And I think most of us here as co-sponsors are trying for another a second shot to decriminalize walking here and we're getting to the details about what that bill is and more but essentially this is where this conversation is rooted in from a policy advocacy kind of legislative standpoint. We all were deeply involved in that last year and will be this year. However, there's a long history around jaywalking and racism and sexism and all of the bad parts around jaywalking laws that I think john will help us here. So, and everyone needs to use the mic when we're speaking for the live stream so here you go. Alright thank you everyone how's everyone doing is a second session alright. Just a little bit of background my name is john ye I am the executive director for Los Angeles walks we are a pedestrian advocacy nonprofit in the city that's very car centric like LA. So I'm really excited to be here to talk about this bill it's a bill that really affects me personally living career town I jaywalk all the time. So really excited to jump into this, but to give you a little bit of background, you know, I'm sure y'all can maybe many of you know about jaywalking probably been some research but a brief general history is that it was a term created by the auto industry. Before when the automobile first first started hitting our streets streets back then we're pretty much complete streets, everyone was using them right there was no real delineation between this is where cars and this is where the pedestrians are but as the automobile industry got more powerful as more people bought cars. You started noticing the sidewalks sort of became this like segregated place for pedestrians while the rest of the street majority of the street was devoted to cars. And so today we are dealing with the implication of this idea of jaywalking and it was a term a derogatory term of the street. I think I meant like Rube, a country bumpkin who didn't know, you know, went to cross and went not to but the reality is, we move what is best for ourselves for our family and for our health. And so we cannot call anyone or judge someone for moving what is they know best. So that's sort of the issue around jaywalking I'm sure we'll go into further more about the implications of jaywalking. So that's sort of the issue around jaywalking. I'm sure we'll go into further more about the implications of how that law has impacted us today as a society as our city and the urban landscape. So that's a little bit of a background. Real or something or do you want to add anything to the history or background around that I have a question. If not, I guess what was the main interest for for you as the author and then you as your organizations to to get involved in the bill itself. Thanks. Well, it was great because the Lawyers Committee first approached me with this idea. And for me coming from a city where we are trying to encourage everybody to walk or ride their bike or to take public transit get out of their vehicles. The last thing you can imagine you'd ever want to see happen is for someone to get cited for walking. And what we discovered, what Rio was really helpful in presenting to our office was that oftentimes these tickets are nuisance tickets, they're not they're not tickets. You know, in downtown San Francisco, if you're if you're in downtown San Francisco before COVID there's someone jaywalking every second right across the street, but you don't see a significant amount of enforcement in that area even though there's what a lot of vehicles. There's a lot of bikes there's a lot of buses. I mean, you could you could make an argument that perhaps it's dangerous. Behavior or not, but you see no enforcement. Also, probably like many of you I've I've crossed the street, not at the crosswalk in the middle. Never been cited until I install until I started working on this bill I'd never met anybody who been cited for jaywalking. So if you look at the stats in African Americans in the cities that we were able to find stats, you know, LA Long Beach LA County. You know, LA Long Beach LA County, four to five times more likely to get a citation than everybody else. Beverly Hills issued a little bit over 200 jaywalking to tickets, almost all of them went to African Americans. Right and that's not considered a black neighborhood. So, you know, for me this was two things this is this is about climate change. It's about encouraging people to walk, but it's also about racial justice. And so to me it was such an interesting bill. And I really appreciate all the support from this coalition cow bikes, and really everybody statewide for really understanding what we were trying to accomplish. And it wasn't just a simple bill about what people consider a minor criminal offense. As you know, while it might be a minor criminal offense if you get a ticket it could cost you, you know, upwards of $400 to $1000. That's a lot of money for people who are living paycheck to paycheck or people who are working. And so for me it was just, you know, racial justice, economic justice, and making sure that we make our streets much more friendly for pedestrians. Thanks assembly member and thanks for offering the bill. And thank you all for having me I've never been to the summit before I'm really happy to be here. Jared said my name is Rio sharp. I'm an attorney at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. And when Jared and cow bike brought up the idea of co sponsoring this bill last year. It was a no brainer for us. It, it was really clear to us why this was a civil rights issue why it was an economic and racial justice issue. I'm surprised to find that over the course of the last year a lot of people found it curious that a civil rights organization would be co sponsoring this bill. It doesn't always seem to people like a clear racial justice bill. So I want to just tell you how it fits into our work, which is that for the past eight or nine years we've really had a big focus on racist policing and criminal fines and fees. We've emerged from the Ferguson uprising and from the demands of organizers on the streets in Ferguson and also another anti racist movement since then. Two of the revelations that have really inspired our work. One is the urgent need to reduce low level interactions between cops, and especially low income people of color. The other is the need to reduce the financial costs of interaction with the criminal legal system. So we've done a bunch of work around these two areas, reducing interactions and reducing costs. This bill really allows us to advance both of those. We decriminalize everyday normal safe activity, and we reduce the debt burden that people carry through their lives. We, about two years ago, published a report on non traffic infractions. So all of the kind of lowest level of criminal charges, but the non driving related ones so you think of sit lie laws that mean to criminalize people without homes or J walking or bicycle violations so we did a report on all of these non traffic infractions and the data was stunning even even for people who are already very cynical about racial inequality in our society. In Long Beach, for example, where only 11% of adults are black police had given black adults 36% of all non traffic infractions. The most common one of these was was for J walking in Bakersfield only 6% of adults are black but 28% of J walking citations went to black adults and overall across across all the jurisdictions we looked at black adults were 9.7 times more likely to receive these citations. These non traffic infractions than white adults and Latinx adults were up to 5.8 times more likely so really, really struck us how important it is to reduce the number of these non traffic infractions they typically are for safe activities everyday activities, but they're leading to police interactions and debt burdens that are very significant and sometimes fatal impacts on people so another reason that we were spurred to get involved in this campaign is because there's been some recent high profile and incredibly concerning interactions between police and J walkers. You may have heard the story of non decaying in Sacramento, who was beaten to the point of concussion, simply for crossing the street and current right Kurt Reinhold in Southern California, who was actually killed after being stopped for J walking and the police in his case got off the hook a few weeks ago the district attorney decided not to press any charges so those are some of the most severe consequences we see from J