However, should there be a set of losers and winners emerging from AI then it would be tantamount to governments to look at how they handle the losers in terms of re-skilling and other safety nets. 

AI has already penetrated blue collar work as robots… The effect on the white collar worker is a yet unknown…

PG: How critical or overrated is blockchain for the insurance industry?

DP:  Blockchain has been over hyped on recent years but in conjunction with the other exponential technologies is going to be a big game changer for the insurance industry right across the board.  Commercial insurance is the first to successfully adopt blockchain as the value chain moves from horizontal to an ecosystem approach. Healthcare is also a big winner from this technology with life insurance the last to adopt but by 2025 this technology should be mainstream across the industry and even embed insurance into smart devices charging the whole way Insurance is bought and sold.

The prime directive of blockchain is the protection of the data layer (integrity), sovereign based identity and data ownership. All architectures spring from this foundation and the data layer should be agnostic to the ledger layer which is separated from the blockchain.  This will lead to new markets, new products and new investment asset classes.  The ship has well left the station. The consumer market will utilise digital tokens in electronic wallets to use data owned to transact business.  This is already happening in China.

PG: Would you like to highlight some successful personal experience with deployment of blockchain?

DP: I have personally been involved from square one on the first commercial blockchain based insurance platform to enter production called InsurWave.  It has been renewed and has over 1000 ships in production doing real time pricing at sea. It is removing the paper in the marine process and slashing acquisition costs by at least 50% and mitigating fraud, expenses and cyber thus bringing the marine combined ratio to a better place. In addition strong use of smart devices on ships and ports leads to more efficiencies and new opportunities. This also brings the reinsurance into the ecosystem; bring about digital captives and flattening out retrocession panels to get better claims management. InsurWave has already created additional premium that was not possible to collect before and so we are looking at a very high premium protection gap made possible by exponential technology.

PG: Many thanks, David!

There could not be a more powerful background messaging than this to last week’s panel discussion on Megatrends, at the AsianInvestor annual flagship event in Hong Kong. All investors must recognize what’s staring them in their face and can only ignore at their own peril. Two in particular dominated – Climate Change and the rise of the Millennial. Truly speaking it’s the post millennial! There were not surprisingly some streaks of cynicism – but I believe my panel left behind the key message, for the investment community, rather loud and clear. A serious sense of urgency is what one needs to work upon. Interestingly, David Sheppard in Financial Times (May 23^rd), echoes this, supported by some incredible facts and figures on the biggest villain of all – the fossil fuel industry. Here are some key excerpts:

1. Both Royal Dutch Shell and BP accept the need to overhaul their businesses in a manner that would have been unthinkable even five years ago, as the clamour from investors and activists has become too loud to ignore.
2. Shell has said it will take responsibility, over time, for reducing the net carbon footprint of the fuels it produces, essentially putting itself on the hook for the emissions produced when the company’s customers burn oil and gas in their cars and homes.
3. BP has not, arguing that while it can provide greater transparency on how its business is aligned with the Paris climate agreement, taking responsibility for the fuels its customers use would limit the flexibility the company needs.
4. The companies have got to this point in the first place largely due to the rise of ethical investing or a focus on companies’ environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) policies.
5. Using the broadest definition of ESG funds, such as those that use exclusionary screens for only certain industries, the total of ESG funds in Europe and the US could amount to $ 23tn, according to BlackRock.
6. It means the activists that companies like BP and Shell confront are no longer angry single-share owning protesters who have come to vent their spleen at AGMs – but well-organised and motivated investment managers.
7. Groups like Climate Action 100+ and Follow This have signed up hundreds of institutional investors to back their engagement initiatives. Not all are ESG funds.
8. The world’s largest funds are also conscious that the next generation of investors has grown up with warnings about climate change. The top end of the “millennial” generation are approaching their 40s. Across the western world, they and their older “Generation X” siblings stand to inherit upwards of $30tn in the coming years.
9. Combined with a political climate in Europe that is moving towards adopting stricter targets for carbon reduction – the UK is widely expected to back recommendations for reducing net emissions to zero by 2050 – the energy giants have had to respond.

