Note:- This might not be beneficial for UPSC preparation, but they may ask a question or two in UPSC interview (Which is very unlikely though). Before publishing this article – we had a debate, deliberation and discussion between UPSCTREE core members whether to publish it or not and whether it is at all be beneficial. The effect of cinema on Indian society has been a topic repeatedly asked by UPSC in Mains and Essay papers, and last year UPSC asked a prelims question related to Films- The Man who knew infinity. Although, we are unsure of its benefits, we are publishing it anyway as Issued in Public Interest-So , read if you have time at your disposal. Nonetheless, it is interesting.
Baahubali: The Beginning was a ‘semba semba yolota’ or so would say anyone from the Kalakeya tribe featured in the biggest film in recent times whose sequel Baahubali 2:The Conclusion hits the screens today. ‘Semba semba yolota’ is Kilikki for blockbuster.
While the question, ‘Why did Katappa kill Bahubali?’, sent an entire country quizzing, an equally innovative and interestingly fresh aspect of the movie was the language spoken by the Kalakeya tribe. A country which has thousands of languages was captivated by words uttered by an onscreen fictional “tribe” in a language that no one in the country at that point of time could claim to understand.
Breaking the myth of language being a barrier to communication, Kilikki, the language of the Kalakeya tribe not just managed to grab all the screen attention, but had people looking up search engines for the language. A language that in reality doesn’t exist. Even as languages try and claim classical status and the like, and linguistic differences often turn ugly, this ‘no man’s’ language and its popularity should serve as a lesson in flattening out or rising above differences or making the best of them.
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For all the history and legacies that languages often claim, Kilikki is one man’s invention, who not just got an entire tribe to be its speakers but is also set to make it the next new-age lingo. Madhan Karky Vairamuthu, son of celebrated lyricist Vairamuthu who has penned the dialogues and songs for the Bahubali series is to Kilikki what Panini was to Sanskrit and his set of rules and the soon to be launched dictionary-cum-grammar will be to Kilikki what Tholkappiyam was to Tamil, the first grammar ever.
It could well be the next p-language or code language as Madhan has set the rules at their simplest best. Learning this language is actually child’s play as the origin of this language happened ten years ago as he tried to teach Tamil to children in Australia and in the process of answering their questions about complex phenomena in language, wondered if language could be anything but a complex amalgamation of various processes. It is then that he created a language, called it Click, even wrote songs in it, all for the joy of creating a new simple language.
The story of click would have ended there if not for Director Rajamouli’s desire to have a powerful yet crude sounding language that could be spoken by the Kalakeya tribe in the film. This led to Madhan diving into the decade old mini-language and creating an expanded vocabulary with 750 word and 40 grammar rules. That was the birth of a new language. He christened it Kilikki. Creating a new language was a need, as given the brutality and the gore that the tribe was characterised by “using any known or existing language could possibly hurt the speakers”.
Dissecting the language gives some insight into what has gone into its making. While the case markers are inspired by Tamil, the way the number system is formed shows Mandarin influence.
Few words have also been created on the basis of onomatopoeia, the process of creating words on the basis of the sound that an associated thing makes, for instance ‘isss’ associated with silence, is used to mean ‘peace’. Basic understanding of linguistics and a know-how of a few south East Asian languages can give one some hints. It cannot be put into anyone bracket of language types. The phonetics and phonology seem to be inspired by Tamil while the morphology from Mandarin. In other words while it has sounds which are characteristic of Dravidian languages, the way sentences are constructed is more like Mandarin which has separate words or characters for every morpheme or the smallest meaningful unit of language.
For instance, the logic behind ‘ Nim moova min’ an utterance in Kilikki can be deciphered if we pay attention to the two aspects of sounds and structure. At the level of sounds we can see, words familiar to most speakers of any Dravidian language, like ‘nim’ ‘min’. Nim meaning ‘you’ has cognates in Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam with ‘ni’ or a form close to ‘ni’ meaning ‘you’. To make language learning simple, Madhan introduced the first rule here, linking sound and meaning that all antonyms or opposite words would be the reverse of the sounds that make up the original word. So ‘nim’ being ‘you’ would imply that an exact reverse ‘min’ would mean ‘I’, while ‘moova’ meaning love would give ‘vamoo’ meaning hate, if fuhu was ‘go’ , hufu would mean ‘come’. “It made it easy to remember” he explains.
On these lines, the writer penned 40 different rules. Some of them are given in this table below:
These rules are not just about the grammar. But also speaks volumes about language as a vehicle of culture. For instance, one of the rules mentioned in the table says, ‘There is no word for sorry in Kilikki’, as a tribe that barbaric and blood-thirsty would not be one to apologise and hence there is no place for a word that means the same in its vocabulary.
Here is a short list from the vocabulary of the Kalakeya tribe, a larger version of which when released and made accessible to the public will also be open to rule additions and modifications.
Another thought that went into its creation, explains the writer, is the connection between how something sounds and what it implies. Certain sounds and sound combinations are pleasant to the ear, while some other feel harsh, irrespective of the tone, says Madhan. ‘For instance Groki ‘kill’ sounds brute and crude, while moova ‘love’ sounds soft and pleasant. The combination of g and r adds a feel of something gory, while the consonant cluster of ‘p’ and ‘r’ ans ‘s’ through its resonance followed by the liquid sound ‘l’in prsla ‘blood’do imply something rough, and slow.
‘Even if you were to say min groki nin in a flat tone, there is a sense of something unpleasant, while min moova nin hints at a softer emotion, even if one were to utter it loud and brash.’ The writer’s hunch definitely seems to have worked as the tribal chieftain’s aggression in the movie seemed aptly conveyed by the vocabulary, even though the audience had no clue of what was being said.
It was a conscious effort of not using gibberish, which a few films have done before. Which is also the reason it worked, says Madhan. “Unlike gibberish, this language though was not something the audience understood, the linguistics, the science that went into creating it gave it the authenticity. The personality of the tribe, their culture is what breathed life into the language.”
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.
On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.