walking. But there's also just the incredible debt burden that the J walking fine is only $25. But when you add the fines and fees and the late charges. It's just shy of $500 for crossing the street. So, those, those are really the motivating forces in getting involved in this campaign we've been fortunate to work with such strong pedestrian and bicycling advocates we've gotten to learn so much about how criminalizing J walking really discourages walking and and really discourages safety in a lot of ways so I've been really fortunate to work with you all and get to learn so much more about why this is a critically important effort. I agree with everything my partner said I wouldn't doubt that the only thing I would add is the reason we support this bill is because it's a small effort to rearrange the hierarchy on our streets. Clearly pedestrians and bicyclists, my fellow friends on a pedestrian, we're on the bottom rung. But this is one small effort to reverse that to level the playing field. If we had a bunch of cars that were like crossing a medium divide because they wanted to get somewhere faster we would change the roads we're still expanding highways in LA, tearing our homes to expand freeways in LA. So if we're willing to put that much money resources attention political priorities in those spaces, we should be able to do the same thing with pedestrians and so once my way of chipping at that block is allowing pedestrians to move uninhibited un penalized or depenalized for that word is. So that's another reason a big motivator for us to do this is we need to change that hierarchy on the streets and this is one way of doing it. So part of that hierarchy is that not every neighborhood has the same amount of pedestrian infrastructure. So certain neighborhoods the wealthy neighborhoods have great pedestrian infrastructure a lot of crosswalks, a lot of signs, a lot of lights. But we found out is in the sack be right before the bill reached the governor's desk they did a, you know, four or five days story great story about how uneven the infrastructure was especially in the lower income neighborhood which is exactly where you saw a lot of policing. You had people sort of get set up because the neighborhoods didn't have crosswalks the neighbors infrastructure so they're just trying to get for pointing to point B, walking across the street well it's an automatic I mean it's they're basically being forced to break the law just to get from point to point B on their feet. What was also interesting is when we were talking to the governor's office and pushing back on the idea that it's not safe because that was a big issue law enforcement said oh this is not safe this is not safe this is not safe. It's very interesting because every single pedestrian safety organization is a sponsor of the bill for supporting the bill. You know, you know, the very people who every day care about pedestrian fatalities and are fighting and every single one of our six, they're all supporting it so I don't understand that philosophy, or that mindset. But what the governor's office told me, I say well look most of these, most of these accidents are actually caused by car she's like no according to the stats. The way they have it the way chp has it was two third I think it's like two thirds of the actions are caused by pedestrians. But to me that's that's sort of like a bias because what pedestrian jumps in front of a car.   All right, so it goes back to john's point. Not only is there a hierarchy it's basically saying that hey we're not even allowed on the road unless we happen to be driving a car. Thank you. I guess just since you brought up last year's campaign, I guess what lessons do you think you'd be learned from last year to carry on for this year's new bill. I mean, I think you mentioned a little bit around kind of rethinking the data and maybe looking at different angle if it's anything you wanted to add to that. So basically I would add that I'm thinking about it now is, we're doing this legislation around hate crimes and there's a police officer standards and training commission which is in charge of training all the peace officers up and down the state. And we're, and we're setting up a policy for hate crimes so they get trained because some jurisdictions shockingly they, you know, in Riverside and San Bernardino they've identified zero hate crimes in the county. It's not because they're not getting reported. It's just because they're not getting identified right so we're going to we're going to set up the policy to create best practices so I think in some ways. You know, we may want to consider, should we have policies to train, you know, the highway patrol all the different law enforcement agencies. How do I identify, you know, who's who's the cause of a particular accident because to me the idea that they've always been blaming the pedestrians for the access just doesn't just doesn't quite make sense, right. And so to me that that might be another policy addition because I think we need to really push back against this bias. Unfortunately, if the data is not in our favor we have to figure out how, how does data needs to get reworked or we looked at because then it really hurts our cause when we say hey, all these fatalities are being caused by cars in the election. According to highway patrol they're all caused by pedestrian. Do we have any, does anybody here identify as a data nerd, or a numbers person or a stats geek, and okay a few people so I'm not a numbers person that's why I decided to go to law school. And I was very much impressed by how important, how useful, how significant the data that we were able to marshal was in this campaign. So I'll talk a bit about the data that we gathered on the racial and economic justice side. And then I think it's important to speak maybe a little more in depth about the public safety data and sort of how we struggled with it. On the racial and economic justice side I shared some of the data with you all that we had gathered in our report a few years ago. That was on non traffic and fractions more generally, we hadn't collected much specific information on j walking. So we were very fortunate to connect with the UC Berkeley PhD researcher Jeff Garnand who offered to do substantial free pro bono research for us. And he dug into the research we'd already gathered, and was able to present very compelling statistics about how much more frequently black people are cited for j walking than white people, what neighborhoods j walking citations are being distributed in. In the makers field, it's like over 90% of j walking citations were in the lowest income communities. And then these citations add a couple hundred dollars of debt on to the people who get the citation. And so it's just as regressive of a policy as you could imagine. He also created maps and visualizations for us which helped us make our points, even more convincingly. So we had some luck gathering data on that side but unfortunately by the end of the campaign. It wasn't really the racial and economic justice arguments that we needed to make anymore the our targets, mostly in the administration. They, from their vantage they said they were convinced they understood there was some serious equity issues but they were so scared about the public safety implications that they weren't willing to to sign the bill. The governor wasn't willing to sign. So I think what we needed to do and what we have not yet been able to do was really marshal more convincing public safety data showing that criminalizing pedestrians, especially pedestrians of color and pedestrians and low income neighborhoods. It does nothing to save lives. We haven't been able to gather that and I wonder, Jared or john if either of you can speak to us, sort of what would have been approaches we could have taken or what are approaches taken elsewhere that would have allowed us to gather stronger data to make that point. I don't have a clear answer to that but I do know that the existing data which which I looked at briefly and I see Robert Prince in the back here from bikey space who helped with this little bit does show. That is simply my routine mentioned like the governor's office was, you know, citing that was the pedestrian's fault, and what they weren't looking at or what they were ignoring actually was the fact that most of the accidents causing pedestrians are the driver, vehicles fall the driver's fault in that case. And we didn't get response to that and I think that just kind of got neglected. In terms of