jatra...a collective action or somerthing dt falls short of it..!

Jatra an event that has been taking place in IRMA since prm1 is now probably struggling for its very survival. people are leaving and dis is causing d people who are staying to rethink why are they staying. so it is now that we have to decide whether individuals are responsible for their own actions and should not be treated like kids and threatened with negative grades or should simple be allowed to leave.
people who are interested shall stay back and give their best. people who want to go and forced not to go; if remain might not give in their best. weapons of the weak might come to play in this regards if people who want to go are made to stay and do not participate.
It is here that me and my friends discussed that people who r leaving is just because IRMA does not give adequate holidays and that is why people want to go home. in this case what is happening in Jatra is just a symptom and not 'the problem'.
so is it the collective action that is falling or it is the superstructure that is making it more powerful?

My take on the end term exam

First of all congrats to all for completing second term and entering into third term!!!!!
Now coming to our CAC end term exam. I really loved writing for the question regarding sanitation problem. It really covered all the topics of our class room learning's and did so in such a subtle but yet power full way. It really fascinated me more because we did something related to that during my village fieldwork stay. We constructed a toilet at our host family in the village and to say the least it was really a great satisfying moment and a thing a cherish for lifelong.........now coming back to CAC exam, i really don't know how i fared but i enjoyed those 2:30 hrs........in those 2:30 hrs i completely relived my village stay.......Thanks!!!!!

it so happened that i also received a call from my village while writing this post!!!!!!!!

Networking working!!!

Why it is that most of the networking doesn’t work? The main reasons of course are lack of purpose .plan, etc. But the most important reason is lack of long term thinking. When we think long term networking would definitely work. Nowadays both individual and organization have short term view and want immediate benefit. The best of the relationships has to pass through many tests and unless and until that genuineness is visible, it is not going to work.

Gandhi ji "A Real Actor of Collective Action"

"We are constantly being astonished at the amazing discoveries in the field of violence. But I maintain that far more impossible discoveries will be made in the field of non-violence.”
-Mahatma Gandhi

the quote of gandhi ji right in today context also....non-violence is a weapon of weak. As we know his, non co-operation movement was the first ever series of nationwide peoples movements of non-violent resistance and civil dis-obidedience by Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian national congress (INC). ‘Ahimsa’ or non-violence was to be strictly observed during non co-operation movement. The non co-operation movement marked the Gandhian era in the phase of independence movement in India.
Gandhi ji was also very knowledgeable about the action situation India was in at that time. He knew that people of India as a mass were timid and not capable of using guns against British rule. So, wisely he chooses his end as freedom. He was very tactical in choosing this. He used the tools of Hartal (Strikes), fasting and non-violent processions. He induced the wave of primitive sympathy in people of India by surrendering his titles, honors and medals to viceroy (Governor General). This action of his promoted the similar feelings in minds and hearts of the mass.
During ANAND RUN on 26th jan 2009. we seen the primitive sympathy of PRM29 by RS.1000 contribution,
and in my view Gandhi ji is a great motivator for youth and his theories must be puposed in CAC sessions.

NREGA Collective Success or Collective Failure

Friends, I want to discuss the matter of NREGA issue which,was discussed by Prof. H.K. Mishra in section-A. All we know Rural unemployment is becoming a cause of concern as the rank of rural unemployed is registering a steady increase. and by providing 100days employment is not sufficient for whole year requirment. While, if, government take proper action and develop a collective action with industry. so that, unemployed youth of rural area gets continous employment.

This was not so easy but,pessimist never win a battle. So There is need to focus on this area by encouraging entrepreneurship in small industry as well as service sector to take root in rural areas. Through this programme for providing employment opportunities to the poorest of the rural poor. However, I would like to point out that some States and regions face difficulties in implementing the rural development programmes in initial stages.

we as a Rural engineer take this as a new year resolution, I donot think this is impossible. We have access to technology/ resources why not we suggest something that is helpful for them......through collective action

3% for blog and 2% for comments

i had been commenting  on the blogs posted by my fellow participants. today i came to know that prof. sony had assigned 3% marks for blog and 2% maks for comments (from an unofficial source). again a process to marginalize the oppressed. it is the comments which give life to a dead posting. so why is the discrimination between  a posting and a comment? really i dont have any current issue that could be fabricated by the cac theories, so it is like a plea to weight the comments equal to postings. it always happen that in  collective action the leaders work but the benefits percolate to the larger community. i thought  this way and commented on the postings, but all in vain as posting (leader) still getting the larger benefit in terms of weightage. now i come to know why people dont get involved in collective action after participating in one? they still wait for the benefits to be percolated. so hoping for good grades in cac blogging ?

something from my fieldwork

Hello Friends,
In December i posted one blog in which i told about how villagers from my village Dandkala were able to collectively work towards the restoration of electricity in the our village. We provided the motivation to villagers and forwarded the application to Electricity board of Rajasthan with the help of our host organisation URMUL. when we left the village the electricity meters got installed and now just 10 days back when i called my NGO to know about electricity status i received one of the best news of my life ie now electricity has come in the village. Really a great satisfying moment and it reinforced my belief that villagers just need facilitators.

gujjar reservation

Gujjar reservation is an example of collective action for reservation. This movement was very popular among the political arena as major political party were involved in the movement directly or indirectly.A major aspect of this kind of movemet is the emergence of leader who try to gain political powers from these kinds of movements. This is true for gujjar reservstion movement also. kiori singh baisla is a major in the
gujjar reservation movement. He floated a party during the movement and got the support of all the gujjars. He utilized the support for his political gains. This might be his stepping stone in entering into the politics.
-Anupama Tripathi

CPI(M) clothing Nandigram with moral garments!!

The way the agitation led by Bhumi Uchchhed Protirodh Committee (BUPC) (Committee for Resistance to Eviction from Homeland) was brutually suppressed by State administration and CPI(M) cadres in Nandigram and all the agitating villages were made silent or 'proponent of industrialisation ' at gunpoint clearly showed the fascist approach to the takeover of rich agricultural land for industrial purposes. Nandigram, and people belonging to those villages proposed for chemical hub SEZ were got down from buses and were advised to go by walking as 'they were opposing industrialization, they should not be allowed to go by buses'. These things were done by CPI(M) cadres after a state level leader of CPI(M), Benoy Konar called for 'making the villagers' lives a hell encircling them from three directions' before media. And the justfication the CPI(M) leaders made was that they were doing all this to suppress the agitation as the project would bring about a lakh of jobs for the villagers. This clearly goes with the tenth rule of the ethics of means and ends which states that you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments. Is this morality in any sense?

moral economy...the aim of sarvodaya movement..

