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THE APOCALYPSE NOW: Pathways to building a nation called Kenya
Kenya is on the brink of plummeting into the abyss of political catastrophe. The government and the opposition are locked in an existential contest for Kenya's leadership. Either the government will cement its hold on power by employing all means possible (illicit not excluded) or the opposition National Super Alliance (NASA) will wrench power in a way not yet anticipated (but adjudged illegal). Such is the fix that my people would say, "Thuol odonjo e ko" (The snake has entered the guard, would we salvage the milk or the gourd?)
Could it be that Kenya is headed for apocalyptic politics?
Critics of this government accuse it of wantonly undermining Kenya's democratic principles by infringing on democratic accountability, individual rights and the rule of law. This has been manifested in its preference for tyranny rather than dialogue as a response to pressure from the opposition and other critics. Toiling to deter and deal with dissidents, the State has turned to its vast repressive apparatus on Kenyans perceived as a threat.
The repeat election on 26 October exposed what has been a closely-kept secret: a government appearing strong on the outside but whose power remains brittle at its core.
The first victims of the State's assault have been democratic institutions. The opposition politicians are harassed and picked up by police on flimsy charges. Basic freedoms of expression and assembly have been restricted in practice, though not in law. Elections have become choreographed performances that are neither free nor fair. At its core, this assault has been motivated by the regime's desire to protect power and accumulate wealth. The government purports to run the country according to the tenets of Western democracy. What we have, however, is a democratic facade, paying lip service to those tenets even as they are subverted.
The repeat election on 26 October exposed what has been a closely-kept secret: a government appearing strong on the outside but whose power remains brittle at its core. It is apparent that the regime projects a nimbus of invincibility that masks the shallow roots of its public support. What else would necessitate the massaging of votes, the muzzling of civil society organisations, the swamping of social media with propaganda and the hyping of approval ratings and other forms of manufactured consent?
NASA's hopes of assuming power have been reliant on the independence of the country's institutions. The opposition demands that the principles of democracy be applied in toto. When the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) failed to conduct a free and fair election on 8 August 2017, they said that these principles had been manipulated or distorted. The opposition threatened to unleash its final bullet, "wacha kiumane" (let hell break loose). This meant that it would arbitrate its case on the streets, thus confronting a government ready to crush protests even if lives were lost.
The opposition has a large and increasingly radicalised and aggrieved following. These people are determined to change their situation no matter the consequences – anarchy or death don't matter.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his book Not in God's Name, explained that: "Apocalyptic politics is the strange phenomenon of a revolutionary movement whose gaze is firmly fixed on the past. It arises at times of destabilising change and speaks to those who feel unjustly left behind."
In messianic politics, people believe that the destination is close and God is beckoning. "Hence the readiness of messianic militants to welcome even to initiate the terrors that proceed the last days", writes Michael Walzer. "Hence the strange politics of the worse the better and hence the will to sin, to risk any crime for the sake of the end."
The opposition's followers had high hopes of reaching "Canaan" this time around. The manipulation and illegality of the election stole this hope, and with it went the aspiration for change. They were stranded
"wondering between two worlds,
one dead the other powerless to be born."
(Matthew Arnold, Stanzas from the Grande
Chartreuse [c1850)
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his book Not in God's Name, explained that: "Apocalyptic politics is the strange phenomenon of a revolutionary movement whose gaze is firmly fixed on the past. It arises at times of destabilising change and speaks to those who feel unjustly left behind." It is the longing for the end of time in the midst of time, the search for redemption now. That is why this political position suspends the normal rules that restrain people from murdering the innocent.
It is like Samson in the Temple of the Philistines, bringing down the building on his enemies but destroying himself in the process.
If the event of Raila's return from his USA trip is indicative of the future, then I am certain we are on the cusp of revolt and Armageddon. The disenfranchisement in the country must be addressed, and all should have an opportunity to prosper. With increasingly dim prospects for a livelihood, health care and a future to latch on to, the protesting opposition followers cannot be deader than they are already. It's already tragic.
Nowhere is this condition as explicit as in the myth of Sisyphus. Condemned by the gods to roll a rock to the top of a mountain, whereupon its own weight makes it fall back down again, Sisyphus was trapped in this perpetually futile labour. He was condemned to everlasting torment and the accompanying despair of knowing that his efforts were pointless. Efforts to bring about change in Kenya have also been futile. Hopes hinged on the Constitution of Kenya 2010 did not materialise.
Intriguingly, Albert Camus, the French philosopher, noticed defiance in Sisyphus at the moment he goes back down the mountain. The consciousness of his fate is the tragedy, yet consciousness also allows Sisyphus to scorn the gods, providing a small measure of satisfaction. There is a mingling of satisfaction and tragedy, which is reflected in the opposition followers' loaded scorn in the face of police brutality: "I would rather die standing than kneeling."
Yet we delude ourselves when we claim that the problems facing Kenya are due to individual politicians. Ignoring these seismic shifts that undermine the foundations of the country's democracy and fault Raila and his followers' street protests is also cheeky dishonesty.
The opposition's unexpected decision to go to the Supreme Court shifted the direction of events and possibly averted a grave bloody encounter. The Supreme Court judges, acting according to their conscience, kept Kenya on the narrow pass between anarchy and tyranny, on the narrow way of peace. In asserting their independence, they ruled to nullify the election and called for repeat polls. This salvaged the country by redirecting energies towards reforms. The opposition recognised that pursuing the reform of independent bodies would build lasting peace for the country, and therefore demanded changes and openness within the vilified IEBC.
The opposition also sought reforms of the laws that the Supreme Court applied to nullify the polls. They opted to regularise the "irregularities" and make illegalities "legal", so to speak. Parliament, without opposition members, made changes in law apparently to make it easy for Jubilee to win in the repeat polls. This was a significant and definitive decision that, as we shall learn, took the country away from the path of peace back to the sinking sands of uncertainty. The resulting confusion at the IEBC, working under duress and alleged pressure from the State, forced a key member of the commission to quit. The president is believed to have tacitly supported the confusion; he had to win in the repeat election and so made these decisions willfully.
Yet we delude ourselves when we claim that the problems facing Kenya are due to individual politicians. Ignoring these seismic shifts that undermine the foundations of the country's democracy and fault Raila and his followers' street protests is also cheeky dishonesty. Why could we not see the obvious in the president's decisions? That he first repudiated the faith on which the nation was founded – the rule of law and therefore the Judiciary and the Constitution. Then the precepts that governed the country, the independent institutions of the nation: the police force, IEBC, the Directorate of Public Prosecutions, all which were so systematically strangled that they effectively operate under instruction "from anonymous sources" (guessing who these sources are is not difficult). The stifling of public freedoms and the vigour with which civil society organisations were hunted threatened the moral framework that gave us the impetus for a free society under the Constitution of Kenya 2010.
These are the terrifying decisions he made. They are the kind of decisions we are making all over the world at this time. The entire global monetary crisis of 2008 was based upon a framework that defies the moral law of God. This framework allows you to violate the rules, to cheat in elections and to build your own storehouses while exploiting others and eliminating anyone who stands in your way. The truth has been simplified to the most elemental choice: agree or die. We have desecrated the very essence of human life, which is why the normal rules that restrain people from murdering the innocent are suspended. Very seldom do we talk about the right to be human. And we think we can do all of this with impunity? These are the issues that are strangling Kenya.
Consequently, the opposition lost patience. Essentially, it wanted a revolution without the slow process of transformation. Its decision to withdraw from the rescheduled election of 26 October 2017 – informed by the failure of the IEBC to act independently and to reform – reflects this frustration. In the determination to act for change, the opposition resorted to the setting up of People's Assemblies at the county levels across the nation, as it were, invoking the sovereignty of the people as enshrined in the Constitution. It won't accept Uhuru as president, instead demanding to swear in Odinga as the people's president (initially scheduled for the 12 December 2017 but which took place on 30 January 2018). The details of this and how it will sit in law is still opaque. Here are an ominous sign of imminent legal confrontations and conflicts.
These political protagonists look to use power in the place of persuasion, to use daggers instead of debate. There are no listening ears among them or their followers. The government resorts to tyranny and brutal force, while the opposition urges the masses to revolt and spread anarchy.
What Prof. Ogude observed of the post-Kenyatta State can be said of this regime – an increase in what may be called "an ethnocratic state" whose basic political rhetoric is nation-building, while in practice it undermines any real desire for nationhood.
What ails Kenya's politics is not ethnicity per se. The seismic events of 2002 – when the organised opposition seized power – proved that Kenyans can come round. Such coming together, however, has the potential to inflame violence, as we would witness five years later.
Prof. James Ogude, a Senior Research Fellow and Director at the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria, exposed the popular use of "ethnicity as a means to establishing difference or exclusivity for political expediency". Holders of power are bent on wantonly wrenching the thin web that binds Kenya. They dutifully ape the nation's founding fathers, who established the country on the ethnic exclusion of certain communities perceived to be a threat to the State. What Prof. Ogude observed of the post-Kenyatta State can be said of this regime – an increase in what may be called "an ethnocratic state" whose basic political rhetoric is nation-building, while in practice it undermines any real desire for nationhood. It is unfortunate that political leaders goad ethnic hostilities like the bullfighters in Khayeka, Kakamega County. They have weaponised ethnicity.
The real shame has been the failure to transition from ethnic-based to ideologically-based politics. Aggravating this situation is the absence of concrete class markings, which allows this void to be filled with tribalism. We are ruined when in the absence of proper political ideology, tribalism has filled the vacuum. Prof. Colin Leys, writing in the Institute of Development Studies Bulletin 7(3): Underdevelopment in Kenya, The Political Economy of Neo-Colonialism affirmed this when he said, "'Tribalism is in the first instance an ideological phenomenon. Essentially, it consists in the fact that people identify other exploited people as the source of their insecurity and frustrations, rather than their common exploiters."