Oakland particular. This is what Robert helped with early on in the campaign was that this Oakland PD actually de-emphasized stopping pedestrians and that the emphasis actually led to more safety or a decrease in accidents among pedestrians and cars. So there is data that exists there and I think again that was a point that was just either ignored or just you know not engaged with at all by the governor or any of the opposition on this. I don't know if you have any more to add to this. So I'm a community organizer so I deal with anecdotes stories very little with data unless I'm speaking with an elected official but I mean I understand we have to give the governor what he wants from to sign the paper so I totally get the politics behind it. And me personally, I mean why do I need to prove a data that is incredibly dangerous to walk in my community. Like, why do I need to make that effort to prove that and again I understand the politics of it. But I think again it's a bias we have with drivers, you know when drivers are reckless. Because the assumption is that pedestrians will be reckless we will run into the street without thinking we won't look at the light well there's all these reasons why pedestrians might make a mistake. But when cars do that we don't nearly give as much sort of concern we don't regulate nearly as much as that, not anywhere near as much. So for me it's again this bias that's baked into our political system with our elected officials about car riders in California at least. So I think that's what my response would be and as a pedestrian advocate is something that I remind a lot of folks it is crash not accident we don't use the word accident because implies that God, it was responsible that it could have been avoided. But all crashes as we know are unavoidable so thanks is anything that you guys wanted to add regarding lessons for this year. Yeah, well one thing just that stood out from last year was the importance of having directly impacted people involved in the campaign that might seem obvious but a lot of legislative campaigns lack that they identify an important issue. And then they spend the next few weeks or months searching for people who have been impacted and who are willing to speak about it. Getting cited for jaywalking can actually be pretty embarrassing experience two of the folks who we worked with last year were their their main feeling was not anger was not frustration but it was mortification they were very embarrassed. They what they said was, we felt like we were treated as though we were criminals in front of our communities, just for crossing the street. In one of their cases, the police officer pulled him over blocking a drive through like a fast food lane. So all the vehicles waiting to get fast food or seeing him get cited and it was a very embarrassing experience for him. That's just to say that not everybody's going to want to talk about these issues publicly, and yet finding people who are willing to can make all the difference in a campaign we can, we can identify great experts, scholars and activists to speak to the legislature to speak to the administration. But sometimes it makes very little impact compared to having somebody who's really gone through this speak to their experience I think it's something we all know intuitively but even as somebody who understood this. It didn't it hadn't really sunk in enough for me last year I waited too long in the year to start to really find people who were willing to speak and could speak passionately and articulately about the issue. And when we did we got them before the legislature we got them to the journalists, and they were really able to make a splash I think it's part of why our campaign got fantastic media coverage last year it really. Though it wasn't early in the year it wasn't talked about as broadly as a lot of other big legislative issues. By the end of the year it had gotten as much media coverage as almost any other bill it got huge editorials, huge articles and I think all of the of the main publications across the state. I think part of that is because each time somebody contacted us, we were able to connect them with somebody who had a persuasive story to tell. It's not enough just to know people have been affected by an issue. You have to really be able to engage them in the campaign and make sure that their voice is elevated and their story is heard. So just to add so, you know, I'm more of a data geek so data drives a lot of my decision making but like if john's the legislator, then john's going to want to hear stories, right so that's why we have to give everybody what they want so we had the data. And every time every hearing we always had real talk and then we had a person who got cited for day walking and an interesting person was, we had somebody who was up from Mendocino County who happened to be homeless. I don't even know how we found them.  And again, you can, I don't want to make too many assumptions, but in my mind I'm thinking okay well this is nothing to do with jaywalking or safety this is just about harassing a guy who looks in a certain way to try to get him to move somewhere and that's how we hear about some of these stories the other interesting irony, as we got more and more press was how many reporters have gotten tickets for jaywalking. I had a number of reporters who were covering this story like oh yeah I got this ticket for jaywalking for jogging in the street and it was very. So it was kind of fascinating but I think it goes both, you know you need both you need the data, and you definitely need it to demonstrate that this is happening to real people in your community we're not making it up this is something that's happening every single day. And if I could add just one small wrinkle. I mean this is part of the law and order effort right or breaking that down the sort of that perception that sort of not perception it's a reality. But if you talk about this issue surprisingly with certain communities like we so we work with a lot of immigrant communities. So when I talk with like even my own parents generation right Korean American immigrants. For them, when they see a lot it's a law is there to protect you. And so actually when I talked to some of my elder Koreans about this love like why would you and they live in Korea town and they navigate those dangerous streets every day will show western Normandy Vermont. And they're like no these these laws are here to protect us. So I don't know why you'd want to get rid of them because I wouldn't want to go out in the car. So there's a level of engagement of a of education of like sort of level setting you need to do with communities and the same goes we work a lot of And when we presented this to a program at all as they it was a similar response like this is all here to protect us. I know my streets are dangerous so why would I want to get rid of a law that would criminalize people being dangerous and that's understandable that perception. So I think it's a lot more nuanced especially in community color and immigrant communities where there's perception of law and order is something that is seen as safety. And so it takes difficult conversations and I think that is what is important about a law like this is that you need to have that kind of conversation. Thanks, John. I forgot to mention while studying the context up front that you know, California is trying to do this Virginia actually did this in the end of 2020 was able to pass it. Along with ending other pretextual stops there's a whole host of things that cops could not stop people for. And I guess I'm thinking just this is obviously a small issue among a broader issue around a variety of racist laws that are still on the books. I'm just thinking about other related issues that could be connected to the jaywalk and there's something that you all can add about how folks could engage with that or other things that folks might be interested in beyond just jaywalking that could be related. Issues, can you relate this to this campaign. I think there's a variety around fines and fees in particular that I think is kind of carrying over from last year I think that's something that I know you both are working on it again. So what's interesting is we do know what does make our streets a and that's lowering the speed limit. So it wasn't like, hey, we are going to, you know, get rid of the jay, you know, we're going to keep the jaywalking laws but we want you to lower the speed limit there was never a discussion. Right, so