In the scott-popkin controversy, James Scott talks about establishment of a moral economy where a subsistence ethic prevails to guarantee subsistence as a 'moral claim' or as a 'social right' to which every member is entitled. no matter how much this kind of economy may be desierable, will the society ever agree to it especially when it is at the giving end? I would like to talk about this in refrence with the Bhoodan movement that took place in the 1950s. Vinoba bhave appealed for gift of land from the rich so that it could be distributed to the landless. once the movement caught momentum a number of people donated land out of guilt, altruism etc. but to a large extent also due of peer pressure because if a person from their own community with lesser means contributed, the society looked down on them if they didn't. so a huge quantity of land, to the tune of four million acres was collected but less than one third could be distributed. the reason being that it was of such poor quality that cultivation on it was impossible or extremly expensive.
so in a way the rich donated land and got the praise, accolades for it but ultimatly the movement failed to produce the changes in society that it wanted. so everyone talks about the necessity of collective action for upliftment of society but are the privileged really ready to share their power, resources? And without these will any collective action be of any use?

last minute co-operation

Well as we all know that today is the last day that we have to write a blog to get an incentive of 5% in this subject but are we actually doing it because we want to do it?? the question is between wants and needs..we need to write if we want 5% or we write because we want everyone to know what we think and get to know their paradigm at the same time. which one do we all prefer?

there may be few like me who have not yet post their blogs.. does that mean thier learning is nil from the subject?? you may name it as "weapons of the weak" but at the end of the day what matters is not how much marks you score but how much co-operation techniques you have learnt from these 30 sessions. When we go for practical implementation i'm sure most of us would not think about the "rules of Tactics or strategies" but apply whatever is feasible for them at that point of time.

As Prof. Sony had rightly mentioned in the class that most of the blogs are mere posting but not reflections/comments by others. My question is could we not have initiated a collective action to force each other to read our views and motivated them to comment on them? something must have motivated Giddens and Popkins to write their views somewhere(blogging didn't exist back then)  so that we can use their ideas and reflect upon them in the future.

Well i'm not much of a writer but i'm sure of one thing that if such initiative is taken in the future there has to be a leader who must emerge out of PRM 29 and leads from behind and motivates all the participants not only to post blogs but also to reflect upon other's blogs. And the participants must also understand that this is an event where they themselves are the actors who can bring changes in the structure of the line of thoughts of many through interacting with the environment.

Who knows that may be the reader of this blog is the next CAC-Guru of IRMA??

My first and last post for CAC -term 2

Hope will get more to write in the time to come !

which one requires greater cooperation

What requires greater cooperation.... a purpose which is socially accepted and considered as progressive in the realm of social jargon or a purpose which is not socially accepted as well as seen in good light. My take on this is that an antisocial goal not only needs greater cooperation but also needs great trust among the colluders.....if I am sounding little abstract then let me cite a practical example which just happened with us. Since grades are relative in IRMA and it is also very important for academically marginalised people. Therefore we decided to generate collective action in one of the quizzes.........the plan was everybody will submit his or her paper blank which will yield zero marks which was not such a bad idea considering the fact that one could also fall on the left side of the zero. And ultimately by generating this kind of cooperation everybody will land at grade B which is remarkably good. But alas! We could not able to carry this one out as the chances that nobody will defect are very low, and defection even by a single person have defeated the whole purpose. Had it been a socially noble cause generating collective action could not have been that difficult.

Management of Common Pool Resources ( CPRs) is a vital issue in the rural areas. Garret Hardin had published the paper on the Tragedy of Commons with this idea, where he says that when a resource is open to use for all, each of the users would like to maximize the benefit that they get and consequently use it to an extent that it eventually becomes worthless for the whole community. as a solution to this he proposed that CPRs should be given in private hands so that all people get optimally benefitted from it. but that by itself does not ensure the optimum utilisation of the CPR by all the people. Responsibilties given without any accountability are not going to serve any purpose, as we see in the case of Plachimada. it will eventually lead to the unequal distribution of the resources in favour of those in authority. in contrast to that, Vanadana Shiva recommends that instead of handing it over to private hands, collective management of the resources by the local people would be a better idea to pursue. still an issue that remains is the power dynamics prevalent in a village. will the management of CPRs by the local people be able to overcome this limitation, because we usually see that those people who are influential in the village, get into the management of these CPRs.

the biggest collective action on the virtual world

ever wondered about the biggest collective action on the world sans borders- the great internet ?!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7892073.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/video_and_audio/7893357.stm


yes..that's right! p2p is the biggest collective action endeavour on net. it surpasses well ahead on the worthy contendors wikipedia or so called customer generated content sites as youtube and the community development platforms for tools such as seamonkey or mozilla. in one of the estimates by IEEE it was said that about 40% of internet traffic in North america is p2p.

it is not much of a hard work to see what could be the reason behind the grant success of p2p technologies. the latest movies, games, music and programs without spending a penny. the mindset of pirate are so easy to read. "self interest" or is it so???

even when such a thing is illegal the popularity surpasses anything else. how much they try MPAA is unable to counter the growth around the world. when napster went down there came umpteen number of replacements. for one stage6 there came vreel to veoh.

collective action against collective action.. all the major studios, biggest law firms and law enforcers are trying to put an end to the phenomenon. but it just refuses to die down. it is just that the pirate tradition has transcended to the modern world. but a collective phenomenon at such a level , I wonder if such a thing ever happened


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhVVT54hrSE

are suicide bombers using weapons of the weak

what is the rationale of a suicide bomber. have anyone thought about why a guy who is just like any other human being sacrifices his life for the greater motives. i don't believe every suicide bomber is aiming at the place right to god in heaven.

i dunno if he is using the weapons of the weak. He might be powerless and sick of living on the planet earth but what is taking him to the level of consciousness where he is taking other lives with him and causing the maximum destruction.


and i have found the following link

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan05/Petersen0124.htm

Going deeper into Plachimada agitation

Plachimada agitation against the Coca-cola company waged by the people of Perumatty panchyat in the palakkad district of Kerala can be seen as one of the prominant environmentally consciuos movements taken place in the state.



The sale of cola products in the state has been lower compared to other states in India. The percapita consumption of colas in Kerala is estimated to be 1.5 bottles per annum compared to 50 in delhi. In fact the biggest consumption of colas is for the purpose of mixing with liquor. Otherwise the sale would have been much lower.



it would be quite natural for a populace to be enraged by a 'giant greedy corporate' drawing water resources to supply external markets. but there can be larger reasons behind the publicity achieved by the agitation.



Though mylamma was celebrated as the leader, the decision makers were the sidekicks who were mostly from outside the locality. but they had found the issue to be within their moral realms so that the direct beneficiary status was not an issue at all. Rather we can say that Mylamma became a symbol for the agitation. it was no wonder that the strike against MNC attracted scores of activists from around the globe.