Of course, this does not happen "spontaneously". Kenyans are victims of political leaders who create this situation. The challenge, therefore, goes beyond individual politicians and tribalism, and to our refusal to agitate for the establishment of effective democratic institutions to serve all Kenyans.
Tribalism serves our politicians by retarding the development of mass class-consciousness, which in turn is achieved by deliberate recasting of such issues into tribal terms. Colins Legum, in his book Africa Since Independence, observes how "politicians seek to secure their class position by constructing inter-tribal patron-client hierarchies, defining social conflicts in terms of ethnic relationships…" What this argument reveals also is that, although ethnic categories have intrinsic reasons for existence, it is not a given that ethnic groups must develop on the basis of mutual hostility and competition.
The book of Genesis in the Bible is about the willingness to accord dignity to the other rather than see them as a threat. The classification of "others" as threats has enabled pathological dualism that, according to Sacks, "divides humanity into children of darkness and of light, all good among us but all evil in the others".
The book of Genesis in the Bible is about the willingness to accord dignity to the other rather than see them as a threat. The classification of "others" as threats has enabled pathological dualism that, according to Sacks, "divides humanity into children of darkness and of light, all good among us but all evil in the others".
When a section of Kenyans would commit evil just to prevent Odinga from being president, we see an outright refusal to accept the partially good intentions of others with whom, according to Thomas Melton, "we are unconsciously proclaiming our own malice, our own intolerance, our own lack of realism, our own ethical and political quackery." This kind of dualism must be defeated if Kenya is to become a nation.
One way out of this is role reversal. Rabbi Sacks suggests: "The way we learn not to commit evil is to experience an event from the perspective of the victim. That is what (Biblical) Joseph is forcing his brothers to do. He educates them in otherness through role reversal."
Joseph forces his brothers to recognise that just as a brother can be a stranger (when kept at a distance), so a stranger can turn out to be a brother. Cain is able to commit murder because he asks, "Am I my brothers' keeper?" He refuses to feel the pain of Abel but cares only about his rejected offering. On the contrary, in showing that he is his brother's keeper, Judah's repentance redeems not only his own earlier sin but also Cain's. No wonder then that the nation of Israel began in Egypt with slaves so that they could know from the inside what it feels like to be on the other side.
Going forward, let truth be the foundation upon which Kenya is built. History is replete with evidence that truth can be betrayed and systems can be manipulated in the service of oppression and injustice. This has been the story of Kenya.
But aren't these the challenges also confronting the human family now, calling us to look beyond those dangers? The opposition needs to remain committed to good governance and resist half-measure application of democratic principles, individual rights and the rule of law. The government that calls on all to respect the Constitution must also be exemplary in adhering to the tenets of the Constitution. This is dealing with each other truthfully.
Addressing civil and political leaders and members of the diplomatic corps in the Presidential Palace in Prague on 26 September 2009, Pope Benedict XVI could have as well been addressing Kenya's stalemate today when he said: "The thirst for truth, beauty, and goodness, implanted in all men and women by the Creator, is meant to draw people together in the quest for justice, freedom, and peace." He questions what is more inhuman and destructive than the cynicism which would deny the grandeur of our human quest for truth, and the relativism that corrodes the very values which inspire the building of a united and fraternal world. It is imperative, therefore, to place confidence in our innate capacity to crave for and grasp the truth and allow this confidence to point us to work for the Kenya we want.
Our priority must be to pursue principle above pragmatism. To get there, we must admit that while pragmatism determines the greater part of politics, it must never be at the expense of moral principles.
Now, however, we need to also embrace the truth with all its ramifications. Kenyans have a capacity for doing right and upholding the principles of democracy, as demonstrated in the 2002 election and the referendum that yielded the 2010 Constitution. This will ensure an end to election theft. I doubt there is need for more laws. I also do not imagine that changing people at the helm of failing institutions like the IEBC, without a shift in attitude, will change the situation.
Our priority must be to pursue principle above pragmatism. To get there, we must admit that while pragmatism determines the greater part of politics, it must never be at the expense of moral principles. For the professional politician, judge, administrator of justice or manager of the country's crucial institutions, this means the priority of conscience above mere expediency. This will not be without a cost. Cardinal Ratzinger warns: "To live by the priority of moral principle over pragmatism requires moral courage. To adhere to your (genuinely moral) principles, must bring you into conflict with the powers and principalities of this world." And for politics to recover its sense of direction, argues Ratzinger, what is needed is the recovery and public recognition of those moral norms that are universally valid.
In the end, we need to pursue truth to its logical conclusion. Attempts to bridge the divide and solve the present crisis have focused on reconciliation. Needless to say, these have so far been futile, for want of honest mediators. The depth of the crisis transcends a simple reconciliation between President Kenyatta and Mr. Odinga. Reconciliation must be grounded in repentance, which means a complete change in attitude and behaviour. A role reversal would be the best way of entering the world of those with "no stake in the economy" and whose rights have been trampled again and again.
We must urgently move away from the path of apocalyptic politics and affirm, through reforms, the national institutions that accommodate us all. The day these conflicts are transformed into conciliation will be the beginning of our journey to becoming members of one family called Kenya.
Fire and Chaos: Mathare's Chang'aa Problem and the Optics of Policing
In the 1980s and 1990s parts of Mathare gradually became the epicenter of the large scale production and distribution in Nairobi of chang'aa and a booming local economy emerged that has since become a major source of contestation between the police and the residents.
On Tuesday 2 April 2019, social workers, youth group members, activists and friends, all residents of Mathare in Nairobi, hurdled together on the top floor of the Macharia building near the Olympic petrol station at Juja road as they watched in horror, as two schools were set alight by police. Thick, black smoke circled up and soon blanketed the entire valley. Alongside the two schools, another thirty or so houses quickly burned down to ashes in the raging fire. People raced to quell the fire with buckets of water, but were blocked by police in their tracks. Furious shouts filled the air as licking flames destroyed what residents had built over decades; businesses, schools and homes, all gone in minutes.
This criminal act of arson by police of a part of a Nairobi neighborhood took place on the third day of a raid against the local alcohol economy, spearheaded by the notorious 'killer cop' Rashid. This police officer gained notoriety after being filmed executing two teenagers on a busy street in Eastleigh in broad daylight on 31 March 2017. Ironically, the raid against the local alcohol economy in Mathare under his command started exactly two years later, on Sunday 31 March 2019. In between, Rashid has killed, maimed and harassed many people, especially young and poor men, in Mathare and beyond, and with absolute impunity.
Subsequently, Rashid was free to walk into Mathare on the aforementioned Sunday while guiding a troop of police officers down the valley where they barged into homes and bars to destroy alcohol and other belongings of local business owners and their employees. Shockingly, the Pangani OCS (Officer Commanding Police Station) and the Area Chief both claimed to 'have had nothing to do with the raid', despite eyewitnesses who stated that regular police and AP officers and equipment (such as a well-known land rover used by AP) were employed during the raid. Residents wondered how a full-blown war be waged on residents for days by police without the police officers in charge 'having nothing to do with it'?
As early as 1930s, women who settled in abandoned parts of the quarry that later came to be known as Mathare earned money through sex work and selling home-brewed alcohol such as busaa and chang'aa
That first Sunday night of fear chaos and gunshots transpired without dead bodies, but many had lost weeks of work and earnings, and others nursed bruises and deep cuts from trying to defend homes and properties from the pillaging police. One of us found his grandmother crying on Monday morning; a woman who has distilled and sold alcohol for more than four decades and has raised her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren while doing so. The police had poured her kangara, the distilling mixture, which had been almost ready for cooking. She lost 4000 shillings, her monthly earnings, and was left in deep debt. Thousands of small business owners and their employees and tens of thousands of their dependents suffered the same fate. On Monday, all the jiko's ('kitchens') near the river remained closed; no one could work while the police patrolled in search of alcohol and production tools to destroy. This went on for yet another day and night, until on Tuesday tensions between angry residents and police culminated into protests by alcohol distillers.
History of the local alcohol economy
To understand the impact of this crackdown on people living and working in Mathare, a brief insight into the history of the alcohol economy is crucial. As early as 1930s, women who settled in abandoned parts of the quarry that later came to be known as Mathare earned money through sex work and selling home-brewed alcohol such as busaa and chang'aa. This area was wedged in by several military and police bases, and the influx of soldiers during the war period (1940-45) attracted a growing number of women in search of work. These women were among the many young people who were forced to leave their homesteads in the colonial confinements of people called 'Native Reserves' in the rural areas following soil erosion, population pressures and the demand for 'hut tax' (which had to be paid in cash to the colonial government). Even if women comprised the majority of residents in Mathare from the onset, men increasingly migrated to live here—often after being chased from colonial settler farms when mechanization of farm work took hold during the late 1930s. Following these and other developments, Mathare became the nexus of urban resistance against the colonial government and formed an important node in the Kenya Land and Freedom Armies (KLFAs)—also known as 'Mau Mau'.
After independence in 1963, alcohol production and distribution remained a home-based economy, and houses often doubled as bars where alcohol and sexual services were sold. It was not until the 1980s and 1990s that parts of Mathare (especially the following villages: Bondeni, Shantit and Mabatani) gradually became the epicenter of the largescale production and distribution in Nairobi of chang'aa. According to several bar owners we spoke with, the influx of rural-urban migrants during this period boosted the selling of chang'aa to unprecedented levels. Also, they soon found that the profit margins for chang'aa were much higher than for instance busaa, and soon multiple cooking sites emerged along the banks of the Mathare river. Profit margins have fallen significantly since the 1990s, following a convergence of rising food prices (especially a type of molasses called ngutu) and increasing demands for police bribes since the 2000s. Still, the local alcohol economy sustains thousands of people in Mathare directly and is fundamental to most other economic activities located here.