I think it is very much going back to, you know, fighting what people's bias is based on absolutely no information at all, and actually presenting them with this is what actually works and kind of pushing back on I think that that's a real narrative in terms of really fighting back and ensuring, you know, this is what it goes back to, you know, all the safe streets discussions like what do safe streets look like. I think this is one piece of that, but it's just constantly reminding, you know, people in policy, policy decision making capacities, what safe streets look like so I think having what that rubric looks like and constantly reminding what a safe, you know, safe community looks like and all these different pieces so this is just one piece of that but there's all these other pieces so it's interesting yeah you know you're going to you're going to attack somebody for across the street, but you're not attacking and say hey we have an epidemic of cars speeding down our streets right but that somehow it's this is this one problem, you know, can't be can't be addressed but there's other problems. I don't know if you can speak more to just the criminal justice reforms that I know you're working on separately from this. I started by talking about, you know, the reduction of fines and fees and decriminalization. And I'd say there's other related efforts in both of those buckets that connect to the jaywalking work we're doing, and that I would encourage you all to look at what's involved in so on the fines and fees piece. I mentioned how a jaywalking fine is $25, but all fines and fees included it can be up to $500. Well, a huge portion of that debt burden is this $300 hidden late fee that exists in California. It's mostly used in traffic courts, but it's imposed on both drivers and non drivers in traffic courts, even for something like jaywalking a $25 fine. If you miss your payment deadline, often because you can't afford to pay your hit with a $300 late fee. As you could imagine, mostly affect people who don't have the money to pay, or can't make it to court by the due date, because of work schedules childcare schedules, etc. So our organization, along with the debt free justice California coalition, we've been waging a two year effort to eliminate entirely these $300 late fees. They're extracting about $100 million a year from California communities. It's an incredibly backwards way to try to raise money to fund the courts. As a state, we should be funding our courts as a society, not on the backs of people least able to afford it. So those fees are called the civil assessments. We've been pushing really hard to get them eliminated. The legislature has been fully supportive. But again, we've run into an obstacle with the administration. Governor Newsom wants to reduce the civil assessment from $300 down to $150. Still $150 is wildly unaffordable for so many of us and makes a little difference to somebody who really has no money to pay. So in the next two months, we're going to be fighting hard to get the administration on board to support full elimination of these late fees and relief of all the debt that's already been imposed by these late fees. So that's our big effort on the fines and fees side on the decriminalization side. There's some exciting efforts. One of them is in San Francisco, there's a whole effort to end pretext policing. So there's a coalition that's working to identify, you know, what are all the low level citations that we really want the police to be prioritized or be prevented from enforcing unless there's some other broader violation going on. So that's the stop the pretext campaign in San Francisco. And then statewide, eventually we want to see the legislature create an opportunity for local jurisdictions to remove police from traffic enforcement. There have been some efforts in different cities to remove police from traffic enforcement. But there are state legislative barriers to doing so so it's going to require sort of collaboration between advocates between local electives and between the state legislature to create an opening where states can start to experiment with other ways to do traffic enforcement that don't have the same consequences that that police interactions and criminalization have so that's what I'd suggest in terms of what we see as connected efforts to get involved in. Yeah, it's actually really fascinating to hear what's happening on the state level. So I guess my reaction response to that on the local level is, is that I see echoes of this issue j walking in so many other issues, and the most the common denominator that sort of exists throughout all is who is a good actor on the sidewalk space versus who is a bad actor on the sidewalk space, and the government is trying to make a distinction between one and the other so I'll give you a few examples. Street vending in LA was a years long battle trying to get street vendors are right to sell and then down the streets. And so right now there's moves in city council to limit street vendors because of ADA access, and this is a city that's completely messed up all of its sidewalks so it's kind of ridiculous the talking about ADA access, but they're leveraging that to say you're a good street vendor you're a bad street vendor right same with with the houses crisis going on in LA I'm sure a lot of y'all experienced the same thing. When there was an echo park there was going to be there was a sweep that happened. One of the city council members Mr O'Farrell did a sweep of the park there and he brought in tons of military like style police to go in and push the homeless out. And what was the rational out behind it, at least from his office pedestrian access about who is the, who should be allowed to walk on the space and who shouldn't be allowed. So there's echoes of this in so many areas about who is a good pedestrian versus who is a bad pedestrian, but on the other hand when the pandemic happened. We were like this when it came to private businesses doing, you know, opening up the sidewalk space for dining. Right, we were like this when it came to wealthy privileged communities doing open streets in the community so they can walk and buy it can be comfortable. So it's a complete dichotomy in which we treat certain communities as bad pedestrians and certain communities as good pedestrians. I kind of want to open it up to audience Q&A. I know these folks pretty well for the last couple years and heard a lot and I hope you all have questions. Is that okay is there anything you want to add before I go there. Okay, and I can walk around here with him I can I'll just go around. A lot of hands so let's go here with first with Megan. So I have a super egregious example of victim blaming. That happened about 10 years ago, Clover City PD was doing a safety training. We're one of the few cities that has red light cameras and a woman. This was in a school, a woman ran a red light and hit a pedestrian. Thankfully he lived. But what ended up happening was that the pedestrian, even though it was on camera that this woman ran the red light. Some of the blame was assigned to the pedestrian who was the victim, because two things. He didn't look. They said that the law said that it is the pedestrian's responsibility to look before crossing. Therefore he got some of the blame, and he was wearing a hoodie. And he got some of the blame for that so that to me is, if that is still on the books, like to me that it feels like that fundamentally and quickly needs to be changed. And that's everything because I was a mayor and city council member and I was in this class session meetings where, you know, the city gets sued when there's a crash or something in the city is always like it's in the best interest of the city. You know, to not get sued, but not by solving the problem. And, and I feel like there's this constant frustration, even with elected officials who want to make these fundamental changes. Like the MUT CD and all that, that all those documents say that oh you make it safer by closing down this sidewalk, right or by by closing this pedestrian thing so that you, you know, only so the left turn accidents don't have. So that grants from the federal government for safety. When we close down pedestrian access points and so like it feels perverse. It is perverse and it is racist. And it's, and it feels like even on a local level. It is so hard to do the right thing when the system is poison. Let me just say one thing. Not to address the specific issue but this is all why it's so