Milaap – a cac perspective

Milaap is one of the most recent events wherein almost all of us actively participated. Being a person in the thick of action I had the pleasure to closely observe the people and processes involved right from the planning to the implementation stages.

The success of Milaap was the result of a collective effort by the participants, faculty, alumni and the IRMA community at large. Eventhough it is termed as a completely student run initiative it required (and fortunately had) lot of institutional support. Participants through their months long planning and involvement, faculty with their timely guidance, alumni through their enthusiastic participation joined hands for the success of an uncertain outcome – Milaap’09. It wouldn’t have been possible to organise such an event without the help of ETDC and MESS. Hence it was collective action in every sense.

One interesting thing which was noted during the entire process was the way we used power at our disposal. Various teams were formed to perform different tasks. Roles and responsibilities were clearly (?) identified. May be because there was too much clarity about our job, we used our power quite effectively. It was quite similar to the ‘weapons of the weak’ (though I don’t mean to call anyone amongst us as weak) mentioned in one of the articles. Most of the times the poor victim of this power game was the Milaap coordinator who was literally squeezed between various committees left with not too many options on many occasions. In that sense the person who was supposed to be at the helm turned out to be the least powerful among all.

The Free Rider problem

Public goods provide a very important. The production of public goods results in positive externalities which are not remunerated. If private organizations don't reap all the benefits of a public good which they have produced, there will be insufficient incentives to produce it voluntarily. Consumers can take advantage of public goods without contributing sufficiently to their creation. This is called the free rider problem.

For example, consider a group assignment is given to four students by an faculty, and this assignment is very important as it hold 25% of overall weight age of total marks but still one of the group member did not participate in preparation of assignment but at the time of presentation all the member of group present their part including the member who did not participate in making of assignment and above all he delivered his part without seeing matter once before coming to class because of that group did not good grade. I am not sure what should be the probable solution for this problem. But this problem arises many times.

Another example is, consider a national defense, a standard example of a pure public good. A purely rational person is an individual who is extremely individualistic, considering only those benefits and costs that directly affect him or her. Public goods give such a person incentive to be a free rider.

Suppose this purely rational person thinks about exerting some extra effort to defend the nation. The benefits to the individual of this effort would be very low, since the benefits would be distributed among all of the millions of other people in the country. There is also a very high possibility that he or she could get injured or killed during the course of his or her military service.

On the other hand, the free rider knows that he or she cannot be excluded from the benefits regardless of whether he or she contributes to it. There is also no way that these benefits can be split up and distributed as individual parcels to people. The free rider would not voluntarily exert any extra effort, unless there is some inherent pleasure or material reward for doing so.

CRITICAL THINKING!!!!

The article of from Paulo Freire talks about dialogue and its relevance in the vibrant society. In today’s world most of us are suffering from naïve thinking. The big corporate are also suffering from this thinking and hence they are not thinking in terms of long term but short term. The environmental hazard like global warming is going to them also as they are also the part of the society, ditto for the terrorists. So development of critical thinking is very important today for survival of mankind and this process has to be started from schools.

CRITICAL THINKING!!!!

The article of from Paulo Freire talks about dialogue and its relevance in the vibrant society. In today’s world most of us are suffering from naïve thinking. The big corporate are also suffering from this thinking and hence they are not thinking in terms of long term but short term. The environmental hazard like global warming is going to them also as they are also the part of the society, ditto for the terrorists. So development of critical thinking is very important today for survival of mankind and this process has to be started from schools.

SELFLESS LEADERS….

Talking about the leadership class, it was clear that a lot depends on a leader how he functions. Like the leaders who provide solutions are actually not empowering the masses. They are in fact making them more dependent on them. While the leaders who provide synergies are in real sense serving the purpose and empowering the masses. These are selfless leaders who believe in developing a vibrant society rather that a society of followers.

POLITICS…THE SPOILER!!!

The article on co-operatives again showed that how politics can destroy the very essence of co-operatives. The milk co-operatives have prospered so much and the main reason behind this was the foresightedness of its founders who had anticipated that politics would destroy the very motive. The sugar co-operatives in Maharashtra have become a platform for politicians. One reason which explains the difference really well is that national leaders were involved in milk co-operatives while local leaders were involved in emergence of sugar co-operatives. It clearly proves that national leaders have larger vision than the local leaders

THE POWER….

The class which was held on 16th of Jan 2009, sir talked about power. It was really true that power cannot be stored but it has to be used. This is the biggest asset of power and it shows that power is dynamic not static and it is like a nuclear reaction, the more it is used, the more its influence increases. It is true both for power used for good and evil. The article on Bulgarian farmer also showed how abuse of power led to a total destruction of social power.

Mechanics of Collective action and cooperation

Have you ever tried to notice how some simple principle of physics can be applied in collective action and cooperation? My EARM assignment on oil price hike gave me a new insight on it. Here we can compare the collective action with cog and wheel. Individual actors are cogs and resultant collective action is moment in wheel. One important point to note here is individual actors like cog are working at different level but movement of one cog or action of one cog or actor gives moment to other cog and ultimately it leads into movement of wheel. Now with particular reference to oil price hike let’s see where we can fit individual actors or cogs. Individual actors here are all oil producing countries and US, which controls oil economy as all oil trading is being done in US dollars. International oil prices are result of collective action of these actors. Here, US acts as a major cog. It can influence oil production of majority of oil producing countries. So in turn, movement of this major cog or US determines movement of other small cogs and wheel as a whole. It is interesting to see how individual actors are at different levels having different motives but still their actions are synchronized in a way, which give rise to a collective outcome of their actions. This collective outcome is manifested in form of rise and fall in oil prices. Similarly, moment of cogs at different levels will determine speed and direction of movement of wheel. Curious to know your views

Collective action, co-operation, and issue of multiple identities

I was dithering to write about this issue on blog as it is a subtle one. Whenever we talk about collective action and cooperation, we assume that all the actors involved in collective action are having a single identity. In real world, it’s not true. For example, a person can be Hindu by religious identity, manager by professional identity, oriya by geographical identity and so on. In all probabilities, it is possible that these multiple identities are out of sync. How collective action is possible in that case? Which identity will come at fore for collective action and why?
Let us understand this by an example. In case of attack on non Marathis in Mumbai, Mumbaikars acted collectively against someone who seemed to be infringing upon their geographical identity. In this case Marathi identity of mumbaikars came at fore. But why? Attackers and victims might be of same religion but that identity is lost somewhere. Had that religious or national identity been at fore, in all probability these kind of things would not have happened. So here, my only point is that if in any way we can invoke a particular identity of a person whole premise of collective action will change. if we can invoke national; identity in place of geographical or religious identity whole genre of collective action will be transformed. Eager to know your responses.

