Poverty feeds wealth:

April 25/2012: Nowhere has this been proven more apt than in developing countries like India. Images of poor starving Indian kids, hungry faces of infants in Somalia, the sad story of HIV positive patients in Brazil does much more for the ones pitching for these downtrodden souls than the ones in the pictures. The more misery these reports carry, the better it is. The most insurmountable amount of money has been pumped into this sector and philanthrophy has definitely become one of the most successful business ventures in recent times. All the money, total power over the powerless, all the praise and no questions asked. What better deal can one ask for. No wonder, a smart business mind like Bill Gates figured out soon enough that there is much more to be gained by focussing on the (Bill and Melinda Gates) Foundation than spending the same amount of time and effort in Microsoft. The man who started it all confidently backed out from day to day

responsibilities in Microsoft after seeing gold in the Foundation. Now with representatives in almost every developing and underdeveloped country, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is probably one of the richest and most powerful organisations in the world, second to none, probably not even to mammoths like Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation. But one thing that is common to all such organisations is the hunger for information. And with his background, Bill Gates has certainly realized that information is the key to modern day wealth troves. Organisations as huge as these work out a complex network of partners that include corporates, governments in various countries, international and local media, NGOs spread across the globe, grass root level workers, retired and serving bureaucrats along with other like-minded organisations, to complete the chain of information. The money they dole out is the passport to happiness for all involved. In its very own website, the Foundation has a paper on ‘The Financial Diaries: Investigating the Financial Lives of the Poor’ of South Africa where they have collected detailed information about the daily cash flow and spending habits of urban and rural households. The government of United States spends substantial amount of money to collect information or in other words ‘Intelligence’. Once you know the mind of the person sitting across the table, it gives you the power, an edge that is difficult to beat. Information gives you the wherewithal to not just overthrow but control the most difficult opponents.

One of the latest examples of this obsession with information is the Bihar Innovation Lab Project, an initiative backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which has been launched with support from the government of Bihar. Once this initiative is implemented, village children in Bihar would have to wear a ‘Taveez’ or amulet fitted with a radio frequency identification chip to track their medical history. The Foundation which has a $80 million partnership with the Bihar government in the health sector will also promote immunization of children and track reproductive history of women. No one has questioned how the government or any non government organisation has the authority to barter such private information on people’s lives without their permission. Unborn children have already been caught in this web of data. In the West, a doctor can lose his medical licence and be banned from practise if he in any way discloses the medical history of his patients. In many big private hospitals, the administration has to sign a confidentiality clause to this effect. The doctors or authorities can be sued for disclosing private information. But when it comes to the poor and the powerless, anything goes. The Gates Foundation which is non committal on launching poverty alleviation programmes in India has always shown keen interest in vaccines. Bill Gates who is interested to introduce five-in-one vaccines across five states in India including Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Kerala has been quoted as saying “I feel excited talking about vaccination”.

A recent health report published in a website (sott.net) has accused the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation of backing untested vaccines in India causing a “new wave of polio-like paralysis”. The Foundation’s program called ‘The Last Mile: Eradicating polio in India’ showcased how the numbers have dropped. But experts agree that wild polio virus statistics have been replaced by polio from vaccines and non polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP). Over 47,000 cases of NPAFP were reported in India in 2011 alone. Apparently, the vaccine polio viruses also cause polio paralysis. The Salk vaccine has also been associated with the surge in cancer cases. The Oral Polio Vaccine has been phased out in Western countries because of adverse side effects but is being pushed to Third World countries under the humanitarian cover. In the 21st Century, information has become synonymous with wealth. People are willing to pay heavy amounts for access to the information highway. At such a juncture, India is willingly opening its doors, windows and every other passage into the very bedrooms of its people. We are under scrutiny every moment. From banking institutions to credit card companies, local governments to international powers, everyone wants a pound of our flesh and bones. Starting from the Below Poverty Line (BPL) card to the fancier UIDs, everywhere it is a mesh where a citizen has to spew out the most personal of information. Now with various states and the Union government getting into the act of putting ‘dog’ tags, the country’s future generations’ physical and mental health, food, personal lives, preferences in clothing, language, entertainment and all else that describes a ‘life’ lies exposed, accounted for and defenceless. We all could be manipulated, injected, tormented or made to act and react the way some unseen powers may wish.