For example, a major shortage of firewood often plagues adjacent neighborhoods, but every other small business on Mau Mau Avenue in Bondeni, a neighborhood in Mathare, sells large quantities of this wood. These firewood sellers have arrangements with construction companies for frequent early morning deliveries. Old wood from scaffolding at construction sites is transported to the area in trucks so large they can barely enter the ghetto. Every day, these trucks drop off mountains of firewood intended to fuel the widespread and constant distillation of alcohol at the sites near the river. At the same time, young men in search of work hang around these businesses from sunrise to midday to help offload the bulks of firewood and chop them into smaller pieces in return for a small stipend. Suffice to say that thousands more depend indirectly on the alcohol economy in Mathare. All this provides some insight into the abrupt devastation to the livelihoods of thousands and thousands of people caused by frequent crackdowns on the local alcohol economy by police.
After independence in 1963, alcohol production and distribution remained a home-based economy, and houses often doubled as bars where alcohol and sexual services were sold. It was not until the 1980s and 1990s that parts of Mathare (especially the following villages: Bondeni, Shantit and Mabatani) gradually became the epicenter of the largescale production and distribution in Nairobi of chang'aa
After days without work and consequently food, alcohol distillers took to Juja road on Tuesday morning, 2 April 2019, to protest the illegal and violent raid by police. The few media outlets describing the protests squarely blamed 'angry youth' for starting the fire. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have spoken to many eyewitnesses who saw police officers deliberately setting the houses and schools alight. The so called 'angry youth' were alcohol distillers who had not earned a living for three days. These (mostly) men who make on a good day, Kshs 300 for 10 hours of backbreaking work, barely enough to provide for a family of four. These families do not have any savings to rely on when work is disrupted by state violence, and the illegal raid by police had left hundreds of families hungry for days. This provoked husbands, fathers and brothers to take to street and fight for their families, and they burned tires on the road to underscore their demand to work by blocking traffic.
As has been witnessed by several people, during the ensuing fracas one officer carelessly threw one of the burning tires into a row of make-shift houses and carpentry workshops along Juja road, all constructed of highly flammable materials. Other eyewitnesses saw police officers violently dispersed people trying to stop the fire from reaching the labyrinth of homes, businesses and schools down the street leading into Mabatini, thus effectively enabling the fire to destroy several houses and properties. Teargas was lobbed at the crowds of people who had gathered with buckets of water trying to rescue their homes and belongings. The teargas canisters further ignited the fire as residents watched their schools and homes burn to the ground.
The current modes of chang'aa production in Mathare may occur without a license and may not adhere to regulations, but that does not warrant such a violent and criminal crackdown by police
Distraught, many slept outdoors in the cold on Tuesday night. The fire also destroyed the electricity supply line and the ensuing blackout increased insecurity. One resident recounted that, "For nights, gun shots have become our ringtone." Another lamented, "We live in a war(zone), but nobody cares." As Mathare endured this terror for three days and nights, residents watched in disbelief as the evening news headlines either ignored their plight and the criminal acts by police or apportioned the blame decidedly on them using the pejorative 'angry youth' frame. Mathare residents were profiled as criminals and the local alcohol economy as illicit and dangerous. Indeed, misconceptions about Mathare and local industries persist. For example, chang'aa was legalized in September 2010 and is not an 'illicit brew'. The current modes of chang'aa production in Mathare may occur without a license and may not adhere to regulations, but that does not warrant such a violent and criminal crackdown by police. If the production is not up to standard, why not encourage or enable owners, distillers and sellers to obtain licenses and invest in improved production? The answer is simple: too many people high-up in police and government 'eat' from the industry as it is.
The Culture of Policing In Mathare
Everyone living and working in Mathare is familiar with the daily routine of police visiting the distilling sites and bars where alcohol is produced and sold to solicit bribes. For each drum of kangara, the police receive at least 200 KES. Let us assume that there are seven distilling sites (we don't disclose any specific details for security reasons) which have the capacity to process seven drums simultaneously, meaning there are 7 fires operative at each site at all times. Each drum takes three rounds to cook and each round takes 1 hour (45 minutes to distill and 15 minutes to cool). So seven sites and seven fires operating for 24 hours can process 392 drums of distilling mixture per day. For each drum, police receive Kshs 200 and the figure adds up to an average of kshs 70 000 per day and in excess of Kshs 2 million per month. This is a conservative estimate since it does not include the bribes police take from bars and alcohol distributors, and it does not include police officers who run their own alcohol operations. And the number of drums along the riverside also vary immensely. Sometimes, a jiko can have 15 or 20 fires operating at once, while at other times only three or four. The above calculations, though based on thorough research, only serve to give an indication of police involvement and investment in the alcohol industry in Mathare. Considering this, why then does the police initiate a raid to clamp down on the very industry that 'feeds' them?
A first part of the answer pertains to internal divisions within police. Police does not entail a homogenous entity, and rumors have it that Rashid and his team were eventually stopped by other police officers in the course of the week because they saw their avenues to 'easy money' destroyed. That, at least to some measure, explains why on Thursday the raid was abruptly halted. What's more, crackdowns on the alcohol economy are not uncommon, despite the entanglement of police in this business. In July 2015, Mathare residents lived through a similar period of police terror which left two people dead and thousands people without work for weeks. Many believe that such attacks are often triggered by a desire of particular police units or individual officers to show, as one resident put it to us, "the 'higher ups' that they are doing their 'job' and/or deserve promotion". This time too, many residents believe the notorious Rashid went out of his way to impress in the incoming Inspector General Mutyambai. A resident shared with us that in his view Rashid demonstrated his exceptional cruelty during the course of the raid by forcing a customer of a local bar to drink bleach while he compared bleach to chang'aa. The young punter barely survived this ordeal.
The police officer mentioned here is not the only one. Similar notorious policemen who are known to execute and torture mainly young and poor men frequently patrol most informal urban settlements in Nairobi. According to several of our fellow activists, these plain cloth police officers, called 'killer cops' or maspiff by some, are not part of regular police units that are locally known to be connected to specific police stations and which patrol Mathare and surrounding neighborhoods on a daily basis. They told us that these police officers operate under the direct command of the County Criminal Investigations Officer (CCIO). Several (non-state) security groups in Mathare that work together with these police officers revealed to us that several of them also enjoy substantial support by influential business owners, for instance in Eastleigh. The exact operational and support structures of these 'killer cops' and how they collaborate with regular police units remain somewhat opaque to local activists and residents, but all agreed that these plain cloth police officers enjoy considerable power and are able to kill with impunity through their powerful back-up.
When considering the relative opacity of their operations, the public visibility of these police officers in Mathare (and other urban settlements) is indeed rather astounding. They are also not a recent phenomenon. Most Mathare residents above 25 years old can easily recall the cruel reign of different 'killer cops' as far back as the late 1990s, such as the ruthless Habel Mwareria a.k.a. 'Tyson' in early 2000s who was also popularly dubbed 'the Ghost' because he often seemed to materialize out of thin air when- and wherever problems occurred. He killed suspects without asking questions, in front of people and in broad daylight and would vanish as rapidly as he had appeared. He was later promoted to the ATPU ( Anti Terrorism Police Unit).
Nevertheless, the 'killer cops' gained new strength in popular discourse when in April and May 2017 alleged police officers calling themselves 'Hessy' became rapidly infamous by posting pictures on different Facebook pages, under this name, of suspected 'thugs' before and after they purportedly shot them. Speculations continue to the date about who or what 'Hessy' really is. Some people claim it started with an actual police officer who was shot in the leg and while he was recovering home in the month of April 2017 he started this network of 'Hessy's' on Facebook. This is substantiated to some extent by the fact that there is an infamous police officer who is nicknamed Hessy and who is known to kill mostly young male crime suspects in Kayole. Others say that one officer or a group of police officers from different police stations in Eastlands chose this name because of the reputation of this particular police officer. Others state that the different 'Hessy' and adjacent pages on Facebook were not created by one or more police officers, but by a team of bloggers working in collaboration with specific 'killer cops'. The 'Hessy' and adjacent pages (such as Nairobi Crime Free and Dandora Crime Free) soon gained a massive following online and continue to be a topic of intense debate offline, for instance among residents in Mathare.
Local Dynamics and the Future of Chang'aa
Police violence in Mathare, such as extra-judicial killings and illegal raids on people's livelihoods, are enabled by a combination of factors. In contrast to the knee-jerk homogenization and criminalization of ghetto residents, for instance in mainstream media in Kenya, people inside Mathare are equally divided about the use of (criminal) violence by police. Police use such local divisions inside this neighborhood to push their own agenda. For instance, they work together with residents, popularly dubbed informers or watihaji, who are paid by police for information on people, business activities and other developments locally. This explains how police were able to find the entrance to the jiko's at the river or the places where bars are located.
However, the incentives of informers to tell on their neighbors often go beyond merely monetary motivations or concerns about crime. Local competition or revenge plays a big role as well. Police also depend too much on such secondary and often faulty intelligence because the local turnover of police, following frequent transfers, is quite high thus limiting the time police have to understand local dynamics. As a result, local informer-networks have some power to manipulate police behavior towards their own agendas. To illustrate, sometimes 'killer cops' like Rashid parade a suspect throughout Mathare and when they receive calls from as little as three informers confirming the identity of the suspect, the suspect is taken to a backstreet and executed. Our fellow activists have documented several cases that follow this pattern.
Crackdowns briefly slow production but do not alter the make-up of this industry in any way, yet the Mathare residents who have for generations depend on this economy bear the brunt for the simple reality that they cannot afford to miss a day of work.
The recent raid in Mathare on the local alcohol economy stopped as suddenly as it had started and without any outcome other than destroyed livelihoods, schools and homes and injured people. Slowly, alcohol distillers went back to work on Friday and gradually the local economy picked up again. Such crackdowns have never stopped the local alcohol industry and never will. If the government wants to make the local alcohol industry safer and bring it in line with regulations, it needs to work together with business owners and their employees to develop ways to improve production standards. If alcohol consumption is the problem, why not invest in rehabilitation programs and explore underlying factors that contribute to widespread cheap alcohol consumption, such as vast unemployment and extreme stress? If the government wants people to stop working in this industry all together why not develop alternatives together with them?