Is it a collective action???

What kind of collective action it is?
During my limited exposure to unfathomable world of collective action and co-operation, I tried to learn whatever I was exposed to. Now when fag end of subject is imminent, I am bound to think weather we have discussed only white side of collective action. Recent headlines in newspapers form the basis of my premise.
Hundreds of innocents have been massacred in Gaza collectively. US-supplied Israeli F-16 warplanes and Apache helicopters dropped bombs on dozens of locations in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip, killing hundreds of civilians. The U.S. government was one of the first to offer its support for Israel’s attacks, and other western countries followed. Those who are not explicitly involved in massacre are supporting actions of Israel by keeping their mouths shut. At this juncture, I am allowing myself to ask a simple question, what kind of collective action and co-operation it is?
Israel is a member of UN and UN was agency, which envisaged emergence of a new world order by collective action and co-operation of member countries. But here in case of Israel -Palestine quagmire a new world order has been set up to vanish Palestine identity by collective action of US and some more western countries. Certainly this kind of actions are in benefit of US, Israel so it might be beneficial for them but what about the world as a whole? Will we keep this kind of action under collective action and co-operation?

We get the leadership we deserve.........

In my last blog I said that India is in a leadership crisis and we need a leader but one question that comes to mind is do we deserve the leadership we have now or rather has the democratic system, the collective mechanism of choosing leaders failed in giving us a leader or is it we that have failed in choosing and electing the right leaders and hence are responsible for current leadership crisis that we find ourselves in.
Actually, there are two points of view that come to my mind. In a way I do feel that we have failed in choosing the right leader and have brought upon ourselves such a situation. We have the right to vote and are responsible and accountable for the government we elect and even be a part of it. The latter however may not be feasible for all of us but with a voter turnout of around 60% and dropping to 30% we don’t use our rights effectively and hence are responsible if goons get into the parliament. We are at fault. We have an active media that allows us to raise our voice and show collective leadership as in the case of Jessica Lal, Priyadarshini Mattoo etc and more recently after the Mumbai attacks etc., where our collective action shook the upper echelons of the government and judiciary. Given that we have such powers and are unwilling to use it on a regular basis makes me feel that we deserve to be blamed for the leadership vacuum.
However on the other hand I have two questions, we have a right to vote but not the right to choose who we want to vote. I mean I am given a list of candidates where none may be worthy of selection, in that case am I to be blamed if we don’t have effective leadership. It’s like an MCQ with all wrong answers! Votes are also rigged, money and muscle power used, petty populism tricks are applied, passion are flamed in the name of religion, caste and vote-banks are created. We can’t always vote in a rational manner in such a situation. These are the two issues which make me feel I am not to be blamed for the mess.
All in all , I am a firm believer in democracy and believe that it is the only system of governance that has the avenues for self correction and believing on its ability to improve itself I think taking active part in this “system” as opposed to being passive observers is the best way to discover the next INDIAN LEADER.

Is it always going to remain this way?

It is surprising how questions can be so conveniently labeled "diplomatic" and left unaddressed. When a daughter wants to know why her father had to suffer three bullet wounds for a cause that seems more and more meaningless with each passing day, all she gets as a reply is "you are asking me a diplomatic question in a public forum". It has become so easy to turn a blind eye to the widow who lost her husband, the child who lost a father, the family who lost a son, the country who lost a hero.

Ever been in a condition where a loved one is away and you have no clue whether he is alive, whether he is safe? And when the next week, u see a coffin driven to your door step, wrapped in the Tricolour, the only solace you have is THE CAUSE for which it all happened.
But our "leaders" keep refusing to face the reality. All we need is a reassurance that this will end some day. That Kashmir will be ours again and that whoever has fought for that cause did not fight in vain. Can no one ever assure us of that? Is it a pointless thing to ask? Will this go on forever? Well, I do not know where to look for answers to such "diplomatic" questions. It is disturbing. It is unnerving. There are people like us undergoing rigorous training in various defence academies to become soldiers, officers, commandos. For what? To fight and die for an issue that our leaders have learnt to ignore?

One whole chunk of our nation has been taken away and we still do not know whether we are going to get it back. What does this show? Do we not have the courage, the determination and the grit to say out loud and clear that we will get back what we have lost and that no one can divide India?

It was said today that the terrorists are trying to “divide” us. What about the fact that a whole part of India had been taken away by outsiders, been divided and carnaged? Why isn’t anything been done about that? Why are we being asked to live with it? To accept it? Is it always going to remain this way?

Is this mutilation of our country, our pride, and our psyche permanent?

Everyday, another officer dies fighting for the lost land. Living and breathing the dream that is a “diplomatic” issue for our so called leaders- leaders for whom we wait for hours, for whom we rise and applaud.

Our soldiers deserve to know what they are dying for.

Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die
Into the valley of DeathRode the six hundred.

I do not want to believe in Lord Alfred Tennyson. But I am being forced to.
Just like the one billion of us.

Are we exercising the power given to us ?

You all might be aware of the fact that India has the largest democracy in the world. India is heading towards the Parliamentary elections in next few months. The whole world will be eagerly watching the functioning of the largest democracy. Do you think are we really exercising the power given to us by our constitution ? The most powerful weapon in every citizen's hand i.e., the power of voting. It is the most powerful right of a citizen in a democracy and it is the foundation of a democratic country. I think we Indians mostly the young generation have forgot the power vested in ourselves by the constitution. These days the majority of the voters are of middle age and it is very rare to see the youngsters taking part in the voting process. The major reason for this involves their lazy and pessimistic attitude. To cover up this attitude many reasons such as 'no faith in democracy', 'all politicians are the same' etc are said. The one who doesn’t know the basic pillar of democracy, can he/she question or have faith in democracy ?
Everybody has the right to select their own leader in India. Then what is stopping us from exercising our basic right - Right to Vote? We complain about bad roads, power problems, water problems, corrupt politicians and unfair reservations, but what are we doing about it? If we are not ready to use your power (right to vote), then which way will we make our voice heard? It is a big question in the minds of the youth to whom should they cast their votes ? The answer is a bit difficult to give. One should take rational decision and should exercise his / her power to vote to keep the pillar of democracy intact for its sustainance in this contemporary world .
The only weapon which can change the fate of our nation is voting which needs to be used in appropriate way for electing the eligible one who is going to rule / serve us for almost 5 years. We need to evaluate before casting our votes. Let us make the difference with our valuable votes. Please vote: The only way to change our nation.