Diversifying Diversity

That despite the ongoing Brexit drama – the UK chose to declare a Climate Crisis – reflects the growing clout of not just the Millennial but the Teen, as well. And the lawmakers are giving into the passionate appeals of Greta Thunberg & Co. It will not just stop with new businesses like Beyond Meat (BYND). Last year in a blog post for the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), I alluded to the diminishing influence of the State and rising clout of corporate institutions and individuals. Needless to mention influencers like the Pope (who recently spoke to the leading fossil fuel companies) and Church of England (which is revisiting investments of its pension funds in such entities). I must confess that I did miss arrival-of-the-Teen-Millennial signal in the rest of the noise. I would be really naïve to miss imminent Board positions for the likes of Greta and other teens who aren’t even millennials. Custodians of the Planet Earth. Yet another Megatrend for sure!

Praveen Gupta (PG) in a conversation with Akshay Joshi (AJ), CEO www.getambee.com.  Poor air quality is an outcome of what we have unleashed on ourselves in the name of development. The ramifications go far beyond respiratory health. India accounts for 8 out of the 10 worst polluted cities in the world. And the decline is set to continue in the foreseeable future. Akshay Joshi and team have a vision that has implications not just for health insurers but also in facilitating sustainable homes, communities and workplaces.

PG: Let’s have some insights into the origin of AMBEE?

AJ:  My co-founder Madhusudhan Anand, also called Maddy, is a technologist and computer scientist. About 4 years ago, he moved to a new home. His kid began waking up early every morning breathless and choking. Doctors were unable to diagnose him, and Maddy observed this happened only at home. He figured it was air-related, and googled the air quality. The nearest air monitoring station was about 13 km away and showed things were fine. So he hacked together a sensor and analysed the data over a few days. He found that the air quality near his house was over 800 µg/m²., whereas the safe limit in India is under 50. This is the sort of number seen in Delhi in winter.

He drove around with this sensor and built a heat-map to pinpoint the source. It turned out to be a garment factory. To avoid pollution control offices, which work 9-5, the factory turned on its boilers at 4 am. This meant that by 9 am, the smoke from their wood-fired boilers had dissipated, but at 5-6 am it was peaking. Adults woke up with itchy eyes and throats, but infants were heavily affected. This avoidance by changing working hours is something we’ve seen multiple times in different cities.

The doctors immediately signed off on this diagnosis, and other parents borrowed the device as well. This led to Maddy realising this might be a viable business. Over the course of time, once Jaideep and I joined as co-founders, we pivoted from a hardware solution to a data one. We realised that it was the data that empowered Maddy to save his son, and that data is far more sustainable as a business than hardware, especially while starting up in India.

PG: So what exactly is your business about?

AJ: Ambee builds and supplies hyperlocal air quality information and analytics. We aim to tell people what they breathe on an immediate and hyperlocal basis. This means that our granularity for large cities will be down to a city block, or possibly even lower – and this information will be updated every few minutes. This system does not currently exist anywhere in the world.

“Air pollution has been classified as the world’s gravest health and environmental threat by the WHO. It is responsible for a majority of heart disease, cancers, and even diabetes onset.

Air pollution has been classified as the world’s gravest health and environmental threat by the WHO. It is responsible for a majority of heart disease, cancers, and even diabetes onset. All these correlations are built by the WHO, by UNICEF, and by researchers, but for closed control groups. No baseline data set for air quality exists for larger geographies on a granular level, until now.

With Ambee’s data, an individual can make better choices for their life, an insurer can better price risk, and a city can effectively implement clean air policies to better the lives of citizens.

PG: Apart from monetising the data you gather how does it make the world any
better?

AJ: An individual has the power to choose how to live their life on healthier terms – the best time to go for a run, whether today you should bike to work, what time your kid should go to play, or even which school to attend. For example, the NHS spends over GBP 20 bn dealing with COPD, asthma, and other lung diseases caused by air pollution. Our system allows instant detection, better allocation of resources, both of which lower incidences of such diseases in the long run, saving both resources and human lives.

Historically, awareness of pollution has been the first step towards better air quality. This has been seen historically in California and London in the 60s, in New York in the 70s, and most recently in Beijing. All these regions have vastly improved their breathability after data availability has led to public pressure. Delhi is starting to see similar results.

