The house of multi-billionaire Mukesh Ambani, located in central Mumbai

The problem is geographic. While big cities are booming with new construction, new industries, and more tourism, rural India is stagnating. Since 1980, the degree of inequality between the states, as measured by the Gini Coefficient, has shot up 50%, as rural states such as Bihar and Orissa struggle to catch up with more urban states such as Punjab and Haryana. In the urban states capital is readily available and investments (many of them foreign) are frequently being made in areas like infrastructure and information technology, but in the rural states many farmers still use decades-old equipment that they can’t afford to replace. From 1993 to 2000, while urban employment grew by almost 35%, rural employment actually shrunk by more than 30%. This has caused millions of poor, rural Indians to flock to cities in hope of finding work. When none is found, they set up slums such as the one pictured in Kaloor. Mumbai is actually home to Asia’s second largest slum, Dharavi (of Slumdog Millionaire fame), which houses over 800,000 people. This cycle then continues and only perpetuates the situation that makes it nearly impossible for anyone not born into a rich or middle-class urban family to succeed.

The Dharavi slum in Mumbai

If India does nothing to correct this trend, it will face serious problems sooner than it would like. The lack of agricultural production is already causing massive food inflation, which sometime peaks at close to 20%, and this winter India saw its worst shortage of onions in recent memory.  Instead of just focusing on the high tech and tourism industries which have brought it soaring revenues recently, the government should invest more in rural infrastructure and education, and give its poorest citizens a chance to move up the income ladder, which will in the long run benefit every one of its 1.2 billion inhabitants.

Not Pictured: Max Lord, Anna Trejo

On Saturday, December 5, a group of nine Cal Dems volunteered their time to go work the concession stand at the Men’s Basketball Game vs. Iowa State. To be honest, at first I wasn’t looking forward to spending 6 hours of my Saturday evening selling hot dogs, but hey, for 10% of the revenues, I figured it was worth it. But at the end of day not only did we make $176, it was a lot of fun! Granted, there was the occasional “difficult” customer, but overall we had a great time! To top it off, we got to eat $8 worth of food!

Cal Dems is definitely going to do this again, and when we do, I hope to see a bunch more of you join us! If we get enough people, we might even be able to work two stands and make twice the money!

Source: Politico

When Washington began to work on healthcare, most progressives couldn’t have been happier: President Obama’s approval ratings were up, Republicans looked dazed and confused in the face of a massive wave of progressivism nationwide, and meaningful reform looked likely to pass.

Then came August, when members of Congress began to hold their now infamous town hall meetings. I don’t have to go into any great detail about happened there, we all witnessed it and I think would very happily be spared this flashback. In any case, when the dust of the summer recess began to settle, things looked grim. The tea-partiers were getting national attention again, the words “public option” were suddenly offensive on the political stage, the Republicans were winning news cycle after news cycle, and meaningful reform had gone from being a real probability to little more than a pipe dream.

Source: Politico

And then, Republicans started to run out of steam: the usual big government arguments stopped resonating as well with the average american, the tea-party organizers got tired and went back home to their penthouses, and believe it or not, public opinion started to shift. Did the GOP simply peak too early?

It sure looks like it, because for the last two weeks or so, Democrats in Washington have begun to win back the message war. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) is now calling the plan Medicare for Everybody (also being referred to as Medicare Part E), prominent Republicans such as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), former Senate Majority Leaders Bob Dole (R-KS) and Bill Frist (R-TN), as well as two former Bush 43 officials, HHS Sec. Tommy Thompson, and FDA commissioner Mark McClellan, all have expressed their support for reform. Granted, none of them have a vote in the U.S. Senate, but this could potentially give cover to conservadems such as Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), or even to moderate Republican Senators such as Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Susan Collins (R-ME), to cast their vote in favor of a final version containing a public option. It is also importrant to keep in mind that Olympia Snowe did vote in favor of the less-than-stellar “Baucus Bill” in committee, and while this is by no means a sure indication that she will vote for the final product, it’s a good sign. Finally, to top it off, efforts such as OFA‘s recent healthcare “Day of Action” have been quite powerful in getting elected officials to listen: OFA reports that over 300,000 calls have been made to elected officials. Even efforts such as our own phone bank to Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) have yielded results, as Robbie mentioned in an earlier post.

Source: Politico

Does this mean that meaningful reform will pass? Not for sure, but what it does mean is that real progress is being made, and that we should not give up our efforts to pressure congress into doing whats right. But in my opinion, if and when push comes to shove, and the full Senate votes on a final version of the bill containing a public option, any Democratic senator would be hard pressed not  to vote for it, even if your name is Blanche Lincoln.

UPDATE (10/23/09 15:23 PT): Harry Reid is now seriously considering putting a public option in the Senate Bill:

NY Times: Senate Leader Takes Risk Pushing Public Insurance Plan

As entertaining as talking about how crazy the right has gotten recently can be, I usually try not to spend too much of my time on that because that’s playing right into their hand: it’s stirring up attention about something that’s not even worthy of a offhand remark at the diner table, let alone of a daily cable news show (not referring to any one undereducated, over-caffeinated, and over-opinionated newscaster who broadcasts on weekdays at 5 P.M. ET in particular).

However, today I saw something that made me especially angry, and I don’t want to rant, but I do think it’s important to take a second to realize how scary some of the dialog is becoming. I logged onto Politico this afternoon to get my daily fill of political gossip and I saw a story about a Facebook poll on whether or not we should kill President Obama. The choices were: a) Yes, b) Maybe, if he cuts my healthcare, and c) No.

Obviously there’s always a radical fringe in any political reality, but now it’s becoming less of a fringe. While it still has a long way to go before qualifying as “mainstream”, the degree to which people were openly expressing their desire for the president to be murdered is far from acceptable. Our president was democratically elected and has yet to even complete one fifth of his term and is only now addressing the first of his top three domestic priorities (Healthcare, Energy, and Education).

If this is where we are now, where will we be when the president wants to take on climate change? Or education? If what’s happening now is any indication, then the answer is not good, as healthcare reform is arguably the least controversial of his top three. Now do I think that there is a big chance that this “faction”, if you will, will eventually derail Obama’s plans for reform? Probably not. Am I overreacting? Maybe. I really hope that six months from now, these worries will just look silly and unfounded, just like the infamous Y2K bug eventually proved to be. But like I said earlier, while I don’t think we should spend too much time on this, indirectly giving it a certain legitimacy, I do think it’s something we should keep in mind as we go forward these next couple months.