Mumbai attacks and Pakistan's acceptance

It was heartening to see that at last Pakistan has accepted that the Mumbai terror attacks were launched from its soil. But as I got to read in some newspapers that even Pakistan has been smart enough to accept those facts about which FBI (American intelligence agency) had produced proof and till now (i.e. on 16th of February, 2009) it has not accepted the additional charges which India has pressed. So we can make out that it was a tactical move of Pakistan to not to alienate the Western countries and accept the bare minimum.
So if we consider the willingness of Pakistan to cooperate on war against terror with India or with any other country, than Pakistan is cooperating without any willingness. That is, the Pakistani establishment (or at least a part of it) is in hands with gloves with the terror groups and they are not willing to withdraw the support to the terror groups in the near future.
Now let us try to scratch the surface a bit. Pakistan is deeply suspicious of India (the same way we are suspicious of China) as India is a very big and powerful country, it wants to take the revenge of 1971 war defeat and a well functioning terror network is helpful to Pakistani rulers (civil as well as military) in continuing its grip over Pakistani politics as well as in maintaining its hegemony over Afganistan. Therefore, until and unless there is a serious threat from the terror groups to the Pakistani establishment, they are not going to eliminate the terrorist from their soil. And to avoid international criticism, they will use different means to show that even they are hapless victims of the terrorists. So it is highly probable that in after 5 or 6 months, the Pakistani establishment will revert to its old ways.
So what is the way out of this catch 22 situation? One possible way is that India along with other Western nations maintains the pressure on Pakistan by using new methods and asks it to act on the terror groups. At the same time, India also has to show to Pakistan that it is sincere in its effort to resolve all disputes (without giving up much strategic leverage). In addition to that, America has to resolve the dispute of Palestine (this central to the worldwide Islamic jehad) and it should give up its quest for maintaining hegemony in Middle East (for oil). This collective action of America, India (and other nations like Israel) will go a long way in assuring the jihadis that we are sincere in resolving our disputes with the Islamic world and then only they will come to the terms of giving up this struggle.

Post a comment for me

Today there emerged another type of collective action...Prof. Sony today said that the number of new comments on the blog are increasing but the number of comments are declining and the focus should be on putting more comments.

Just as his class was over, some of us made an agreement that we will post comments for each other. This step is basically to ensure that we get good grades in the blog posting component of CAC. I do not know if we will be able to make sensible comments but still we have to fulfill our obligations. This will definitely put an impact on the grades and may be lower it ...who knows!

Now this type of collective action is not new. This strategy is frequently used by business organisations to form a cartel. There the need is a bit different. The need for forming cartel is to safeguard the business from severe competition.But by doing so, the organisations forget to innovate or develop which ultimately causes more harm than doing good.

In the last article, my friend asked if collective action is always good. My responce to this question is a big "NO".

Collective action is like the nuclear energy......we can use it for lighting our house or destroying it. The choice is ours.

collective action leading to cartel formation???

Just imagine what would happen if the Congress, the BJP and the CPI(M) join hands to fight an election? Unbelievable? Its true. The three have joined hands to collectively fight elections of the Sikkim Vidhan Sabha under the banner of the United Democratic Front. In this case the three call themselves "like minded" parties. It is important to note here that the only likeliness among the three that i could gather in this case was that all three have been out of power in the state for well over 15 years.These like minded parties which have never shared a single opinion on the national stage have decided to collectively pool their resources to fight in the state with the least population in the country.
Are they facing a fight for their survival? Is Sikkim a taste of what is to come on the national scene in ,say 20 years time?
I bet the constitution makers would not have thought this in the their wildest of dreams. This would bring the worlds largest democracy to the knees as with no options to choose from your and my voting rights are as good as gone too.
The point I am trying to make here is that is collective action all that good?

comments and criticism are welcome..

mangalore pub assault

Ashish, i am trying to continue from where Suruchi left. Collective action in this case is taken by all the three parties concerned: the state through the police, the extremist outfit, and the girls who were targeted. Now, on Valentines Day the police managed to detain quite a handful of the organisations' supporters which is a big achievement considering the fact that the outfit belongs to members of the majority caste. Taking a cue from what happened majority of the couples in Mangalore have not ventured out this V day. However a major question remains unanswered? Does collective action and mass scale public out cry always lead to the desired results? Not always, as we all would learn soon.
The National Commission for Women instead of supporting the women, who were targeted, has out rightly blamed security lapses during the incident. The Commission in a statement said that it will recommend cancellation of licence of the restaurant as it was supposed to serve only food to guests.
Should we jump to any conclusions after this statement or wait for the entire proceedings to take place? Your guess is as good as mine....

Changing paradigm in Indian Democracy

Democracy said to be a government which is for the people and by the people. But conditions in certain parts of country make you rethink about this statement. Is democracy all about playing patriotic song to garner votes or is it all about wining an election by buying votes using money, liquor or use of muscle power? Once elected representatives of people don't care about the larger chunk whom they represent. Well these things existed earlier and still have not been eradicated but certainly there is a change in which people are thinking about government structure. Laws such as right to information are playing a major role in this process. People are now fed up of corruption and fall in the moral standards of people's representatives. This discontentment is taking shape of movements. Lok Satta movement in Andhra Pradesh is one of the hundreds of movements in the country that are working in the direction of reform in our democratic structure. The key lies in the hands of people. There is a dire need of coming together and working collectively in order to fight improve the system. We need not question the appropriatness of none of these in the electronic voting machine but it's the time when we should stand together and creat better options for us and for future generations.

Cooperative Vs Cooperation

I am a sponsored candidate in IRMA by our organization Mehsana District Cooperative Milk Producers' Union Limited, Dudhsagar Dairy, Mehsana where I have been working from last more than 4 years. A couple of days ago Mr. Jagdish Rao (PRM-05 and CEO-FES) has told in a seminar that there is difference between "Cooperative" and "Cooperation", in its literal meaning which I realize true as per my observation and understanding. During my tenure at Dudhsagar Dairy I have come across several instances where I was forced to think that what I have studied and heard about successful cooperation in Milk Cooperatives in Gujarat, is not so in the present scenario. In Gujarat, Milk cooperatives are the ideal example of Cooperation, where mostly marginal and landless farmers, whose main livelihood was livestock, did collective action to get proper remuneration of milk, irrespective of any discrimination among them and without government intervention. The farmers themselves have been working in the Production Unit of the Dudhsagar Dairy as worker, supervisor and even production officer and managers besides giving milk to dairy cooperatives as input. So, all resources came from farmers which set the history of great success of collective action and cooperation.

Now-a-days less cooperation seems in their action, no doubt still cooperation is existed but they are less concerned with the overall growth of organization rather more interested in the personnel benefits. One thing which is in the mind of particularly old age employees and generally of all local employees, who are mostly workers and supervisors, that they have worked hard, which is even a hardcore truth and non-negligible, so why the new person will get higher salary and incentives who are coming either from other state at higher level (Officer/Manager), with higher education concerned with the Dairy operations, or even local person from other community and/or part of the state.