“With our data, an insurer would be able to understand the difference in risk of mortality between different post codes, or even neighbourhoods, based on air quality.

PG: How meaningful would your data analytics be to the insurance industry?

AJ: We believe that a baseline data set for air quality across the world does not currently exist. All information is piecemeal. Insurance depends, amongst other things, on the ability to understand the factors that cause mortality and / or loss (please correct me if I am wrong). With our data, an insurer would be able to understand the difference in risk of mortality between different post codes, or even neighbourhoods, based on air quality. Over a 5-10 year period, a mean reading differing by as little as 10 µg/m². could have a significant increase in risks of lung cancer, heart disease and enlargement, and various other health factors. This is one of the use cases for insurance that we have ideated currently.

PG: In the midst of a serious climate crisis, are you
suggesting that health insurers are blissfully missing out on the most critical
underwriting factor? And that virtually no one knows the
quality of air they ‘consume’?

AJ: Yes, current air quality readings are limited to expensive sensors used by governments. They have the following issues:

1. Priced to governments at INR 1-2 crores. Mumbai has 22 of these sensors based on the MPCB website.
2. Each has a monthly maintenance cost that could run into lakhs. This, and the above, are the reason that cities cannot afford a high spatial density of such sensors. These are reference grade sensors that measure air quality 30 feet above ground level. Most humans breathe between 2 and 6 feet off the ground. Particulate pollution is heavier than air, so what you’re breathing is much worse at ground level than at 30 ft. No real clarity on whether this is being measured properly.
3. 16 sensors for a 500 km² city is not very useful, when every sensor has an acceptable outer radius of accuracy of 150 m².
4. New sensing tech (like we use) has evolved dramatically in the last few years. There is now increasing worldwide consensus on the reliability and accuracy of these, which previously didn’t exist.

“Air quality is a good indicator of health, a good predictor of disease and mortality, and currently a huge environmental threat.

PG: Your long-term vision?

AJ: Ambee aims to measure what everyone breathes. Air is literally the most important thing – 2 minutes without it and you’re history. Air quality is a good indicator of health, a good predictor of disease and mortality, and currently a huge environmental threat. Imagine, in the present day over 1,600 children under the age of 5 die as a result of air pollution, every single day, according to the WHO. It’s amazing that no one has measured it in any meaningful, large-scale way. From our personal experience, we know that this information should be in everyone’s hands.

PG: Many thanks and best wishes, Akshay!

An interview with Dr Lomarsh Roopnaraine

In my many ongoing conversations with Mr. Praveen Gupta who is a former CEO as well as a  freelance writer I understand that he wishes to find that missing link from his mother’s side of the family. He came across one of my references on the Indian experience in Caribbean at the British Library, London – last year. I am moved by the thought that this gentleman has been trying for years to find and connect with his family, and in particular his mother’s uncle, Dr. Ramnaraine Sharma, a medical doctor by profession, who had out-migrated from India. He was assigned to the Caribbean islands to provide medical and other services to indentured labourers. Indeed, a small number of Indians and small groups like Kabir Panthi went to the Caribbean on their own accord but somehow they were connected to the thousands of indentured Indians providing various independent services like religious and medical.

In some ways, the search for “lost ones” have become a norm driven by the facet and force of globalization which makes the idea of “lost” not so remote but a possible “find”. I am also trying to locate a son of an indentured Indian Balgobin Persaud from British Guiana who went to study in England in 1917 but traces of him remain obscure. The case commonality of Mr. Praveen Gupta, from India, and myself Professor Lomarsh Roopnarine from Guyana, to find interesting individuals has inspired me to do this interview. Who knows we might be biologically related.

Lomarsh Roopnarine (LR): What has inspired you to embark on this journey to find your mother’s uncle Dr. Ramnaraine Sharma?

Praveen Gupta (PG): I am interested in finding my mother’s uncle on two levels: one is to learn from history – so you need to discover history, and/ or two, invent or create history. I may need to embark on both options to find more about the missing relative. As I said if I am not able to discover the facts of this history, I shall have to, basis my research, create a fictional account on the life and times of Dr Ramnaraine Sharma. So some 22 years ago my mom’s late eldest sister (‘mausi’ in Hindi) and her late husband (‘mausa’ in Hindi), both doctors in Jaipur, shared the story on how efforts were ongoing from the very early days to trace the whereabouts of Dr Ramnaraine Sharma. All that the family knew was the destination of his travel. There were no links with the Caribbean or West Indies.