important to have you know, cow bikes, cow walks all your different organizations all around the state, because when you go through transportation committee, I mean part of the challenges is the state transportation code, right so all the transportation laws. So all the road laws. If you go through each of the Senate transportation or assembly transportation, there is just an inherent bias for whatever CHP says goes. CHP is the, you know, they're the arbiter about whether someone safe walking or whether someone safe biking and I think that's why it's so important for all your organizations to kind of organize, bring up that voice, because, you know, CHP is always sort of like, you know, going to argue for the status quo that they're never really arguing for change they think this is this is the way things are are the way things that are fine so I think, you know you all being in Sacramento having a larger voice in and also having a larger voice at home is really starting to make a difference you have a lot of us legislators who come from communities where we've organized become very familiar with all these fair right of issues when we get to Sacramento we're ready to champion these issues, but we need your continued help up there because it just always defaults to whatever CHP thinks they that goes whether they know what they're talking about or not. More questions. Hi, and thank thank you all for the work you've been doing on this really really inspiring and super important so appreciate you all being here and talking about it. I've begun collecting data in San Diego on all the bike related offenses that people have stopped for and who stopped and where. And I think, ideally all of these pretextual offenses would be changed in the state level but that's kind of a pretty long process and kind of as a as a local nonprofit. Can't drive that effort. So, my question is what kind of decriminalization efforts can we ask for locally that aren't going to put us in conflict with state law. Great question and thanks for the work you're doing also, there is a lot that can be done on the local level there are municipal ordinances related to jaywalking and biking that can be changed. And there are also police priorities that can be changed so Jared mentioned Oakland's effort to de emphasize pedestrian and bicycling violations. That's something that should definitely be looked at at least from what we saw. I think it's helpful in terms of reducing the number of those violations, and also seeing fatalities and serious injuries go down. And then also look to the San Francisco campaign to stop the pretext campaign because it may be that the best option is to is to lead or participate in the campaign to change the police's priorities, or to reduce their authority to site for those kinds of violations except under limited circumstances. I think that you're standing ago. Right. Just finding out who's doing the work like right now I know ACLU and other smaller organizations are like after the 2020 protests you know got really organized to push city council so I definitely can connect later but definitely find those local orgs who are already doing in connect. More questions. I think we have our first selection here so I know you're on there. Here we go. Thank you for the information that you shared I guess my first question is with the data. Do you have the data that you've shared in one central place that we can have access to that or is that something that's possible so that we can consistently share solid information, you know, with all the work that we're doing with question one, and then two is as much as I am for define the police. I live in a community where we have just created bike lanes, first time ever in a red line community that I grew up in that I never had the opportunity to ride a bike and would have to put my bike in the car and go to the beach or some other location. So now we have bike lanes in a still predominantly but very fast changing demographic of brown and black people. And our, our street lanes have been reduced it's been reconfigured through LA dot two lanes going west and east and basically now it's dropped down to one lane on both sides and we've added a bike lane. This was done because Adams Boulevard was a high injury network lives to being taken hit and run and those lives were mainly black and brown lives. The cars are misusing the bike lane, they are still they're resisting this change. So, basically, what do we do, you know, I, I, my question is from a standpoint of citations and the historical activities that have taken place, how do we slow cars down still because our lives will be taken. And in most cases those will be black and brown lives.  Where's the LAPD, because this is dangerous and someone's going to be killed so we are. There's a lot happening, you know, in this conversation but I just wanted to get your recommendation on. How do you see us going forward what are your recommendations. So this is the first question and then I'll defer to others to talk about street design and infrastructure question. In terms of the data we have not made it as easily available as we should have and so I appreciate the question. And I'm looking at Jared and I'm going to commit that we're going to try to add some of our most recent data to the website that's been sort of a center piece of the data that's maintained through cow bike, we're going to make an effort to do that so that the, so that the freedom to walk website has the most relevant and recent information available so thank you for encouraging that, and then I want to invite I want to invite either of you all to talk to the second issue. So what one of my first bills with cow bikes when I got to legislature was around protected bikeways. And so obviously you could work with planning to make sure that the, that the bike lane is actually protected. You could also limit access by, you know, as you know by putting pylons or something as people can enter so it's really only a bicycle could enter versus a vehicle. And so I think there are a number of different ways you could design it I really, I understand the first thing is to work to go get law enforcement to start writing a bunch of citations but I don't know that that's really the ultimate solution. You really want to make it so that that laying is easily accessible for the bicyclists, but maybe not easily accessible for for cars. You know, crosswalks beat homes flat sidewalks more regular bus intervals so people don't have to run and jwalk to catch the bus bus shelters, better lighting better shade. I mean these are all tons of stuff that can make reduce j walking. So yes, let's work together. All right, next question. Yeah, so I just had a quick question about some of the systemic racist issues that we have even with getting pedestrian and bike infrastructure implemented. And this is more of a question for john as well to specifically for john it's a little cheating because I've worked with john before, but can you discuss the work that you've done with the promotores and the issues that they've had with getting a simple life saving infrastructure like crosswalks installed and the issues that they face while trying to work with the like local, like city council or local like do t and stuff like that as well too. Yeah one speed hump and LA takes you over a year to secure. And if you don't speak English if you don't know how to work a PDF, if you don't know how to work a Google form, you're pretty much screwed you're left out entirely of government services and the only recourse you have is to beg your city council member to do what you want and at that point it becomes a political thing it doesn't become about a city service about who is louder in that political office. So the whole system is entirely messed up and so I think we need to reform how we dole out, you know, city resource when it comes to pedestrian infrastructure so yeah I can go on about the systems issue about what we face as community Thank you for your presentation it's been it's been really great to hear from you all. And so my question is Jay walking this kind of a term coined by the auto industry in the 1920s. So kind of wanting to know are you still having pushback from the auto industry or is it solely now from CHP where you're seeing these concerns of safety. In regards to who's had influence in the capital I'd say it's primarily law enforcement and primarily CHP and I think what we did was, we're able to work out an amendment that still got our bill what we