In present open economic scenario, all countries have become a part of global family where person/organization from any country can go and work in any other country. Also, who excels in the particular field gets the maximum benefits. So the thinking of regionalism and casteism puts a barrier to collective action and cooperation. If any person has been repeatedly realized about above mentioned issues then how can he develop an affinity to cooperative organization and a feeling of cooperation and its success?

In the above case, I have developed a way to get acquainted with the local Gujarati language in reading, understanding, speaking and writing as well as with local culture. I use to attend all the functions and ceremonies of all employees of my department. It develop a feeling of ownness among them. But if any other person who could not do such or it is very tuff for him to totally adapt the local culture, then he could not be a part and contributor of successful cooperation. He would be either a liabilities or try to apart from the thinking of cooperation and be a part of corporate world.

Other thing that is harming the cooperation is the politics which is earlier supposedly banned to enter in the cooperatives. Politicization as such is not harming but many a persons who seeks benefits through this system are harming the ideology of cooperation and ultimately to the organization as a whole.

So I think that globalization and politics should be associated and managed with cooperation in such a manner that it would be advantageous for cooperatives as well as cooperation and again set an example to rest of the world.

Collective Action in Mumbai Dabbawalas

A dabbawala, is a person in Mumbai whose job is to carry and deliver freshly made food from home in lunch boxes to office workers, students, and boxes back to the source.
For any collective action to happen there must be some unfulfilled needs and wants so towards the end of the 19th century Mumbai say huge influx of migrants from various parts of India as lot of textile mills were getting established in and around Mumbai. These people came without there families and at that point of time there was also no concept of canteens. Since working hours was were very early so they were also not able to prepare food for themselves. As these people came from different parts of country so there food preferences were also different but as a whole they were looking for fresh home cooked food.
Mahadev Bache identified the need and thought of problem as opportunity. He recruited youth from his village but since his idea was unheard of at that point of time so only youth with insufficient agricultural income came forward. Operations began in 1890 with 20 dabbawalas, monthly charges were 2/- per month per customer and target customers were majorly Textile mill workers. It became charitable trust in 1956 and current employee strength is around 5000 dabbawalas. Earnings per member is around 5000-6000/- per month and number of tiffins handled on daily basis is around 2 Lakh.
Mumbai dabbawalas follow the flat structure for better communication between top management and dabbawalas. Instead of following top down approach they follow the bottom up approach. Dabbawalas have high degree of faith in the organization and every departing dabbawala is committed to finding a replacement before leaving. Each Dabbawala is share holder of the organization inline with the Amul model and it acts as a motivation for the Dabbawalas to perform efficiently. The delivery rates of the dabbawallas are so nominal (about Rs 300 per month) that one simply wouldn't bargain any further. It provides very competitive rates to the House wives and also offer lot of benefits to the dabbawallas.

COLLECTIVE ACTION AND CO-OPERATION IN IRMA

IRMA exemplifies collective action and co-operation in the true spirit of the word. If you are finding some course related difficulty, there is no dearth of friends and seniors for answering your stupidest query. If you fall ill, friends are always around you to look after you, right from taking you to the doctor to administering you medicines timely to entertaining you. If you feel homesick, your faculty assumes the parental roles. So, it is a family outside home. Also, unlike the other B- Schools where all relations are need based, the relations that are formed here last lifelong. And these relations are cherished throughout your life. People here do not cooperate with each other for selfish or narrow interests but come together on genuine grounds. These are the values that we imbibe here. The various initiatives taken by our Acad com especially are commendable in this regard because they work in the larger interst of the student community. They try their best to establish an egalitarian society where no student of the batch is left out of the welfare process. They try to establish parity between the haves and havenots. They have to bear the brunt of teachers when they go to the faculty requesting them to postpone the quizzes, defer the submissions to a date that is comfortable for all students. So, they put our interests before theirs. This is an excellent example of moral economy approach.

Long live our leaders!!

Why dont you let the voter register a against vote? election commission floated this idea in Dec 2001. Logic was sound- I want to cast my vote but the I have to select a less criminal or less corrupt person to be my "Bhagya vidhata" for the next 5 yrs.Out of 543 members in 14th lok sabha we have 120 members having criminal record against them.
Someone has rightly said " In democracy once in every five years people experience freedom and then again are sent inside cage for the next 5 yrs."
In each election I am forced to select a less criminal because I have no choice.Our politicians avert many fundamental questions labelling them as "Technical" and say I am proud of my poor/hungry citizens and these are like our parents, we cant hide them.But when questions like less distribution of rice and wheat in PDS shops to these very parents are raised, excuse is given in form of deeply entranched evils in our society.Surprisingly entire hall claps... we subjugate ourselves under his/her false persona ... and we silently let the deficiency of system to rule over us...

Freire: A discourse

Dialogue is mostly what Freire has talked about in chapter 3 of " Pedagogy of the oppressed". But reading through the article I realised that the acts of dialogue, objectives, their rationale is not just limited to mere dialogues, but to almost every aspect of our being. The word has its duality of action and reflection upon which the chapter is constructed. But here I must say Freire means much more than words, this duality encompasses every moment of our life whether in dialogue or silence.
May be this all makes very little sense, the point is we need to see the article not only related to dialogues but it connects with us in bigger and broader senses.

Intangible gets defeated

I am neither a philosopher not an anthropologist nor sociologist for that matter. Therefore, it is highly probable whatever I am going to write may not be cohesive but I take this blog as an opportunity to express something I am always grappling with since the beginning of post mid term classes. Does not CAC (collective action and cooperation becoming cliché in blogs) depend upon the nature of output. Kindly note that I am not saying importance or relevance of the output rather nature of output which I classify as tangible or intangible. Due to lack of vocabulary, I define tangible as outcomes which are clearly visible within a certain frame of time and their impacts are recognised and appreciated.

CAC is easier when outcomes are tangible, when outputs are measurable (remember costs>benefits), when agents desire to achieve it within a certain period or at least can feel gratified if things are moving in desired action in his lifetime but what about outputs that are equally or at times more important. We do not take pain to indulge in action because we may not be the affected ones neither in present nor in future or better to say we may not realize that we would be affected.

Let me take an example analysis of which is based on inspiration from theory of structuration. Few days back one of us put fine on three of our seniors in the afternoon but the notice was removed when I went to take dinner. Because it was put before I went to take lunch and I saw it being there when I came out, it is hard for me to believe that no one else would have seen it. But why no reaction when the notice was removed??? Also look at the ways some rules are continuously broken. No one now has an objection if you play in the mess lawns. We can feel in the air that culture is changing and in all probabilities, it will perpetuate because we will pass it on to our juniors, undoubtedly without giving a thought.