Crackdowns briefly slow production but do not alter the make-up of this industry in any way, yet the Mathare residents who have for generations depend on this economy bear the brunt for the simple reality that they cannot afford to miss a day of work.
On Thursday 4 April 2019, one resident asked us: "Who is Rashid? How can he do all this, kill our young men for years, then come to destroy our work, huh? Who is he?"
"Why are there no people coming from Red Cross, or our government leaders, like when Dusit happens or Westgate? Are we not human beings?"
Liberty for Whom? D-Day's African Ghosts
Africa tends to be swept under the carpet in the memorials for the two World Wars, which are always couched in terms of, again to borrow a phrase from Trump's speech, "the ferocious eternal struggle between good and evil" – the Germans being branded as the ultimate evil and the Allies being the forces of good.
Three-quarters of a century ago, hundreds of thousands of Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy in what was the start of a war to save Western Europe from Nazi occupation. American and European leaders gathered at the scene last week to memorialise and honour those who fell, including on the German side. The US President, Donald Trump, began his tribute to them thus: "On this day 75 years ago, 10,000 men shed their blood and thousands sacrificed their lives for their brothers, for their countries, and for the survival of liberty."
Undoubtedly, much of that is true. From the perspective of those in occupied Europe, it was the beginning of their liberation and the defeat of fascist tyranny. It would inaugurate, for many, an era of democratic freedom and economic prosperity that was at the time unparalleled in history.
Africa tends to be swept under the carpet in the memorials for the two World Wars, which are always couched in terms of, again to borrow a phrase from Trump's speech, "the ferocious eternal struggle between good and evil" – the Germans being branded as the ultimate evil and the Allies being the forces of good.
President Trump went on to state that "the GIs who boarded the landing craft that morning knew that they carried on their shoulders not just the pack of a soldier but the fate of the world." This may be true, but the world is not just Western Europe; from the perspective of those on the African continent, the GIs were not there to shore up liberty and democracy, but rather to free countries that were themselves engaged in colonial plunder and occupation.
Africa tends to be swept under the carpet in the memorials for the two World Wars, which are always couched in terms of, again to borrow a phrase from Trump's speech, "the ferocious eternal struggle between good and evil" – the Germans being branded as the ultimate evil and the Allies being the forces of good.
But there was little that was "good" about what these same countries were doing and would continue to do to the people in Africa whose land and resources they were continuing to steal and whose people they not only oppressed but also press-ganged into their wars. More than a million Africans fought in World War II – hundreds of thousands of them were sent to the front in Europe, others to India, Burma and the Pacific islands. Few understood why they were fighting, let alone why they volunteered to do it. Many died and survivors today receive nothing of the recognition and adulation bestowed on their European and American counterparts.
Now it is probably true that a world governed by the Nazis would have been much worse for Africans than the present one, so in that sense their defeat was good for the continent. But in that case, it could also be argued that the two World Wars, which exhausted the European powers and shattered the myth of white invincibility for the returning African veterans, were also good in that they paved the way for the end of colonialism. In either case, the uncontested fact would be that these were not wars to free all people but rather to determine who would be their overlords – despite the rhetoric, they were fought less for global liberation than for global domination.
David Frum, in his brilliant piece for The Atlantic, "The Ghosts of D-Day", notes how the memory of D-Day and the liberation of Europe have been distorted in French and American imaginations. In truth, it is not just American memories that have "become more triumphalist and self-aggrandizing". The memorials at Normandy are not so much about remembering history but rather spinning it. And within that spin, the tale of the Africans has no place – it muddies the moral waters to admit that the liberation the Allies sought did not include that of the black and brown peoples they were oppressing; that those on this continent had, and to a large extent still have, little share in the freedom that was heralded on that day.
However, what is today undeniable is that the Allies were guilty of committing, and would go on to commit, many of the same crimes that qualified the Nazis as evil – from implementing a racist occupation, to genocides, to interring entire communities in concentration camps, to jailing homosexuals, to looting cultural artefacts and art.
For Africans, the irony is that the tools for making concrete the memory of what the European nations were actually doing – the records and documents that tell the story of the occupation and the crimes that were committed against Africans – are, for the most part, either deliberately destroyed or safely hidden away in European vaults. Many were stolen at the end of the colonial occupation in an effort to maintain the fiction of its benevolence.
However, what is today undeniable is that the Allies were guilty of committing, and would go on to commit, many of the same crimes that qualified the Nazis as evil – from implementing a racist occupation, to genocides, to interring entire communities in concentration camps, to jailing homosexuals, to looting cultural artefacts and art. Yet, unlike the Germans, who have owned up to "the unforgettable rupture of civilization that [they] provoked in Europe" and to the fact that "the fallen German soldiers are resting in foreign soil not because they came as liberators to this country but as occupiers", there has been no such admission from the Europeans with regard to their occupation of Africa. Today, they still repeat the lie that colonialism was about bringing civilization and the benefits of modernity to the primitive peoples of the continent rather than implementing a system of extraction that continues to bleed the continent to this very day.
In 2017, Bruce Gilley, a professor of political science at Portland State University, published the article, "The Case for Colonialism" (withdrawn after a public uproar and death threats), in which he argued that Western colonialism was both "objectively beneficial and subjectively legitimate". He further advocated for "colonial modes of governance; by recolonizing some areas; and by creating new Western colonies from scratch". While much of this has been debunked, he is hardly the only one to go public with such views. In the same year, the former leader of South Africa's Democratic Alliance, Helen Zille, was removed from her leadership roles after she put out a series of tweets touting the benefits of colonialism.
Rather than the selective and hagiographic portrayals we are treated to today, a better memorial for D-Day would be to return the colonial archives and to acknowledge the truth – the whole, unvarnished truth – about what was being defended on that day. For it surely was not the ideal of liberty for all. Importantly, this would include an acknowledgement and compensation for the Africans who were forced to fight and die in the wars that were not of their making.
Another False Messiah: The Rise and Rise of Fin-tech in Africa
The rise of a global technology industry to support financial services, known as fin-tech, has grown enormously in Africa in the last decade. Across the continent, many commentators have proclaimed fin-tech as the solution to poverty and development. Examining the case of Kenya's celebrated fin-tech model, M-Pesa, Milford Bateman, Maren Duvendack and Nicholas Loubere reveal a flawed system that is not an answer to poverty, despite the wild claims of some academic commentators. Quite the contrary, fin-tech offers Africa a further case study of how contemporary capitalism continues to under-develop Africa.
In both the global investment community and the international development community one of the most talked-about issues today is fin-tech (financial technology). Defined as 'computer programs and other technology used to support or enable banking and financial services', the last decade or so has seen the rise of a new global fin-tech industry, a development that is widely regarded to be positively changing the world in a variety of ways. Thanks to almost daily reports of major new investments, especially in Africa, many investment professionals are of the opinion that something akin to a new 'gold rush' is clearly underway. At the same time, the fin-tech model is also touted as an innovation that will greatly benefit the global poor, with enthusiastic supporters claiming that a new golden age of 'inclusive capitalism' is upon us.
By far the most well-known example of the fin-tech model to date is Kenya's M-Pesa – the agent-assisted, mobile-phone-based, person-to-person payment and money transfer system. M-Pesa is widely seen as the first fin-tech institution to conclusively demonstrate that it is possible to make a profit while also very meaningfully improving the lives of the poor. Taking inspiration from M-Pesa, many in the international development community now regard the fin-tech model as a potentially game-changing private sector-funded driver of development and poverty reduction in the Global South.
In both the global investment community and the international development community one of the most talked-about issues today is fin-tech (financial technology)
In the academic community the apparent combination of poverty reduction with profit generation proved to be a very seductive pro-capitalist narrative that many mainstream economists were only too willing to engage with. The most well-known academic economists examining the impact of M-Pesa are Tavneet Suri, based at MIT, and William Jack, based at Georgetown University. With extensive funding from Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Kenya and the Gates Foundation, since 2010 Suri and Jack have produced a series of outputs extolling the benefits of M-Pesa. Suri and Jack's generally positive findings have resulted in mainstream media attention and large numbers of citations. This has played an important part in galvanising the international development community into supporting the fin-tech model as a development and poverty reduction intervention.
In particular, their 2016 article published in the prestigious journal Science, entitled 'The Long-run Poverty and Gender Impacts of Mobile Money' has played a considerable role in sparking the imagination of the international development community. This is mainly because of its sensational claim that 'access to the Kenyan mobile money system M-PESA increased per capita consumption levels and lifted 194,000 households, or 2% of Kenyan households, out of poverty.' According to this article, M-Pesa was not just making profits, but the evidence seemed to show it was also making an astonishing 'bottom-up' development and poverty reduction contribution. This poverty reduction claim, often cited in full in media articles, quickly became the centrepiece of the evidence used by many in the international development community to justify its increasingly strong support for, and investment in, the fin-tech model.
M-Pesa is widely seen as the first fin-tech institution to conclusively demonstrate that it is possible to make a profit while also very meaningfully improving the lives of the poor.
Unfortunately, all that glitters is not gold. As we write in a Briefing just published in the ROAPE Suri and Jack's hugely influential signature article actually contains a surprising number of errors, omissions, poor logic, and methodological flaws. Crucial labour market evaluation parameters, such as business failure (exit) and the impact of new businesses on existing ones (displacement), were entirely over-looked. The core issue of individual over-indebtedness, which in Kenya is now approaching crisis levels and which has a clear and direct link to the operation of M-Pesa, was not even mentioned as a possible downside of the fin-tech development model. For such an important and well-financed project, the methodology was also weak, diverging from many of the standard 'best practices' in the impact evaluation field. The important issue of causation was also raised, but in a way that we found to be questionable at best. In many ways, therefore, Suri and Jack's analysis appears to misrepresent and vastly over-state the development impact of M-Pesa.
