Education Minister and Television

Today (April 29) was a less busy day compared to yesterday, but there were things to be very happy about. The Deputy Minister for Education wanted me and Juan to meet her at 4 pm. We reached there before time and had to wait for some time to see her. The place was a relatively unimposing building, but there were some security people were posted. But I thought it was so much more accessible than the office of a minister of the Kerala government (which itself is simpler than those of other states). Nicolas Cabellero, who was apparently close to her, and Gladys Canese from MMSL were also present and it was he who mainly talked to her.

The minister turned out to be rather young for a senior politician, but she was very pleasant and informal. The discussion was mainly in Spanish because the Minister apparently was not fluent in English. It was mostly Nicolas and Juan who spoke. Nico put forward some suggestions to the Minster that she apparently favoured. It was all about introducing Free Software in the high schools, something on Free Hardware and about introducing some high level IT. I am not clear about all of them, but Nico is supposed to send me a mail where he will describe the main thrust areas.

Discussing with the Vice Minister of Education. Lucho sits separately, disinterested. Nicolas Cabellero did most of the talking. Gladys is next to him.
The Minister is all attention, and Juan is relatively quiet.
One for the records. The Minister next to me, with Nicolas, Gladys and Juan

The next place was the TV station where they had scheduled a programme with Juan and me. Going to the TV station was just like going to any other place, unlike in India where one has to go through security checks. We just walked in and told them who we were and why we were there, and we were asked to wait till the studio was ready.

Waiting in front of the TV studio. It was rather cold that night.

After some time, a lady invited us inside and dis a minimal make up on us. Though Lucho was person who took us there, he opted not to be in the programme. We then went to the studio where the news was being telecast. We waited on another side where the programme was scheduled to be shot. The programme started after the news and the first item was an interview with an agriculture guy. He was talking about GM crops in a favourable way and Juan was getting angry with him.

The agriculture guy promoting GM crops

After his interview, we were invited and Juan and I sat opposite each other with the interviewer on my left. Since the programme was in Spanish, most of the discussion was with Juan, who was brilliant. He started by saying that it was good to speak after a person who favoured GM food because that was the wrong thing to do. And that seems to have got the favour from the interviewer (who turned out to be quite a senior guy in the TV company, the Executive Director, in fact). His questions to me were mainly about the IT at school programme. But at one point, he asked me why anyone should be afraid of freedom. I couldn't understand why he was asking such a question (I still don't), but answered, after some initial fumbling, that people who come out of a long period of control could be afraid of freedom because there was no one to tell them what they should do, and they were not able to take their own decisions. Later, Juan told me that my reply was good. The interviewer gave us his cards and we left quickly because the shooting of the next programme was to start. Later, Juan told me that there were several mails to the station during our programme and they were all in favour, even wanting to get in touch with us (so apparently our emails were shown on the screen). On the other hand, the mails that they go when the first guy was talking were all negative. Good reason for the Executive Director to feel happy with us.

Juan and I at the TV show
That is me on TV in Paraguay

Paraguay

I am writing this from Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay. The first impressions I got when I was travelling from the airport to the hotel by car was the similarity in landscape with Kerala, and the general cleanliness of the environment. There was very little litter on the streets or garbage on the sidewalks. The air was cool and the traffic was light, as it used to be in Bangalore a couple of decades back. Overall a nice place, I thought. I came here for speaking at a Free Software conference, Free Software Asuncion 2010, and I was happy that this was such a nice place. I had collected data on Paraguay for my presentation and it had shown that the literacy was something like 91%. Overall, I thought, this place has similarities to Kerala. The interest the government is showing in Free Software is another factor that confirmed this thinking. I was also happy to see that Asuncion had been voted the cheapest city in the world five consecutive times.

Paraguay is similar to Kerala in other respects also. The country has very few industries, and has to depend on imports even for food, even though it is an agricultural economy. Further, as in any Latin American country, the people talk a lot and do much less. We may find similar characteristics in Kerala too, though saying so would be automatically be very controversial. However, Paraguay is also very different from Kerala in that it has a much larger area (about ten times that of Kerala) but much less population (about a fifth of Kerala) so that the average population density is about 15 per square kilometer whereas it is close to a thousand in Kerala.

But in just a couple of days I started realising that these similarities were superficial. One night about ten of us were walking to a restaurant when a person stopped us full of concern and asked us where we were going. When someone in the group told him, he told us that it was dangerous to go beyond the place where the restaurant was situated. He had thought that we were out just for a walk. The next day, as three of us went in search of a restaurant, we had to beat a hasty retreat from one point because one of us realised that it was dangerous to go further. I was told that a young tough guy could suddenly attack us with a knife or a gun. Well, this is something very unfamiliar in most parts of India.

Later, I learnt that there was a heavy concentration of population in the region around Asuncion. To the north was a large very thinly populated area. And in that area was a small region dominated by German immigrants who have kept the local people as virtual slaves, and the government had almost no control over the region. Well, this again is something not at all familiar in India. To the East of this region, near the border to Brazil, apparently there is a large community that lived on producing marijuana, and they were mostly Brazilian immigrants. In fact, they thought themselves to be Brazilians, and I believe they have even hoisted flags in schools there.

Though the country is basically an agricultural country, the land is held by a very few people. I am told that 90% of the land is with 2% of the people. The statistics on education seems to be suspect. Almost everything is imported. Though the country produces a lot of electricity, it is in collaboration with a couple of other countries, and Paraguay uses only a tiny percentage of the power it produces. People hardly read newspapers, but there are a large number of glossy (that is silly) magazines that are apparently read mainly by the rich. How different from Kerala! How easily appearances can deceive!