“Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
The real battle is between the extinctionists and the humanists. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. – Elon Musk on Oct 31, 2023
I call upon all of you in the civil society in India and worldwide to initiate a dialog first with India’s External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar and then with Mr Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General.
With Dr, Jaishankar, we need a dialogue on the shocking abstention by India on the UNGA resolution on ‘humanitarian ceasefire’ in Palestine recently. With his claims of India’s leadership of the Global South and our long standing support for One State solution in Palestine where people of diverse faiths and ethnicities live harmoniously, we need to find out about his thinking behind the decision in the larger public interest both for people of Palestine and in India. I recently sent a message to him and have been trying to meet him through various channels.
(Responding to his call for greater public participation in global issues in a subsequent public address in Chennai, since his speech on ‘India and the World’ on 2nd November 2022 at IIM Calcutta I have written emails to his office on several occasions, but so far his Ministry has been unresponsive. What struck me in his IIM Calcutta speech was his reference to ‘weaponization of everything’ in an era ‘when the very nature of our existence is globalised’. I spoke with the former Indian ambassador to the UN, TS Tirumurti some time back in this regard but even that hasn’t helped. I also contacted another former Indian ambassador to the UN Syed Akbaruddin. Few days back I met a former Union Minister KJ Alphons on India’s shocking abstention. He said that he knows the reasons but cannot reveal in public).
Before, I share my proposal for global governance with my initiative of Gaia Nation as a ‘parallel structure’ to the United Nations, I briefly share where I come from, my assumptions, motivation and beliefs. In my view, the UN cannot be reformed due to its fatal flaw of Veto powers to aggressor countries who hold permanent seats in its apex body UN Security Council. I believe that if League of Nations was dissolved because it failed to stop the Second World War, we need to urgently question the UN’s effectiveness in the past 78 years of its existence to live up to its Charter. It begins with:
WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small…
Where I come from
Having carefully followed the geopolitical dynamics since 1999, when I discovered how the dominant dehumanising globalisation narrative touches upon every aspect of our lives, our well-being, our yearning for truth and justice, and threatens our very survival as human society with its hydra-headed tentacles in the guise of ‘Development’.In my chosen field of Mobility-as-a-Service that would end road accidents, traffic jams, unsafe and hazardous air pollution and reharmonized human habitats, I could clearly see how its trajectory swerved violently towards Homeland Security with the 9/11 incident in New York that further bolstered wasteful private car ownership.
Yet, I continued to pursue my vision and goals for the next two decades at huge personal costs. working with several companies from Mastek, TCS, Reva Electric to Logica till 2009 when I turned to political activism. I have presented my concepts, made several attempts to start ventures and pilot projects in India, UK, US and Singapore over this period. I presented papers on my solution framework at Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress in Japan in 2004 and in Sweden in 2009. Most recently, I restarted my earlier company TEN Systems & Services as MaaS Movement Company (www.maasmvmt.com) where we received enthusiastic support from partners and investors. However, once again, despite the humongous crises of road transport system, we ran into government hurdles with the ‘weaponization of the automobile industry’.
My central thesis, borrowing a phrase from Wolfgang Sachs, who wrote a series of essays on Development : A Guide to Ruins in the New Internationalist in 1992 that underline the One World that seeks to obliterate the Many Worlds of our innate diversity, is that we need a One World that sees our innate diversity of the Many Worlds as our integral parts that make the whole. Further, this diversity is synergistic, it strengthens our immunity as a human society just as the innate biodiversity of Mother Earth strengthens the immunity of the human body.
Proposed Framework of Gaia Nation
Gaia Nation is proposed as a One World Government with the proposed framework as follows:a. 80 Provinces with ~100 million people each for the world human population of ~8.1 billion (alternative estimate is ~7 billion). A province is formed by clustering of contiguous smaller countries and clustering of existing contiguous provinces and districts of bigger countries.
b. Each Province has 50 Districts with each district having a population of ~2 million. Every district has one city (with a population not exceeding 0.5 million and several villages with each village having a population of less than 10,000). Further guidelines for granularity at community and family levels for local consultation.
c. Each District is led by a District Head through consensus and in the last resort after due process of voting.
d. 50 District Heads from every Province select 5 District representatives for the Gaia Nation General Assembly.
e. Gaia Nation General Assembly with 80 Provinces has 400 Province representatives and another 100 members who are selected through nomination based on their area of specialisation for effective global governance.
f. The apex body for Gaia Nation for urgent and important global action such as to stop wars, genocide, mitigate climate crises, phase out fossil fuels is 11-member Peace & Harmony (PH) Council.
g. In close collaboration with the present UN set up, based on a close scrutiny of their need and relevance in a global body, we retain those departments and agencies.
h. The process of transition from UN to Gaia Nation must happen on a Mission Mode at the earliest possible and not later than 31 March 2024.
Plan of Action
Organise a civil society pressure group in India as an immediate response to the Global Emergency to engage with the External Affairs Minister of India and concerned people behind the scenes, for India to host Gaia Nation and for the Government of India to actively participate in this civil society-led initiative.Formation of Gaia Nation Constituent Assembly
a. Call for nominations for 11-member Gaia Nation Peace & Harmony Council. Public announcement through a press conference on 4 November 2023. Process to be completed in 3 weeks by 25 November 2023 in response to the Global Emergency with Palestine humanitarian crises as the focal point.b. The Peace & Harmony Council will draft the Gaia Nation Charter by or before 15 December 2023. Zero Draft for the same has been shared on the link here
c. Gaia Nation PHC forms the Gaia Nation Constituent Assembly comprising 5 Province Representatives each from 80 Provinces + 100 lateral nominations from around the world based on relevant specialisation.
d. GN PHC calls nominations for the Constituent Assembly by or before 15 December 2023 and completes the process of drafting Gaia Nation Constitution by 15 January 2024
e. Transition from UN to Gaia Nation of all necessary and relevant department and agencies is completed by 15 March 2024.
f. Gaia Nation is fully functional by or before 5 June 2024.
An untold love story in times of war and hatemongering in India
It is a beautiful love story of how the Indian landmass, for instance, breaks away from Gondwana and at 4 times the usual speed subsides into Eurasia to create the mighty Himalayas. It however carries the seeds and sacred memories of the biodiversity of Gondwana. It becomes a bridge between what is now called as Global North and Global South.
That is the story so far. Hopefully with our persistent efforts, love and compassion, peace and harmony will prevail once again. Amen! Om Shanti!
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*Convenor, GAIA Earth Sansad
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