needed, but wasn't as ideal as striking the law, but it was able to get CHP to a neutral position but just demonstrates how they have an outsized influence because again, it's not CHP and every single one of our communities policing the roads right so it's kind of interesting. They're the ones providing the advice but they're not in LA I mean outside of the freeways right they're not in, they're not in they're not on Adams. They're not they're not on Wilshire they're not on any of the streets they're not in you know on Marcus Street and my in my community. So yeah, just demonstrates it's why our voices need to be louder and that's just going to take time. It's going to take it's going to take John to organize is going to take all of you as organizers that's why you're all here and your voices are definitely growing I remember I had that I sat down with Dave Snyder. You know in 2012 when I was running for the legislature, and you know Cal bike was just kind of getting started and I said look you know when I get to Sacramento I want to be your bike, you know I want to be your bike legislator right I want to be championing all these issues because I think they're so important and you know I get to do that coming from San Francisco because my constituents get it I don't know if I was coming from Fresno I couldn't necessarily do that. But just being able to you know, myself grow and watch Cal bikes grow it's just been huge. And so that voice is getting bigger and bigger but it still needs to grow we still got a long way to go but there's been huge progress in the last 10 years. It's a good question I know the insurance industries is pretty active in Sacramento but they didn't come down with the position did they on this at all so not to my knowledge. Thank you. I want to thank you for the work that you're doing to decriminalize walking. As you know I'm sure everyone knows that the black community has been over police for the last 400 years. And so I'm glad that there's some conversation and some concrete work being do being done. I also like to talk I'm an Oakland native, but there's a city a neighboring city to Oakland that actually penalizes black youth preteens and teenagers for riding their bicycles into their city. They take the bicycles from children and tell them don't come back to our city. So it's so much larger than just walking. It's, it's, it's everything.  You literally cannot go into the next city that city needs Oakland to get to San Francisco. So I mean come on, all your residents are coming through our city but we are forbidden from going to your city without being penalized so I don't know if you've run into any of that or any efforts are being done to address this situation. Thank you. Yeah, I haven't run into that exact situation but I will echo what you said that this is, I mean, we see it as essentially low hanging fruit like we it's possible it's feasible for us to decriminalize jaywalking but there are so many other activities that people are punished for criminalized for made to feel marginalized for and that's really the broader effort is how do we extricate police and policing from many, many, many more aspects of our lives because for the black community and for many other communities in our country. Policing, especially low level policing is just a continued form of harassment and sort of social control. Because decriminalizing jaywalking is really difficult, even though there's broad widespread agreement that it's a ridiculous criminal violation. So if we want to do more if we want to decriminalize more broadly, we need a much stronger We faced a governor's veto just to decriminalize jaywalking so doing other low level citations that are more controversial. I don't know that we have the collective power for yet and it's that kind of collective power building the bridges that we're building between the civil rights community, the pedestrian community the bicycling community. It's kind of bridge building, but also a great deal more power building that we're going to need to do because we, we felt how limited our leverage was last year, even with 90 organizations signed on active organizations like the ones in this room, we still couldn't get the bill over the over the finish line. And that was a relatively uncontroversial bill so in terms of the broader work we want to do to make life less full of harassment and policing for youth for people of color in the Bay Area. We've got a lot of work to do in terms of movement building and we're here to do it but we're all going to need to do it. That's right yeah and they're involved in the coalition, we can absolutely do better. In fact, with other campaigns were a part of we've had more success partnering with black and brown led coalitions and movements. We haven't as effectively shown how this campaign is critically important to advancing racial and economic justice as as we could, but certainly that's that's core to our strategy and essential. Hey Kathy talking about Beverly Hills. I mean a assembly member just brought up he brought up an actor which is Beverly Hills, and they did someone had to sue the city they, I think, almost 99% were black men that were ticketed. And do you know what that sort of project was called, it was called the safe street project or something but the word safe street was in it. Do you have any programs Los Angeles walks has this called safe streets, right, safety program program safe streets Wilmington, we use that term as well and so it's being co opted. And so again it's a perception of who would deserve to be there who doesn't deserve to be there and so when you see the word safe streets always ask yourself, what do they really mean by that safe for whom. So, can I, but but I will add just to give us a little bit of hope so not normally when the governor office vetoes the bill. They say oh yeah yeah hey we're going to get together we're going to work on it we're going to work on it for next year.  They literally called us the next week and it's the first time that I can remember after a veto that we actually had a solution ready to go in January I mean they really did spend the fall really working out a solution I think because they were wrong to the realize you know they couldn't really defend this that we were we had provided all the information all the data everything was moving, you know our way there was no real justification. The desk demonstrates again, all your work is is moving the needle. There's no question. Before the next question I just add a little bit to the last question what we was already saying I think I think the bigger movement is part the big picture of this and I think it wasn't an accident that the George Floyd killing and the protest that were after that this bill got a lot of traction, you know just brought everything to the table and I think to the second part around the 400 plus years that you mentioned I think as real mention this is kind of like low hanging through j walking but I think whether it's the law enforcement like that is touching on that 400 plus years history so it's it's a it's a lot bigger than that but you know in some ways it's a little smaller I saw a question. Hi, I'm a recipient of a j walking ticket. I got it back.  I was walk. I was taught to walk between the lines from growing up in the very first time 1985 out here I was walking across the street going to work and the very first time that I j walked I got a j walking ticket. I was going to Bart, and I parked my car and I walked across I was like walking and I'm not going to make this light and so I walked up and boom I shot across the street and there was an officer right there to give me a ticket. And I went home that night and I told my parents what happened and they said that's what you get. I was a travel trainer for United Seniors of Oakland Alameda County and when I travel train seniors toward transitioning from taking their cars from driving their cars to taking public transit and walking I teach them to walk in between the lines. I went back to work and she works she worked down here somewhere and the very first time six months I work with her are a little less learning how to get back and forth taking the bus routes working with discontinued services and different things like that that we have to deal with in our neighborhood. And the first time that she went out to lunch with her comrades she got hit by a car. They were all j walking. So I mean I'm just saying what's wrong between what what's so wrong with walking between the lines. Can you