Then most miraculously, my aunt’s husband on a visit to New York, in 1950, bumped into Herman Sharma at an Indian Association event. Thankfully thereafter a regular connection with Herman was established. Herman was very young when his father passed away – so there was very little that he could share about his father. The late Herman Sharma and my own late uncle (‘mausa’) who discovered him and could have been secondary sources of insights into my research – are sadly no more around.

LR: Can you share some personal information of your family history?

PG: My mother’s family hails from the city of Jaipur. Two of her uncles were educated as medical doctors from Lahore (now Pakistan).

LR: What can you tell us about Dr. Sharma?

PG: The younger of the two – Dr Ramnaraine Sharma was deputed to British Guiana on behest of the Parmanand Mission to look after the Indian indentured labour. While taking care of them he was very upset with the exploitation meted to the workers, he reportedly organized them to protest against their masters. Not only were they brutally punished for their actions, Dr. Sharma was banished from British Guiana to Trinidad. I understand there were shoot at sight orders were he to return.

Dr. Sharma mysteriously passed away (1920 is what Herman indicated) at a young age.  The source of this sketchy story is late Herman Sharma, the son. Herman’s life story is truly remarkable. Growing up in the British Guiana, he eventually moved to the USA and ended up becoming a space physiologist at NASA.

LR: Can you share with us what might have inspired Dr. Ramnaraine Sharma to go to the Caribbean?

PG: Dr. Sharma is one of those several unsung freedom fighters who fought the colonial masters to free India of its yoke. He moved his theatre of action from the shores of Indian mainland to a distant exotic locale. His selfless work to uplift the living conditions of the maltreated indentured laborers and standing up to fight for their cause by putting his life at peril inspire me as a student of History. I wish to bring back his lost voice to the mainstream.

LR: This is a rather interesting and impressive philosophical thought and take on finding someone. But what about your own personal feelings, any thoughts there on the urge to find your mom’s uncle?

PG: Twenty two years ago my late aunt concluded the narrative by saying to her late husband that after us it will be only him who would really be interested in taking this story forward. That has become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy for me. My own mother who is now nearing ninety years of age has been full of stories (word of mouth) about Dr Ramnaraine Sharma and his elder brother – who was a freedom fighter based in India. Again, I struggle to find any insights into his works either. Perhaps he was the one who influenced the younger brother to defy colonialism. It is too compelling a story to be not unearthed or for that matter re-scripted.

LR: If I go back and I ask: what is the Parmanand Mission?

PG: The indentured labour literally replaced the slave trade and continued to be ill-treated by the colonial masters. In the meantime with the burgeoning freedom movement, at home in India, there was growing rallying for the wellbeing of Indian indentured workers, as well. I believe the Parmanand Mission took it upon itself to ensure that the ‘sugar slaves’ were looked after, too. The Ghadar Movement for instance was unifying overseas Indians wherever they were in large numbers. Dr Ramnaraine Sharma being a doctor volunteered to travel to BG and fend for the Indian diaspora.

LR: What makes the family think that he went to British Guiana as opposed to some other Caribbean islands?

PG:  Herman Sharma was born and brought up there by his mother’s family. So there is clear evidence.

LR: As you know, British Guiana was a British colony comprised of three counties or regions: Demerara. Essequibo and Berbice. You also know that I a descendant of indentured Indians born in the county of Berbice, home to a majority of Indians in now Guyana. Do you know if Dr. Sharma went to the country of Berbice?

PG: Well, according to Herman he was born in Berbice. It should, therefore, be very probable that Berbice is where his father made home or was stationed.

LR: What do you think is the significance of finding the lost uncle?