Another example which I am going to keep very brief. How do you think change in culture of any society originate? During video on Bihar shown by Bihar Development Trust, we realized that Bihar has a very rich socio-cultural history. So how and why has it reached its present state. It is because ‘intangible has got defeated’. There must have some aberrations that passed the muster that people did not realize hoe heavily it would damaged.

For last few days I am getting paranoid about whatever I do. I have started thinking in the following lines. Whatever I do and say will not be lost in time and space. If any negative or unwarranted things happen, it will influence persons close to me who in turn will influence other set of people and it thus way an innocuous incident may make its way through and become part of the system or reform it.

Enigma of desires...............

The enigma of desires either part you away from every thing you are close to or brings you close to them. Our existence in IRMA is a part of our desires, the enigmatic desires to accomplish something that we desire for and miles away from home we try to chase those desires in all our imagination bereft of everything close to our heart. But mere fulfillment of those desires is not all about our entity, there are certain others aspects of our entity that keep as aligned as IRMANS. Words are just a means to communicate but the silence is stronger than the words. Every time there is a queue in the mess , participants from PRM 29,28 ,CPDM and the FPRM stand in the same queue with smiling faces although words are not the part of this silent interaction. This is what integrates all of us in IRMA shredding apart all our desires; we try to get the most of life from the two years that we spend here.

COLLECTIVE ACTION: WHERE DO WE STAND TODAY???

Today we are at the fag end of second term of our PRM course. The last two months have really posed some great challenges before us, but despite all odds we sailed through the difficult times. Today we are at the end of the term (few sessions and examinations are still left), when I look back, we have come across various new schools of thoughts through the course “COLLECTIVE ACTION AND CO-OPERATION”.
This course exposed us not only to the diverse thought processes that have emerged at different points of time, but also tried to put across the relevance of these theories in managing the situations which we may face in our future endeavours.
Taking the case of our batch, we stood for each other when the prestige of our identity as a “BATCH” was at stake. We successfully organised “MILLAP” and “ANAND RUN”, despite all odds and challenges. But at the same time, when it came to the issue of assignments and projects, our behaviour reflected immaturity in terms of a collective force. This somehow reflected that when personal stakes are high and competition exists among different stakeholders, they try to maximize their own returns, be it at the stake of others. And this reflects the situation where even literate (forgive me for this, but we also tend to call ourselves CRITICAL THINKERS and intellectuals) people like us tend to run after personal gains, rejecting the collective spirit to which we had ascribed earlier.
Such events put forward the most critical question: Is Collective Action only for the so called MARGINALISED and OPPRESSED??? Or we as IRMAns can shoulder some responsibility, at least at our own level, to put-forth before this world that whatever has not been achieved individually can be achieved collectively (and we have examples of great institutions and individuals before us to emulate)??? If we are able to achieve success on this front, then I believe we will be able to do justice to the COLECTIVE SPIRIT………………

A response to Joseph's idea of collective action in Valentines day!!

Sony sir once told us that collective action may not be the optimal solution in many cases..this idea looks one of those cases!!  

joseph sure found a creative way of bringing hesitant hearts together...!!!

but as they say the one whom u love and the one who loves u are rarely the same...!! and this poses a question mark to this whole concept!! let me explain... when one votes for a girl..the chances are that most of the boys would vote for the same girl as the prefernces ( u wud agree on this part) are more or less same!! even if we assume that the votes of guys would be equally divided, then a look at the skewed sex ratio of our batch would tell you that around three votes will be there for each girl..!! so the girls would have a problem of plenty!! now lets take the scenario of girls voting..assuming that they vote independently..there 20 odd votes would also be concentrated in no more than 20 guys.( assuming that each one of them votes and that too for different guys..a far fethched possibility really)....this again brings about a inequitable scenario for more than half of the guys!!! so, we can see that not more than 10 guys would have all the votes of the girls and the girls would have each 3 votes each...!!!

The problem here is that everybody would not be making rational or totally optimal choices because everybody would not be having complete information about others!! a typical case of Prisoner's Dilemma!!!! what does this mean for the average "joe" (pun unintended..really)!!! he would have a slim chance of hit..almost of 1(his choice)/50(no. of males) i.e 2%. If god forbids the vote of every guys comes out in the open ( which would happen eventually..u know how gossipy we are)..his chances of going after some other girl would also become nil as nobody would like to be a second fiddle!!! so should we lose heart?..i think the best possible way would be too uncomplicate things and just do it the old fashioned way!! a rose a senti card and some mush!! there would be a very high chance that the other competitors would not be able to muster up the required courage and the girl might make an uninformed choice before she becomes choosy by knowing who all are after her!!! another way would be tolive in the fantasy land where every class is a valentines day rehearsal( dreaming wide eyed). the reality sometimes is too stark to digest...one may live with a hope!! after all as Roy sir would put it albeit in a different context...that one cannot take chances with the matters of heart!!!

( posted it as a blog because it became too long to post as a comment)

i am looking forward to some responses!!!

Critical Mass

Hello...

I would like to raise a question regarding the critical mass in a social movement...the question is: What really is the critical mass for a movement and the uninvolvement of some unrelated in the movement hampers the collective action???

Sometimes it happens that a major part of the society also keeps away from the movement but they always wat to havea critical voice about the system or collective action....

Today indian democracy is seen as very dismal picture painted by corruption, inresponsible politicians, religion based elections....and we as civil sciety alwys see it and criticize it.....it's very easy to comment about Dhoni's decision when we are sitting in front of TV...it's the same when we comment about our democracy...

Since last three general election we are not able to elect a single party to govern us....when democracy started in india,it was thought to be the collective voice of indians when it comes to power and government. But here comes the question of critical masses....Why we always have the time to criticize system being outside it??? Why can't we be a part of that system? I don't even expect that we should join politics...but atleast exercise the voting power....it is very bad situation when it comes to voting share of urban india,where we all civil society people are living....and even in that urban share most of the part is contributed by slum dwellers and poors of the urban india...where is that critical mass of intellectuals and civil society( not claiming that no one from these strata goes for voting)??

Our democracy is heavily dependent on our vote-our voice.....

We have failed to deliver it over the years....this is not the failure of democracy...but basically a failure of mass action....failure of individuals to identify them as a part of a larger system.......