know. Can we put it there. There's nothing wrong with walking between lines. I don't think we're saying you shouldn't walk walk between the lines. So if you look at the data the Chronicle did an article a couple months ago so I mentioned the SACP article last year, not every community downtown has it, because again a lot of people a lot of pedestrians, a lot of public transit, but not every community downtown has those lines. And again, you have some people in, you know, more neighborhoods which have a little more crime, literally I have stories of my colleague these are just my colleagues I'm not even talking about, you know, regular folks you should just find the legislators they said, you know I would j walk because I got to the crosswalk, and I walked there. You know, there were dangerous people over there. So then this is just them walking to school I'm not talking about, you know, today. But you have what you have is if every neighborhood had good crosswalks, good pedestrian state, absolutely right you know we want, we want, we want that pedestrian infrastructure so that's something that we all talk about we want that infrastructure to know, given that you don't, we don't think that people should be criminalized for walking in their own community walking in their own neighborhood, just walking to the bus stop, walking to work. You know, again, we absolutely I always want to encourage look safe, pedestrian behavior. But again the way we did the bill was, you could still get cited if you're not safe and there was always the case like you could, even when we got rid of the laws last time, if you're not being safe you could still get cited. Now, the question is, is when you know when you cross the street, were you, were you running yourself at risk, or was it just hey the officer just had an easy citation and I think. Right, that's right. I agree, right. And I think the question is, is where they were they citing as many pedestrians as they were automobiles. Right, we all know what do I stops look like so when they take us here to get these do I stop so were they doing what they needed to do to slow down police I work at San Francisco City Hall we had a pedestrian crossing the crosswalk. Right in the middle of the crosswalk got hit right right just right literally right in front of city hall one of our officials. And now there's a stoplight because of that, but, but if you get but again it you know it's because it was in front of city hall right and so that doesn't happen in every single community so I think yes we know they're dangerous intersections we want to make it safer. But we don't think, at least I don't think I'm not gonna say we I don't think that you should only be citing one group of people, if you are trying to make that whole area safer. You're reducing speeds for the vehicles, you're making sure that the vehicles are also being conswatch as well as the pedestrians or the cyclists hey that's that's okay. I think the concern is that only one group of people is ever being cited, not the other. I love this conversation because I feel like we need to have more conversations like this, because I feel like your perspective on this actually is a lot of people. And what I would say is, sometimes it is safer to jaywalk sometimes it's not sometimes that many times it's more dignified to jaywalk. Many times it is more convenience to jaywalk and so those circumstances do exist. And so yeah. One last question and I see other hands just find me after like I'll talk your ear off about this if you still have questions and make our be here at the last one. Yeah. So, I mean, I live in a side show capital of the world. I don't know if y'all know about side shows, but the car culture in Oakland rules the road as well as the law. The thing I learned as an advocate thanks to Robert here is that laws is enforced only on education. So we we had an incident like she was talking about with the youth I work with the youth. And so when we ride south of East Oakland and San Leandro officers were like pulling up in a cars opening that car doors trying to door the youth cyclists. Because they didn't understand the style of riding that the kids was doing, as well as like OPD like, I got probably over like 50 tickets from just riding my bike in East Oakland, like taking a ticket for the team. And it was more of the education concept like the officers didn't understand that three feet is the law. They didn't understand that pedestrians had a right away, especially with people in big metal boxes like pedestrians are always had a right away whether they're in a crosswalk or jaywalking, as well as cyclists riding on the sidewalk. So as a father, I got a six year old kid that California law say he can't ride in the street and he has to ride on the sidewalk but if I ride on the sidewalk, it's a $590 ticket. So I'm just curious to like, I mean the data is cool but I think the education behind it like for law enforcement and the public is is key. To respond, this law isn't going to save us. We can't just push for this law, this has to come with infrastructure change. This has come in public education, you know, driving safer so it's a constellation of issues and I think this is one of those stars that we're trying to try to get to. Thank you. That was a great last word and thank you panelists for this session. Thank you everyone.


Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I'm Paranjay Gohar Thakurtha and with me, all the way from Berkeley in California and the United States of America, I have Professor Pranab Bordhun. He recently retired from the University of California at Berkeley and he is of course a very, very well known economist who was educated at Presidency College in Kolkata and then at Cambridge University in England and of course he served on the faculty of various reputed educational institutions including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Indian Statistical Institute, the Delhi School of Economics and he's an author of 16 books, the editor of 14 books and written dozens of essays and popular articles in various newspapers and of course other publications. So thank you so much Professor Bordhun for giving the viewers of NewsClick your valuable time and let me inform the viewers that this interview is going to be done in two parts and on two completely separate subjects. In the first part of this discussion, we're going to talk about politics in Bengal and the second part of this discussion will be on the Indian economy and issues pertaining to crony capitalism in the Indian context. So Professor Bordhun, let me start by asking you how do you read the verdict of the assembly elections in West Bengal, the results for which we got to know on the 2nd of May and we saw the incumbent government, the ruling Trinamool Congress win by a sweeping, it was a sweeping victory for the Trinamool Congress at the same time we saw for the first time the Bharatiya Janata Party emerging as the biggest opposition party because the left and the Congress were wiped out, they got no seats in the state legislative assembly and what we also saw and what was very, very significant is that the BJP, its vote share came down from the looks of our elections in 2019 to the unanswered elections. So let me ask you to give you a few broader observations before I ask you specific questions on how do you read the electoral verdict in West Bengal? Yes, thank you Paranjaya. On 2nd of May, I certainly sighed a great sigh of relief even though I was never a fan of Mahmut of Energy, I was just great relief because she could defeat BJP. However, one should not exaggerate the extent of the defeat. Yes, the BJP vote share went down from the 2019 Lok Sabha election time but Lok Sabha elections and assembly elections, one should not directly compare. I think it should bear in mind that what looks like a landslide victory in terms of seats is not a landslide victory of TMC in terms of vote share. Yes, TMC vote share was about 48% but BJP vote share was about 38% which is a big percentage. But after all, Modi in Delhi rules in 2019 landslide election with only about 37 to 38% of votes. And you can add to that the NDS share. Yes, that comes to 44%. But 38% is a significant vote share. So I think looking to the future, one has to be very careful because the way BJP calculates is not like the way you and I would calculate. And some of their leaders have already expressed this. They say essentially that in a state where there are large number of Muslims and Muslims voted 70 to 75% for TMC. I mean the official proportion of the Muslims at the chair of the total population of West Bengal is around 27%. 