PG: The family was delighted to reconnect and establish ongoing ties with a branch lost for a generation. Regrettably, it’s been almost 100 years since Dr Ramnaraine Sharma passed away in distant Trinidad – virtually leaving no known trace of his life and times. Broadly this and a bit about his marriage and the two children – is all one knows – thanks to Herman. The rest is like dotted lines – the challenge, therefore, as I said – is for me to either discover or invent. The character is too important – not just because he is my mother’s uncle but more importantly an unsung hero – whose heroism deserves not to be left to fade into the mists of time!

LR: Thank you!

“As many as 1 million different species, out of a total estimated 8 million plant and animal species are facing the threat of extinction, more than at any previous time, because of changes brought about in the natural environments by human activities”: Reports Indian Express – quoting Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). A landmark report say scientists, cites Reuters in what it dubs “humankind’s relentless pursuit of economic growth”.

What could be the most inappropriate and graphic demonstration of such greed than the US Secretary of State’s recent remarks in Finland: “The Arctic is at the forefront of opportunity and abundance – it houses 13% of world’s undiscovered oil. 30% of its undiscovered gas, an abundance of uranium, rare earth minerals, gold, diamonds, and millions of square miles of untapped resources, fisheries galore.”

A long list of our horrendous misdeeds as a specie:

• 40%: amphibian species threatened with extinction
• 33%:  marine life threatened with extinction
• 680: vertebrate species driven to extinction since the 16^th century
• 50%: agricultural expansion that occurred at the expense of forests
• 68%: global forest area today compared with pre-industrial level
• 7%: reduction in intact forests from 2000-13
• 100%: growth of urban areas since 1992
• 105%: increase in human population (3.7 to 7.6 billion) since 1970
• 2500: conflicts over fossil fuels, water, food and land currently occurring worldwide
• +/- 10%: tentative estimate of proportion of insect species threatened with extinction.
• 3.5%: domesticated breed of birds extinct by 2016
• 70%: increase since 1970 in numbers of invasive alien species across 21 countries with detailed records
• 47%: proportion of terrestrial flightless mammals – besides 23% threatened birds – distribution impacted by climate crisis
• 6: species of ungulate likely to be extinct or surviving only in captivity without conservation measures
• 3-10%: projected decrease in ocean net primary production due to climate crisis alone by the end of the century
• 3-25%: projected decrease in fish biomass by end of century in low and high warming scenarios, respectively
• +/- 50%: live coral cover of reefs lost since 1870s
• 100-300: Million people in coastal areas at increased risk due to loss of coastal habitat protection
• 107: highly threatened birds, mammals and reptiles estimated to have benefitted from the eradication of invasive mammals on island
• 40%: proportion of global population lacking access to clean and safe drinking water
• 300-400 mn tons: industrial wastes dumped annually into the world’s waters
• 1 degree C: average global temperature difference in 2017 compared to pre-industrial levels
• > 3 mm: annual average global sea level rise over the past two decades
• 5%: estimated fraction of species at risk of extinction from 2% warming alone, rising to 16% at 4.3% warming
• Plastic pollution had increased 10 times since 1980
• Large dams with a height of 15m or more had reached more than 50,000

Snubbing it at its own peril:

A landmark report it might be but much of the media preferred to give it a skip and justifiably provoking this reaction from Greta Thunberg (www.gretathunberg.com), our custodian for the planet’s future:

Where are the breaking news?

The extra news broadcasts?

The front pages?

Where are the emergency meetings?

The crisis summits?

What could be more important?

We are failing but we have not yet failed.

We can still fix this.

But not if we continue like today.

Not a chance…

I will conclude this with the tweet from Amitav Ghosh (http://amitav ghosh): “Humanity is probably going out in a globe-spanning murder-suicide.” Will there be anything remaining to be insured anymore?!

Asia represents one of the fastest growing economies of the world. With growth comes deteriorating climate in the most natural catastrophe prone geography. According to Swiss Re 104 catastrophic events hit Asia last year – accounting a third of all natural catastrophes worldwide. Yet there seems to be a serious sense of prevailing apathy. I turned to Amitav Ghosh (www.amitavghosh.com), one of the foremost contemporary authors in English language, to seek some answers.  He not only lends climate change the much deserved & desired narrative but also highlights the urgency. The Great Derangement: Climate Change And The Unthinkable, his last book, is dedicated to climate crisis!