Fin-tech represents a new form of resource extractivism
One of the most disturbing aspects of Suri and Jack's flawed analysis, however, is that they completely bypass the crucial equity and distributional issues that arise from the operation of M-Pesa and other similar fin-tech corporations. This is inexcusable because there are clear warning signs today that the fin-tech model possesses the potential to extract immense value from the poorest communities in the Global South, with potentially calamitous long-term consequences. Like the gambling, sub-prime mortgage and payday loan industries in the United States and UK that before and after the financial crisis of 2008 were able to grow rich by expertly extracting massive amounts of value from the communities of the poor, one might argue that Kenya's poorest communities are also being drained of much of their needed collective wealth.
M-Pesa has essentially perfected a form of 'digital mining' that captures and extracts a small tribute from each and every one of the growing number of tiny financial transactions made by the poor through the platform (which has become ubiquitous and very difficult to avoid). This includes microloans, money transfers, grant disbursement, credit card usage, pension payments, and so on. One simply cannot escape from the fin-tech 'net' that is gradually being lowered on to the poor. As more and more governments and elites are brought in as allies by the fin-tech industry, this value extraction process is only likely to speed up and intensify, with cash transactions being increasingly jettisoned and ever more transactions being mediated by fin-tech organisations.
M-Pesa has essentially perfected a form of 'digital mining' that captures and extracts a small tribute from each and every one of the growing number of tiny financial transactions made by the poor through the platform
By the same token, given the profit motive at play, it is inevitable that a range of services and products will end up being pushed on to the poor even though they largely do not need them, are not able to productively use them, or do not have any means to repay debt associated with them. The value realised through such 'digital mining' techniques is then extracted from the local community and deposited into the hands of the fin-tech entity's owner(s). However, with so many fin-tech entities backed by foreign capital from the Global North, the chances are that a large proportion of this 'digitally mined' value will head abroad to the world's leading investment locations.
What we have here, therefore, is a value extraction process that contains the potential to progressively undermine the development process in local communities in the Global South. It does this in two important ways: first, it denies the local community an extremely valuable aggregate amount of local spending power, which is instead appropriated by wealthy individuals and institutions, many of which are located abroad. This renders an important endogenous growth trajectory inactive, since it is rising local demand that often provides the initial impetus for local enterprises to emerge in order to meet this demand. Second, fin-tech institutions also starve the local (re)investment cycle by siphoning value out of the community, and thus make it more difficult for local businesses to access the meaningful amounts of capital needed to establish sustainable commercial operations. Experiences in Asia with local banking from 1945 onwards, for example, show that reinvesting/recycling the bulk of locally-generated value back into the local economy has significant potential to kick-start economic growth.
Fin-tech could, therefore, be seen as a revised version of the natural resource extraction paradigm that was largely responsible for under-developing Africa and other colonised countries over the last four centuries. The 'resource' increasingly being extracted from Africa today might no longer be a physical one – such as diamonds, gold, platinum, or silver -and the process might not require slavery, the employment of ultra-exploitative waged labour, or involve horrendous working conditions, but the eventual negative outcomes of 'digital mining' could very well be the extension and continuation of under-development.
M-Pesa thus provides us with a valuable case study of how contemporary platform capitalism operates in neoliberal Africa and how 'digital mining' might actually affect Kenya's potential growth and development. In recent years, Safaricom (M-Pesa's parent company) has become far and away Kenya's largest company, now accounting for a massive 40% of the total stock market valuation on the Nairobi securities exchange. Safaricom is also famous for its spectacular profits. In 2019 it set a record by registering profits of around US$620 million, which would be an impressive result in even the richest countries of the Global North. To put this into perspective, this figure is slightly more than the Kenyan government spends on the entire healthcare system in the country. However, along with an additional bonus paid out in 2019 to shareholders amounting to around US$240 million, a large percentage of this US$620 million in profit was paid out as dividends to foreign shareholders. The main beneficiary was the majority shareholder (at 40%) of Safaricom, the UK multinational corporation Vodafone. Other beneficiaries are a variety of mainly foreign investors located in 'tax-efficient' locations (the Caribbean mainly) and who hold a 25% stake. The Kenyan government also holds a further 35% stake in Safaricom.
Fin-tech could, therefore, be seen as a revised version of the natural resource extraction paradigm that was largely responsible for under-developing Africa and other colonised countries over the last four centuries.
This demonstrates that significant value is being created by M-Pesa based on the tiny transactions of the poor, but most of it is spirited abroad via dividend payments to foreign shareholders. This helps explain why M-Pesa has become a beacon for global investors and financial institutions all seeking their own spectacular fortunes in Africa while framing their thirst for profits as altruism. Indeed, by embedding the fin-tech model in Kenya, the international development community is complicit in the establishment of a high-tech extractivist infrastructure similar to colonial-era equivalents.
'Digital mining' in Kenya and the foreign appropriation of the wealth generated by those languishing at the bottom of the pyramid is a less directly brutal undertaking than the value extraction process carried out in colonial times. However, the extractivist logic, the wealth transfer, and the determination to accumulate on the back of the poor have a similar character to colonial-era economic regimes, and similar potential to seriously damage socioeconomic development in the long-term.
Furthermore, as in colonial times, a local elite has been allowed significant freedom to manage this 'digital mining' on behalf of the foreign owners. As with Capitec Bank in South Africa, it is no secret that the CEO and senior management at Safaricom have been able to use the company as a vehicle through which to extract fantastic rewards for themselves, enjoying Wall Street-style levels of remuneration in recent years and with several becoming multi-millionaires as a result. However, this also provides the obvious incentive to grow Safaricom as fast as possible because in that way the personal rewards attributable to those at the top are maximised. As a result, Safaricom's CEO and other senior management have pushed growth to the limits and are now encountering problems in several areas on account of reckless over-expansion, including with regard to the company's wilful engagement with gambling. In addition, in the early stages of M-Pesa's growth, certain still unidentified members of the local Kenyan elite were able to secure for themselves a sizeable shareholding in Safaricom, which they later sold off for massive capital gains. Pointedly, the impact on inequality in Kenya arising from these narrow elite enrichment mechanisms has been very significant.
Despite the benefit that some individuals in poverty undoubtedly enjoy as a result of M-Pesa's services, universal financial inclusion has come at a very high longer-term price for Kenya's poor overall.
In short, an effective value extraction process involving 'digital mining' has been established in Kenya, which has been misleadingly framed by many in the international development community as contributing to 'bottom-up' development. This process has ensured the stratospheric enrichment of a narrow group of foreign investors, Safaricom's own senior managers, and a section of the Kenyan elite. However, this value has effectively been appropriated from M-Pesa's overwhelmingly poor clients via their growing bundle of tiny fin-tech-mediated financial transactions.
Despite the benefit that some individuals in poverty undoubtedly enjoy as a result of M-Pesa's services, universal financial inclusion has come at a very high longer-term price for Kenya's poor overall. Safaricom appears to have become a classic example of the 'cathedral in the desert' syndrome – a vastly profitable entity that exists only by ignoring the impoverishment it is helping to create in its wake. As fin-tech spreads across Africa, it is likely we will see similar deleterious extractionist scenarios emerging.
Might we not then consider M-Pesa to be the canary in the coalmine?
Parallels with the failed microfinance revolution?
Our analysis of Suri and Jack's hugely influential 2016 article shows that it simply does not stand up to scrutiny. One might conjecture that this has something to do with the fact that much of the funding for their work over the past decade has come from FSD Kenya and the Gates Foundation, two of the world's leading advocates for the fin-tech model.
In this context, it is interesting to recall how the now largely discredited microfinance movement got a game-changing boost back in the 1990s thanks to a study by two high-profile World Bank economists – Mark Pitt and Shahidur Khandker – claiming that microfinance in Bangladesh was generating major poverty reduction benefits for women Pitt and Khandker's work was much later shown to contain many serious errors and its conclusions were unsound. Nevertheless, Pitt and Khandker's work more than served its immediate purpose, which was to galvanise support within and around the international development community for an intervention that the World Bank desperately wanted to see go forward on ideological grounds. We might therefore pose the obvious question here with regard to the misrepresentation of M-Pesa's impact: are Suri and Jack the new Pitt and Khandker?
Editors Note: This article was first posted in the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE)
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At Victoria, the East Coast Highway veers off in two directions, into the villages of Cove and John and Victoria, then continues its journey eastward. The point at which the highway detours is a kind of bottleneck, a space shared by residents of both villages. At that point, the road narrows into congestion and confusion even as the myriad influences from the villages converge. The gatherings there have different missions.
"Four Corner," as the junction has come to be known, is the place where Victoria leaves its indelible mark. It is a relatively small space into which just about everything that is lively and animated is crammed. There are myriad vendors, shops, drinking establishments and traffic all competing for the same congested space; then there are minibuses and loud music and people wandering aimlessly in the space, all seemingly animated by the rarified air of the 'four corner' space. If you are not familiar with 'Four Corner' you might even consider it a somewhat intimidating place. The people who congregate there seem relaxed.
In the congestion of the `Four Corner' area, lies a small wooden structure named Emancipation Hut. It has stood there more than 100 years, a landmark which, in its modesty, speaks to the historical importance of Victoria. Sixty-seven-year-old Hilda Barnwell, (all of Victoria know her as Cousin Hilda), the building's current Caretaker, also serves as its unofficial archive. Time was when Emancipation Hut served as a bank where the newly freed slaves took the money which they had saved to be counted. It was those monies that that were later to be pooled to purchase Plantation Northbrook. In November 1839 , a year and three months after being freed approximately 83 ex-slaves from five nearby estates: Hope, Dochfour, Ann's Grove, Paradise and Enmore, pooled six thousand dollars and made a down payment on the purchase price of $10,000.00. Afterwards, it was re-named Victoria, some say after the reigning British monarch at the time; others say that it was to honour the memory of the slaves whose struggle had led to the 'victory' of acquiring the plantation…..

