How the Swatantra Divas 2018 pankha came to be

A year ago, those privileged enough to be invited to the Swatantra Divas (Independence Day) celebrations at Red Fort, New Delhi, finding the weather warm and the nearest pedestal fans too far away to be of any comfort, gripped their invitations firmly and used the stiff, printed souvenirs as fans while listening to Prime Minister Narendra Modi speak.

They were under-secretaries, deputy secretaries, directors, joint secretaries, additional secretaries and secretaries of what are called by the Ministry of Defence (it’s their show on 15 August) “attached and subordinate offices, commissions, public sector undertakings, autonomous bodies” of the Government of India. (Officers below the rank of under-secretary who are “desirous of witnessing this ceremony” may be accommodated “subject to availability of seats”.)

The defence brass (from the rank of Lieutenant General and above, and their equivalents from the three services, but also from the Armed Forces Tribunal, Inter Services Organisations, Armed Forces Medical Services, Border Roads Organisation, Directorate General of Quality Assurance, Kendriya Sainik Board, etcetera) were also present. They, being rather more used to sultry conditions outdoors than the babus, seldom fan their faces.

There are several thousand invitees, and a good number of them are fanning themselves with the expensively printed souvenir, but why not give them a true fan, a beautiful pankha (a hand fan), which they can use and which will do the work of keeping them cool and which they can take home with pleasure. So thought Jaya Jaitly (of Dastkari Haat Samiti) to herself and resolved that on Swatantra Divas of the next year, 2018 and the 72nd Independence Day, there must be a pankha at hand for every one of those invited.

On 15 August 2018, there will be a pankha for each invited guest to the Swatantra Divas celebration. This is the outcome of a lanmark collaboration between Trifed (an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of Tribal Affairs) and the Ministry of Defence.

“This demonstrates the government’s care and concern for sustaining simple livelihoods practiced in the rural and under-developed areas that are home to India’s tribal population,” Trifed has explained. “It also brings into focus eco-friendly goods. The pankhas we create use natural materials, unlike plastic and non-biodegradable products which only add to our crisis of pollution.”

The pankhas of Swatantra Divas 2018 helps to keep the crafts alive which would otherwise languish because of the lack of demand. When the turn of a switch can set a desk fan running, who gives the humble, but beautifully painted and designed pankha a second look? “The pankhas offer comfort and dignity in the heat and humidity,” says Tribes India of the handicraft, which have been sourced from many artisans in Rajasthan, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Gujarat and Jharkhand.

Tribes India supports almost 70,000 tribal artisans all over India by directly buying from them at at fair and remunerative prices, paying them in full for their work and then retailing the products through 92 retail outlets. spread far and wide in the country. If you are not likely to be the babu getting hot under the collar on 15 August 2018, nor the retired brasshat embellishing your memoirs with one last tale that the pankha in your hand reminded you about, then Tribes India can provide you one from its online store, which is sure, as it says, “to bring back memories of childhood when these pankhas were a permanent fixture in every household with stories woven around it by your grandparents”.

Those familiar with Dilli Haat will recognise right away the source of the creative leap needed to turn a seat in the middle of an Independence Day celebration into podium for the simple yet attractive tribal pankha. It is the Dastkari Haat Samiti, a national association of Indian crafts people established in 1986 by social and political activist, writer, and crafts patron Jaya Jaitly. It consists of a large membership of crafts persons as individuals, family units, cooperatives, associations and societies.

“We believe in sustaining traditional skills and livelihoods and in ensuring the continuity of India’s cultural heritage through crafts, arts and textiles by according respect and dignity to practitioners of handwork,” says the Samiti about its view and purpose. “We work to raise the social and economic status of crafts persons by infusing innovation and introducing new modes of creativity to widen the perspective of crafts persons so that they can be part of the contemporary world and marketplace.”

Those characteristics that were seen as weaknesses in the craft sector, such as lack of standardisation, the inability to provide large quantities of any one given item, inexpensive and sometimes earthy packaging methods, are areas of strength in a world where everything else is homogenous, synthetic (and boring). Today in India there is a new awareness of eco-friendly lifestyles, organic products and vegetable-dyed fabrics, the incredible potential of embroideries and jute ware, and the use of silk floss, banana fibre and other such materials to produce handmade paper.

I see the Swatantra Divas 2018 pankha as the most authentic proof that ‘Make in India’ emerges first and foremost from our rural homes and our local knowledge systems, to provide handmade products from a vast resource base that exists nowhere else in the world.