Mr.Rahul Gandhi,Dr.Rajesh Tandon and we IRMANS!!!!-I

It was really good to see one of the evolving faces of indian politics Mr. Rahul Gandhi and the better part was to see the transition in his political skills which reflected that it takes time to mould an amateur into professional. Adaptibility is the cache word and Mr Gandhi was perfectly suited to the skill requirements that one requires to be a shrewd politician but not a perfect politicain.All of us had lot to say and a lot to ask during his session but its worth contemplating that what were we really heading for.Afterall we all knew that rahul gandhi was addressing a crowd that was much more closer to the India we represent the rural india and his knowledge rather i would say understanding of the underpriveled 30 millions of our country was quite limited.Moreover an english speaking politician clad in a khadi kurta, addressing his love for the poor people of our country was looking more of a pampered puppet with a definitive agenda who had general answers to all specific questions.I think that for the first time that the irma audi was totally packed.But move towards the next session by Mr.Rajesh Tandon and the whole auditorium was empty and it seemed as if that we the english speaking clan endorsing rural india too were faltering at somepoint.There was no one to hear and raise issues to a person who was mush closer to rural realities then rahul . The only difference between the two of them was that the one had the power to bring change and the other had the knowledge to bring change.Candidly speaking I would have not gone to hear Mr Rajesh Tandon but since i heard Rahul gandhi therefore I thought that the other one deserves more respect then the one who preaches and therefore i took the oppurtunity to hear Mr Tandon and it was really worth then all that crap in the briefing by Mr.Gandhi.I have a lots of issues to raise but we english speaking irmans are always sort of time therefore i will try to raise these issues in the next blog.This is only a small part of whatever i have in mind and the reality that all of us (irmans)try to escape with.

Is there anything termed Collective Action??

A collective action literally requires collectivity and an action. By a narrow sense, collectivity implies group work in which all the members participate and an action implies physical movement.
I think there is no such thing as collective action. It is like coming together of people who feel that a certain thing cannot be done single handedly. Why do people collect? They assemble to do a particular task, with some objective in mind and all efforts are targeted towards achieving that goal or objective. They are motivated by some self guiding interest which creates an inspiration in them to be a part of the collective action. After that the task is achieved, they again go back to their own lives and pursue their self interest.
All collective actions comprises of some self interest of individuals involved in it. Even if two friends come together, it is said that there is some sort of collective action happening. They like each other’s company, help each other in times of need, etc. But even if they are helping or caring each other, the hidden self interest is that they may derive happiness by helping that person or have a feel good factor to do so.
Take the example of any movement, why do people come out on streets or protest about it. The reason is that there is some hidden self interest factor which would be served if the movement is successful. If we take this thing to a metaphysical level, the person may participate in a movement just for having a sense of achievement, or just to be happy to have participated in the movement. Again the guiding factor is self interest
I am tending here to say that human being is selfish, doing things to have personal gains and this include even getting satisfaction or becoming happy. This is the inherent nature of the human being. I may be sounding quite a sadist and quite unreasonable in my argument but sometimes I feel like this way and sometimes look Collective Action in this line of thought.

Rohan Jain

Crtical thinking -----Need of the hour..

Today after attending the discussion of Rahul Gandhi, it is appearing that we really need the platform of critical thinking in our mind.

After attending the show, it seems to be that a lot of people became fan of Mr. Gandhi. But we really need to critically think and judge whatever he was telling, how far it was done or implemented. Even we can relate the same thing with Amartya Sen's critical voice which is the resultant of critical thinking through which empowerment can creep in.

Accepting what we are seeing or what we are hearing is very easy but the toughest job is to critcally think. It was appearing to be obvious that Rahul Gandhi was trying to spread the goodwill (not proved) of Youth Congress among the young minds. There is a difference between political thinking and critical thinking. He may be politically right but to how much degree he is accountable with his work is also under the scanner. It is very easy to say that " I am proud of everyparts of India"  to gain the soft corners of the masses, but difficult to prove it.

Whatever he tried to communicate to us , it was just the one side of the hill, which may not be in tune with other part.

So, this is my view about today's Rahul's session.....What do u say ????

Collective action in group projects/assignments and their changing forms

It is believed that output of a group is normally better qualitatively and quantitatively than sum of individual output provided certain conditions are met. I believe this is one of the reasons of students are expected to work in groups for majority of assignments. It is believed that in a group each individual brings his own perspective thereby enhance the quality of output and even increase the lead time of project delivery. But as per my experience and probably for most of you this paradigm may be untrue. There could be host of reasons for this, probably the task itself might not require equal participation from each member, the partners might be the ones to be blamed, difference of opinion itself might be the cause or it may be combination of these factors or some unmentioned factors that might be causes.
In order to counter this one pattern that might emerge in future is formation of common groups across all subjects with each member taking up responsibility for certain project or assignment. This in itself would also be another form of collective action.

Does Collective action guarantees equitable disribution of resources?

Collective action strategies require forms of organization based on the principle of achieving objectives gradually, starting with those that are less complex (building human and social capital) and moving on to those of greater complexity (eliminating poverty, modifying power relationships, deepening democracy). Second, the policies and strategies of some international agencies, governments and institutional donors, which demand immediate and visible results against complex objectives within three to five years, may be dramatic but they will not be effective, and much less sustainable.
Collective action is no guarantee by itself that opportunities or benefits will be distributed in an equitable manner among the different segments and strata of rural groups, communities or organizations. In particular, experience suggests that rural collective action has failed to achieve the expected results in terms of promoting gender equity. On the contrary, collective action often leads to the exacerbation of inequalities within rural societies. If the intent is to change power relationships in the direction of greater equity, this must be made explicit and actions of the magnitude necessary to achieve that goal must be taken.
The success or failure of collective action strategies intended to improve living conditions for rural populations will depend on internal factors (values, standards of conduct, formal rules, mechanisms for enforcing rules and commitments, type of leadership), external factors (communication and cooperation among various stakeholders, linkages to "engines of sustainability" in collective actions) and contextual factors (in cultural terms, individualism versus solidarity; in economic terms, competition versus cooperation; and in political terms, autocracy versus democracy).

But combination of all these three factors always guarantees success?

cooperative multilateralism

The great changes in communications in the context of globalization are opening new opportunities for shaping communities that can associate their interests, especially in the areas of civil security, personal security and human security. They also offer tools for more effective exchange among the different stakeholders. Widening the involvement of non-state stakeholders is one of the keys for improving the performance of governmental organizations in security matters. Joint responsibility in facing new threats, challenges and risks is evident. Similarly, cooperation is the most effective tool to face and overcome these challenges in a globalized world.
The above requires greater dialogue and exchange, as well as greater inter-institutional coordination and effective collective action, in the context of a flexible security architecture. The simultaneous and parallel development of activities associated with defense, on the one hand, and security, on the other, will constitute spaces where mutual feedback will take place.
All of this will be possible on the basis of strengthening cooperative multilateralism