subset: commoncrawl


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Top Ashok Leyland official: EV mobility in India will initially be driven by commercial vehicles
According to a statement made by a top Ashok Leyland official on Friday, electric-vehicle (EV) mobility in India will initially be driven largely by commercial vehicles rather than private vehicles. India has been lagging behind in terms of electric vehicle sales compared to China. Indian government announced few initiatives for promotion of EVs but industry experts feel that these are too-little compared to perks announced by China.
The statement was made by Karthick Athmanathan -- Ashok Leyland's Head of EV & eMobility Solutions -- on the sidelines of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)'s one-day e-mobility conference held in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, on July 27. The aim of the CII conference was to sensitise all stakeholders on clean energy and e-mobility solutions, along with creating requisite enablers for supporting a shift from conventional transportation to e-mobility solutions.
Asserting that the responsibility of driving EV mobility in India will initially be taken up by commercial vehicles, Athmanathan said that individual users will probably hesitate to switch to EVs at first, even despite the government aims to promote EV adoption in the country.
Athmanathan also added that the high costs of EVs may also be a potential deterrent for individual users in switching to EVs.
In highlighting the significant role which commercial vehicles are likely to play to trigger EV adoption in India, Athmanathan said that Ashok Leyland has efforts underway to deliver 50 electric buses for the Ahmedabad Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) by April 2019. He further added: "Ahmedabad will become second place after Gutenberg in Europe to have flash charging electric buses. The first lot of buses will start running in January 2019."
- 3087 reads
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At the Monterey Car Week industry event held at Pebble Beach in California, German automaker Mercedes-Benz has unveiled a new, one-seater all-electric race car prototype --- the 'Vision EQ Silver Arrow.'
At a stylish unveiling event held recently at the Louvre Museum in Paris, Chinese electric scooter manufacturer Niu unveiled its two new electric scooters developed especially for the European market.
According to a recent report, there was a notable increase in the sales of plug-in electric vehicles in the US in July 2018.


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collection of galleries from Home Interior like Heatpump Maintenance. Four Season Rooms With Fireplaces. Storage Units Williamsport Pa. and other designs you might like Folding Chair Carts. Delivery Jersey City. Wooden Bar Chairs. Blue Door Mat. Office Chair For Heavy Weight. Hot Water Extraction Carpet Cleaner. Bluecrop Blueberry Bush.
Static Pages
Design Archives.