Three views of monsoon 2018

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on 16 April had issued its first long range forecast for the 2018 South-West Monsoon season, which the IMD has historically taken to be 1 June to 30 September. The IMD had said that the “monsoon seasonal rainfall is likely to be 97% of the Long Period Average with a model error of ± 5%”. The IMD had also said that its forecast “suggests maximum probability for normal monsoon rainfall (96%-104% of the long period average) and low probability for deficient rainfall during the season”.

In early June, the IMD will issue its second long range forecast for the 2018 monsoon. Until then, I have studied three of the more reliable (in my view) international multi-model ensemble forecasts for the monsoon. What are ensemble forecasts? Each consists of several separate forecasts (some ensembles use 50) forecasts made by the same computer model – these are run on super-computers such as the High Performance Computer System of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (one is at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune with 4.0 petaflops capacity and the other at the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting in Noida with 2.8 petaflops capacity).

The monsoon 2018 forecast for three-month blocks of the Multi-Model Ensemble (MME), USA National Centers for Environmental Prediction

The separate forecasts that make up one ensemble are all activated from the same starting time. The starting conditions for each differ from each other to account as far as possible for the staggering number of climatological, atmospheric, terrestrial and oceanographic variables that affect and influence our monsoon. The differences between these ensemble members tend to grow as the forecast travels two, three, four and more months ahead of the present.

I have considered the ensemble forecasts for the 2018 monsoon of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF), the NOAA Climate Prediction Center and the Multi-Model Ensemble (MME) of the USA National Centers for Environmental Prediction. In this order, I find that the ECMWF forecast is somewhat pessimistic, the NOAA CPC is largely neutral and the MME is optimistic. The forecasting periods are in blocks of three months.

I have considered the ensemble forecasts for the 2018 monsoon of the Multi-Model Ensemble (MME) of the USA National Centers for Environmental Prediction, the NOAA Climate Prediction Center and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF). In this order, I find that the MME is optimistic, the NOAA CPC is largely neutral and the ECMWF forecast is somewhat pessimistic.

Here are the details:

(1) The MME forecast, precipitation anomalies relative to the period 1993-2016, based on initial conditions calculated at the beginning of May 2018.
June July August (JJA) – west coast and Konkan, coastal Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, West Bengal, part of the North-East, the entire upper, middle and lower Gangetic region (Uttarakhand, Himachal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand), Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Telengana to have up to +1 mm/day. Rest of India other than Gujarat (-0.5 mm/day) normal.
July August September (JAS) – Gujarat to have up to -1 mm/day, Rajasthan up to -0.5 mm/day, Sikkim, Brahmaputra valley and Arunachal Pradesh up to -0.5 mm/day. Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand up to +0.5 mm/day, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and West Bengal up to +0.5 mm/day. Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu up to -0.5 mm/day.
August September October (ASO) – Gujarat up to -0.5 mm/day. Tamil Nadu up to -1 mm/day. Kerala and adjacent Karnataka up to -0.5 mm/day. Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal up to +1 mm/day. Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh up to +0.5 mm/day
September October November (SON) – Tamil Nadu, Kerala and adjacent Karnataka up to -1 mm/day. Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand up to +0.5 mm/day.

(2) The NOAA CPC forecast, seasonal precipitation anomalies using initial conditions of 30 April 2018 to 9 May 2018.
May June July (MJJ) – for most of India a normal reading (+0.5 to -0.5 mm/day fluctuation) and for the west coastal, Konkan, Kerala, south Tamil Nadu and coastal Andhra Pradesh areas variation of up to +1.5 mm/day.
June July August (JJA) – for most of India a normal reading (+0.5 to -0.5 mm/day fluctuation).
July August September (JAS) – normal for most of India. Some areas in the central Deccan plateau, on the west coast and east coast variation of up to -1 mm/day.

(3) The ECMWF forecast, mean precipitation anomaly based on climate period data of 1993-2016 and initial conditions as on 1 May 2018.
June July August (JJA) – all of the southern peninsula and part of the Deccan region (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, part of Telengana) up to -100 mm for the period. West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh up to +100 mm for the period.
July August September (JAS) – all of the southern peninsula and the Deccan region – Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, part of Telengana and Maharashtra up to -100 mm for the period.
August September October (ASO) – Maharashtra, Telegana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka up to -100 mm for the period.
September October November (SON) – Central and western India, eastern states and entire Gangetic region up to -50 mm for the period.