With his gracious permission I have drawn from his recent profound observations made elsewhere. These stand out as both philosophical as well as pragmatic. Asia can afford to ignore them only at its own peril!

Does one need to get rid of the bourgeois mentality if we are to tackle the climate change issue?

• The general thrust of bourgeois culture has been towards a kind of triumphalism, a sense that the external world had been overcome and tamed. These attitudes are of course, intimately connected with issues of race, colonialism and conquest – for ‘Nature’ too was seen as a domain to be conquered, dominated and used. The prevalence of such attitudes is an obvious barrier to effective action on climate change.

Why Asia’s centrality fails to be reckoned with and the existing discourse on global warming remains largely Eurocentric.

• The discourse on climate change continues to be deeply Eurocentric. But we Asians bear some of the blame for this because we do not pay enough attention to this subject.

His strong objection to the carbon economy and quoting Gandhi, holding the idea that Asia should cease to embrace their developmentalism oriented approach. An idea that would invite strong criticism in countries like India and China…

• I think we have to question the meaning of ‘rich’. If you can’t breathe the air, drink the water, or sleep peacefully at night for fear of extreme weather events then you are not rich. In fact your quality of life is very poor.

On the belief that climate change has not resulted in an outpouring of passion in India. Instead, people’s political energy has increasingly come to be focused on issues that relate to questions of identity- religion, caste, ethnicity, gender rights, et al.

• I don’t know about the situation in China but in India it is simply a fact that climate change hardly ever figures in political discussions. We have only to open a newspaper, or turn on the TV, to see that dozens of issues receive more attention than, say, the droughts, or the agrarian crisis more generally. Within the Indian political class there is a terrible indifference to climate change.

His conviction that the poor may well be more resilient, is the major reason why global warming is not framed as such a serious issue in India.

• There are many in India who say “oh it’s the poor who are going to suffer.” But in India too it’s quite possible that the people, who will suffer the most, are the middle classes. Look at the extreme downpours (‘rain-bombs’) that have hit Mumbai and Chennai in recent years. They certainly did not spare middle class people. In India the urban poor are often very mobile. They have rural connections, they constantly go back and forth to villages, and they know how to use the trains. They can move at a moment’s notice.
• In a city like Mumbai, the urban poor will be able to leave in the event of a major storm surge, but that’s not the case with the middle classes. Not only will they not be able to leave, they won’t want to leave. For many middle class people their house or flat is their largest asset. They can’t just abandon that and go away. Their whole life is based on a certain kind of stability. That’s what bourgeois life is. But that stability is no longer available anywhere. The basic guarantees that the modern state offers – stability, security, safety – have all gone up in smoke.

Does he think an identity politics approach is necessary if we are to ignite people’s passion towards climate change?

• Whether you look at India or you look at the US, the left or the right, this is the discourse of politics today. It’s actually not about politics at all – if we consider “politics” to be, in the first instance, about issues of survival, collective betterment and so on. When we look at politics, or what politics has come to mean, we see that it is now largely about issues of identity. These issues have completely eclipsed global climate change which concerns our collective survival.

How he differs with those who identify capitalism as the principal fault line on the landscape of climate change. And even if capitalism were to be magically transformed tomorrow, the imperatives of political and military dominance would remain a significant obstacle to progress on mitigatory action.

• Climate change is often framed as an economic problem, caused by consumption, production, distribution and the emissions that these processes entail – ‘capitalism’ in other words. The dominance of this framework may be a consequence of the fact economistic ways of thinking have come to pervade every sphere of contemporary life.
• But in my view these economistic framings of the issue frequently serve to mask other, equally important aspects of it, such as military competition, relationships of domination and subordination between and within countries, and indeed, the dynamics of Empire, broadly conceived. This masking happens at multiple levels and in many different ways. Consider, for example, the idea of capitalism as the principal driver of climate change – a view articulated by Naomi Klein and many others.
• The trouble is that capitalism is not one thing: we know now that East Asian capitalism for instance, was labor intensive, rather than resource-intensive, and it had a much smaller ecological footprint than the version of capitalism that was prevalent in Britain and the United States. Yet, it was the Anglo-American version of capitalism that became dominant around the world – and this cannot be understood without considering the history of imperialism and global conquest.