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The Martha Jayne Cary Living Trust et al v. U.S. Bank et al, No. 1:2017cv01661 - Document 4 (E.D. Cal. 2018)
Court Description: Order for Plaintiff to: (1) File a first amended complaint; or, (2) Notify the Court that they wish to stand on the complaint, subject to findings and recommendations to the district judge consistent with this order, signed by Magistrate Judge Erica P. Grosjean on 4/23/2018. (Filing Deadline: 5/28/2018) (Rosales, O)


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The Online Home Store is a Top Rated seller trusted by more than eight thousand Amazon.in customers in India. They sell in Home & Kitchen, Appliances and Fashion departments from Prestige, Black + Decker, Tupperware, HAWKINS, Butterfly and other brands. They offer Prime shipping for the hundreds of products they have in stock.
They are a Top 500 Amazon.in seller, ranked 457th overall. However a month ago they were ranked 206th.
The Online Home Store business name, phone number, address and email might be available by contacting The Online Home Store. For customer service, returns, refunds and other issues contact Amazon.in.
Sellers like Inditradition ®, Kalptaru Trade, Troubleshooting Services and Bookswagon are similar. Check out other Amazon.in marketplace sellers.
For most recent reviews checkout The Online Home Store profile on Amazon.in.


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Mets pitcher Bartolo Colon is Wednesday's Player of the Day. Colon pitched 7 1/3 scoreless innings and struck out nine in the 5-0 win over the Pirates.
Colon earns 2.0 Box-Toppers points for being Player of the Day, giving him 128.4 for his career, moving him into 24th place on Box-Toppers "all-time" list (record keeping began in 1995). He is just ahead of Vladimir Guerrero (128.3 Box-Toppers points).
Mariners pitcher Felix Hernandez is American League Player of the Day. Hernandez gave up one run over 8 2/3 innings and struck out nine in the 3-1 win over the Angels.
Hernandez earns 1.7 Box-Toppers points for being AL Player of the Day, giving him 7.1 for the season, moving into eighth place on Box-Toppers season player rankings (see the updated top 10 list on the home page). He is in third place among AL pitchers.
Hernandez also has 129.6 Box-Toppers points for his career, in 21st place on the "all-time" list (record keeping began in 1995), moving past Trevor Hoffman (129.4) and David Ortiz (128.9).
A.J. Pollock of the Diamondbacks is National League Batter of the Day. Pollock doubled twice, went 3-for-4 and drove in two runs in the 12-6 win over the Padres.
Chris Carter of the Astros is AL Batter of the Day. Carter hit two homers and drove in four runs in the 9-3 win over the Royals.
Notable: Athletics pitcher Scott Kazmir rose to 10th place in Box-Toppers player rankings after earning Player of the Game honors Wednesday (see the updated top 10 list on the home page). Kazmir (CG 1R 8K W in the 3-1 win over the Tigers) earns 1.0 Box-Toppers point for being Player of the Game, giving him 6.7 for the season. He is in fourth place among AL pitchers.
Colon receives 2.0 Box-Toppers points for being Player of the Day. Hernandez receives 1.7 for AL Player of the Day. Pollock and Carter each receive 1.5 for being top Batter of the Day in their league.
All of Wednesday's other Players of the Game (listed in the chart below) receive 1.0 Box-Toppers point.
Box-Toppers tracks who most helps their team win the most games. Using standard box score statistics, Box-Toppers uses a simple formula to determine a Player of the Game for each Major League Baseball game played. That player is the person who contributed most to his team's win. Players earn Box-Toppers points for being named Player of the Game and can earn bonus points for being Player of the Day or top player or batter in their league for the day.
Top player from each game
Listed from highest to lowest Box-Toppers game score
` Denotes that the pitcher had a no-decision in the game and did not pick up a win or a save.


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Divinity: Fallen Heroes could be the subsequent game from Larian Studios, however Divinity: Original Sin Three can be apparently within the works.
Fans of the Divinity collection might be happy to listen to Larian Studios is teasing what seems to be Divinity: Original Sin Three on its web site.
Spotted by resetera, the tease is nothing more than a logo, however boy, oh boy are we excited.
Divinity: Original Sin 2 was initially launched for PC in 2017 earlier than definitive editions arrived the next 12 months on PS4 and Xbox One.
It's a incredible RPG, in our humble opinion. But, critics and players alike appeared to be of the identical opinion when it was launched.
And let's additionally add Larian are fairly nice to its fanbase, too. In March the studio introduced it will present gamers of the game free content updates over the course of the 12 months.
These goodies luggage comprise all the pieces from numerous character creation content material created, content material impressed by the modding neighborhood, and extra.
Here's hoping for an E3 2019 reveal of Divinity: Original Sin 3. We've bought our fingers crossed, at the very least.


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Simi S.
"Hi! I am a college student currently studying Biology at Muhlenberg College. I have constantly tutored students throughout my middle school, high school, and college career. In middle school, I would tutor students in elementary math. In high school, I set up an after-school program to tutor middle school students in all subjects that could not afford private tutoring but really need the motivation and help. I love tutoring because I like to help and see other people succeed and sometimes peo"
|$40 (for 60 min)
|travel distance:
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|in-person (not online)
|member for:
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|on file
Allentown, PA 18104
Subjects Tutored
|ACT Math - ACT Reading - Algebra 1 - Biology - Elementary Math - Geometry - Prealgebra - Reading - Spanish - Study Skills


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LastPass Site Password-Stealing Clickjacking Vulnerability
LastPass, a popular password management service with extensions for Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer, suffers from a clickjacking vulnerability. It can be exploited on sites without proper X-Frame-Options headers to steal passwords. The password autofill dialogue can be overlaid with a deceptive webpage that tricks users into copying and then pasting passwords into an attacker's site.


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added by xShuttingStaar
This Teen mbwa mwitu sanaa ya shabiki might contain tamasha, ishara, bango, maandishi, ubao, matini, and ubao wa chokaa.
posted by Darkangel6
Re watching the episodes I've noticed things between the two of them and I go to myself,
Huh, they would be cute together. they have the chemistry and once upon a time she wanted to tarehe him.
But I know that this will never happen. Scott is in upendo with Allison and Lydia has found feelings for Stiles.
Not that I am not into Stydia (Stiles/Lydia) au Scott/Allison.
but I would upendo for these two to be together in some future season. that is if the writers would want it to be.
Am I the only one who thinks this au am everyone else seeing the potential that could be Scotdia?


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INDEPENDENCE, Ohio (AP) — When Darius Garland realized the Cavaliers sent general manager Koby Altman, new coach John Beilein and his entire staff to his private pre-draft workout in Los Angeles, the Vanderbilt guard drew up a personal game plan.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — The revamp of the New Jersey Devils now includes one of the top defensemen in the NHL to go along with No. 1 overall draft pick Jack Hughes.
Williamson County will welcome approximately 900 senior athletes from across the state from June 21-27 for the 39th annual Tennessee Senior Olympics State Finals presented by BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.
Franklin's Garrison Mathews will face the culmination of 17 years of hard work in a single night.
Williamson County Parks and Recreation will offer an outdoor bocce ball league beginning in July.
The Franklin Rebels didn't have to go far to find a new head boys basketball coach, tapping Dickson County's Jason Tigert to replace Darrin Joines.
It's been all new states, new waterways and plenty of paddling for three recent Franklin High School graduates.
With a large amount of excitement, a little splash of nervousness and a heavy dose of nostalgia, a group of roughly 25 former Brentwood High School softball players came together for a reunion at Granny White Park over the weekend.
Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL's chief medical officer gave a presentation on the new safety strategies being implemented around the league at the Franklin Noon Rotary Club's Thursday meeting at the Williamson County Enrichment Center.
Independence High School announced this week its hiring of Eric Bossman to take over the boys soccer program.
Former Centennial High School student Jaden DeGrasse is not the ordinary high school athlete. He longs for more than just accolades and awards.
Brentwood softball fans can relive some history on Saturday.
After leading Fairview to the Class AA state semifinals in back-to-back seasons, Brandon Parrish added the Gatorade Tennessee Boys Soccer Player of the Year honor to his growing accolades.
Nolensville High School announced on Monday the hiring of John Stigall to take over the boys' basketball program.
ANCASTER, Ontario (AP) — Brentwood's Brandt Snedeker's early record-tying round didn't stand up to late charges by Scott Brown and Matt Kuchar at the RBC Canadian Open on Friday.
Fairview High School is looking for a new direction on the baseball field and the Yellow Jackets turned to Dominic "Nico" Gregali to lead the way. Gregali was officially introduced as the new baseball coach at Fairview on Friday morning.
For the second season in a row, Fairview High School head football coach Chris Hughes has guided his flag football team into the money rounds of the American Flag Football League.
Local teams soared above and beyond on Saturday at the Tennessee Soccer Club's state tournament as the 03 Girls Premier, 06 Boys ECNL, 04 Girls Showcase and the 06 Girls Premier all took home the gold.
It's been years since Jamesetta Cleveland figured out the best way to purchase cleats and pads for her son, Ronald. She still remembers being overwhelmed by all the equipment for him to play football.
DESTIN, Fla. (AP) — Bottoms up, Southeastern Conference.
Williamson County Schools celebrated their annual county-wide athletics awards Thursday night at the factory, with 41 separate awards being handed out.
When what is now Nashville's historic Fairgrounds Speedway first opened more than 100 years ago, it was a dirt course for horses. By the late 1950s, automobiles and asphalt had taken over and reigned supreme for nearly six decades.
The faces change every year, but the excitement of recognizing student athletes never gets old for John Maher, whose business, John Maher Builders, has sponsored a countywide scholar-athlete program for 13 years.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness …" Charles Dickens wrote those words to open his 1859 classic, "A Tale of Two Cities".
There's some new faces at Ravenwood High School. The Grimes family has become Raptors.


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The Shiverin' Sheiks, The Rio Partick, 12 November, 2016
Very pleased to announce a show on the 12th November from the kings of Bombastic 50's pop, Country Gospel, Dancefloor Rock 'n' Roll and Doo Wop…………..THE SHIVERIN' SHEIKS!!!
Saturday 12 November, 2016 9 p.m.
The Rio Cafe, 27 Hyndland St, Glasgow G11 5QF
This section: Gig Guide, What's On Glasgow West End: cinema, clubs, theatre, music, events, festivals, community and more
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J Bug 4+
Richard Buff
- Free
I created J Bug as a fun little game for my daughter to play, to pay homage to her and it is also her nickname.
How to Play
Simply tap the screen to make J Bug fly and collect as many stars as you can before they disappear. The stars don't last forever so you have to be quick. Not only are you racing to collect the stars before they fade away, but eventually the Evil Copter will randomly show up to chase you down. Keep an eye out for the bombs while you're being chased. Grab one and you'll get a temporary reprieve, but make sure you're quick because they don't hang around forever.
You can fly from one side of the screen to the other and above the screen as well, but don't go off the screen below or you'll explode. Things will get progressively harder as you collect more stars; the stars will be available for a shorter and shorter amount of time and the copter gets faster.
What's New
Version 1.0.2
Support for iPhone X
Ratings and Reviews
Great, simple, no ads
This is a great, free, game that's easy to challenge friends and family. The animation and function is smooth, you tilt the phone to make the cute bug move. Best of all, there are no purchases, no ads, it's just purely free. :)
- Seller
- Richard Buff
- Size
- Category
- Games
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 9.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
- Languages
- Age Rating
- Rated 4+
- Copyright
- © 2017 Brian Buff
- Price
- Free
Family Sharing
With Family Sharing set up, up to six family members can use this app.


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Motor are not well3. Net around the coller are also bad4. As early as possible usually within 5 working days.
Acording to my point of view on this cooler this is bad but not totaly bad.


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I haven't blown up a gun, but I know it happens every day. Usually, reloaded ammunition is a part of the equation when a gun goes "Kaboom". Reloading ammunition is a serious responsibility and isn't without danger. Perhaps that's part of the appeal- you're literally working with explosives and building ammunition. While it's possible to […]
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No-deal Brexit 'must be avoided at all costs' - Irish Senator - BBC Newsnight
- published: 18 Jan 2019
- views: 26178
Should no-deal Brexit be taken off the negotiating table? Subscribe to our channel here: https://goo.gl/31Q53F As the UK\'s prime minister faces pressure to rule out a no-deal Brexit, Kirsty Wark is joined by Neale Richmond, chairman of the Irish Brexit Committee, Conservative peer Lord Lamont and Children\'s Minister Nadhim Zahawi. Mr Richmond tells Newsnight why he isn\'t preparing for a hard border with Northern Ireland, saying a no-deal scenario should be avoided. Meanwhile, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Lamont, who campaigned to leave the EU, told us that while it\'s not his preferred option, he believes no-deal is \"perfectly workable\". Newsnight is the BBC\'s flagship news and current affairs TV programme - with analysis, debate, exclusives, and robust interviews. Website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsnight Twitter: https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bbcnewsnight...


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As the hunt for the Star of Ice leads the six guardians to Ireland, Doyle, the immortal, must face his tragic past. Three centuries ago, he closed off his heart, yet his warrior spirit is still drawn to the wild. And there's no one more familiar...


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Amarisco Framing and Mounting (Listing id 9578)
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Phone No : (02) 9439 3133
Unit 17, 82 Reserve Road
Artarmon New South Wales 2064
Since 1976, Amarisco provides the best framing, mounting and laminating services for photos, artworks, posters, canvases and jerseys in Artarmon and North Sydney. Visit us now!
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127 E New York Ave.
Historic Downtown
DeLand, Florida
Take the first step,
we'll take it from there!
At Gator Family Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, you will learn World Class traditional BJJ. We're here to offer you high quality training for real world self defense in DeLand, Florida. Whether you find yourself in a close up confrontation or a ground based scenario, you will have the skills to come out on top and keep yourself and those around you safe from danger. The comprehensive Martial Arts fighting system we teach our clients offers a truly revolutionary approach to fitness and total body training. Using motivation and progression through our systems you'll gain confidence, get fit and push yourself like never before. From our youngest kid students to the high level athletes in our adult classes, every client at Gator Family BJJ is treated like an absolute priority. Are you ready for a better training system?
We feature Kids Teens and Adult Brazilian Jiujitsu classes, Kickboxing
and Acro Yoga
With more programs and affordable
no contract rates.
There's everything to gain!
Join us tonight for open mat 5:30-6:30.
Members are free.
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Beginners Welcome.
Click to share our site!
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Home/Shop/Wines by Country/Wines from Chile
Merlot Tierra del Rey
SKU: 45CH0204 Categories: Trade, Wines by Colour, Wines by Grape Variety, Wines from Chile Tag: Still Wine
It is an offence to purchase or attempt to purchase alcoholic liquor if you are under the age of 18.
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Pascual Toso Malbec `Select`, Mendoza£15.75
Classic top-notch Argentinian Malbec
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Lovely varietal intensity in the wild strawberry and cherry, lightly savoury spectrum, vibrant and juicy, with gentle French oak influence
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Up to 3 months oak maturation contribute to a rich full-bodied palate. Lovely with crab, lobster, poultry dishes or lightly spiced dishes.


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Home > Internet & Communication > Telephony, SMS & GSM > iTools download download
iTools download free download
iTools download 126.96.36.199 downloadis starting.
iTools download by iTools Download is about to start. You can choose the download location from 4 different links. If not you will be redirected to the first link on the list. iTools download, is a free file and apps manager and synchronous assistant for your iDevices (iphone, ipad, ipod touch), it can help you to upload and download photos, music, video from your idevice and computer easily.
Author:iTools Download
Updated:2013-08-28 02:02:29
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With the plastic carry bag ban coming into effect in Maharashtra and other parts of India and the world, several entrepreneurs have come up with solutions to fight the menace. Plastic, nonwoven bags, and E-waste have impact on the environment, human and animal lives. It is destroying the ecosystem and killing animals. Plastic bags have been responsible for the floods in Mumbai and Chennai. One of the solutions presented by many is polypropylene carry bags. For several years, polypropylene carry bags, which are also known as PP Bags, have been presented as alternative to single-use plastic bags. It was claimed that the bags are biodegradable and therefore do not pose threat to environment. Are PP bags biodegradable? Not really! It is bio compostable.
"In fact, a biodegradable material should be like an organic material, like food which you get from the farmland. If you dump it, it should decay and disintegrate and get converted into carbon dioxide (CO2) and moisture. It should not leave behind any trace of its existence. However, in the cases of the so-called biodegradable polymers, they do not disintegrate after you throw it into the open. It needs specific conditions in order to disintegrate," says a Professor, who teaches at the Department of Polymer, Institute Of Chemical Technology.
Putting it simply it means: you discard the polypropylene bags, thinking it will decompose, but it does not. It would continue to be there just like single-use plastic. The conditions for polypropylene or pp material to decompose are temperature, humidity, and microorganisms. As long as the conditions are present, the material would disintegrate. Particularly if the material is cut into small pieces and the surface area increases, the attack will be faster.
Even in perfect conditions, polypropylene or PP bags don't degrade like other natural objects, which get decomposed in about 45 days. On the other hand, biodegradable polypropylene or pp bags decompose up to 90 percent in around 180 days. The next time you use a polypropylene bag and don't think it would degrade and the environment would not be harmed. They may be as harmful as single-use plastic bags.