27% as a 2011 census. Maybe it has gone up a little bit. But anyway, so their calculation, I'm talking about the BJP calculation that when about 70 to 75% of Muslim votes are going for TMC, what proportion of votes of Hindus do they need to win in West Bengal? And their calculation, and I've seen this in some of their articles, their calculation, they need about 60, 62% of Hindu votes. As a matter of fact, in this election, they got only about 50%. So essentially BJP thinks the gap they have to cover of Hindu votes is another 10%. So that's the way they calculate. Now, from our point of view, those of us who do not want to see BJP come to power in West Bengal, I think it is very, we should carefully note the composition of the votes. If you look at the CSDS election, post-election survey. Center for the Study of Developing Societies, the Locality Survey. Yes, please, continue. Yes. For West Bengal election, if you look at that, look at that, you will see the majority of Hindu upper and middle class votes have gone to BJP. Even in West Bengal, in spite of all the talk about secularism and this and that, the majority of Hindu upper and middle classes have voted for BJP. And then substantial fraction, and I think it's a majority, if I remember right, majority of schedule cost vote, particularly Mottua vote and a significant fraction. I think the majority of Mottua vote and a significant fraction of the Rajabangshi and other schedule cost vote are in the rest of India because Dalit vote. So, it's a significant, if almost the majority of schedule cost of Dalit vote have gone for BJP. And if I may add, a fairly substantial section of the Adivasi vote also, the schedule cost. I was going to say that the Adivasis, but compared to 2019, Adivasis vote for BJP went down this time. So, Adivasis didn't vote as large a number as the schedule cost, the Dalit's did. So, one has to keep this in mind and one has to remember that in some sense, BJP has already poisoned the well in West Bengal, which I thought would have been very difficult to do, but they have succeeded in doing so. Okay, let me interrupt you briefly here. Would you interpret the verdict and as we know the way the first pass the post system works, first pass the post, winner takes all and despite Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's personal, Mamata Banerjee's personal defeat in Nondikram to her arch rival Shubhendra Odhikari, who is now the leader of the opposition in the Individhant Sabha, would you interpret the verdict as more of a vote against the Bharti Janta party than pro-Trinamoon Congress and that a fairly substantial section of the electorate in West Bengal, almost half as you pointed out 48%, voted for TMC, not because they favored the TMC, but because they wanted to keep the BJP out or perceive that if the... My answer would be yes and no. I think large number of West Bengal voters, particularly women, voted for Mamata. Okay, I'm going to come to the woman voting a short while, but what I wanted to say is do you think that the electorate or large sections of the electorate in West Bengal perceive that should the Bharti Janta party come to power in West Bengal for the first time, that would in a sense change the politics and Narendra Modi's juggernaut would be unstoppable and what the international bodies like VDEM has said, the electoral autocracy in India would get a huge boost to use the words of political scientist Suhasthi. I would say this may be a dominant feeling among certain sections of middle classes around Kolkata because Kolkata by the way has largely gone overwhelmingly for Chinamoon, but as I already told you the majority of upper and middle classes have voted for much BJP. So if you take West Bengal as a whole, I'm not sure that stopping the juggernaut, it certainly weighed with some people, but I'm not sure to weigh to the majority, otherwise the majority of... because these kind of things is more the upper and middle classes really think about it. Okay, now about the women vote.  But I think much more important for the women vote is the welfare measures that she has taken, the Karnashree, Shastrasati, Duaresharkar and all these things, I think she has become very popular with women because most of these are focused on women. Add something here, Professor Mordor. There is some anecdotal evidence to indicate that there were large numbers of families in West Bengal where the women voted very differently from the men. Exactly, exactly. I even saw just before the election, one press reporter talking to BJP families and of course men are the ones we're talking to them and men said, of course we are against Mamata and we're going to vote BJP. But as soon as the men went away a little on this, even in those families, the women whispered to the reporter said, we are for Didi. So that's certainly... let me go into something that I really, for news click that I would like to emphasize, going away from Mamata, essentially I think it is very important, apart from that it is not really that much of a landslide victory as many people think, but more than that I think the wiping out, complete wiping out of the left and Congress is something very important because in looking to the next few years in West Bengal, when Mamata's opposition is all from BJP, like the nature of politics everywhere, you lean in that direction. Left is zero in the assembly and all the opposition is from BJP, like all politicians everywhere in the world do, when your main opposition, in order to follow an election, you lean in that direction, not the leftward, maybe rightward, etc. I would not be surprised if Mamata does more Chandi part or as she was doing in this election a little bit as chanted Gayatri mantra and all that. But anyway, to me the major point is, what should the left do in this situation and the rest of this part of the talk, I want to address that issue. Okay, before you do that, I have two questions for you and you can give me very brief answers. The first question is, it was apparent to everybody that the election commission of India, which was supposed to be a neutral autonomous independent constitutional authority, that it was brazenly partisan, from the number of the fact that elections were held in eight phases, to the way in which in Jital Kuchi, the firing took place by paramilitary forces, to the manner in which even with the second wave of COVID had begun, the election commission of India did not bring together the last three phases. It's not accepted everywhere that the constitutional bodies quite often have been taken up, taken over by Modi's government. So I don't have a disagreement with you, but you are going on to ask some more specific questions. A second question, the BJP, the Bharti Janta party splurged on the elections, huge amounts of money was spent. Does the electoral verdict in Bengal also indicate that money power has its limits, that even if you spend huge amounts of money on social media, yes, you want to distribute money and alcohol and whatever, there may enough takers for that, but that can influence voter choices, electoral preferences only up to a point. Is this also an important message coming from the verdict in Bengal? I think so, but notice that BJP also lost in Tamil Nadu. BJP of course lost in, got no seat in Kerala, but in Tamil Nadu also, but I think Mamuta as an alternative, acceptable and popular leader made a big difference and that there the women issue comes up again because she was very, very popular with the women, even upper class women, not to speak of lower caste, lower class women. So that made, I think money helps, but not all the way. Similarly, I'm not sure, if you think about the 2024 election, it may not go in a similar way because there, people are electing Lokshava. So there they will think about the all India leader and Mamuta yet is not an all India leader. No, we've seen that in several states in the country, including Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Orissa, where people are voting very differently in the Vithansabha elections than the Lokshabha elections. Do you think that might happen in Bengal too in 2024? It might, in 2024. So money power and the media and everything, the power that they have may work more strongly for BJP in the 2024 election because there is the candidate and an additional leader. So to return to the point you wanted to elaborate on, due to the issue you want to elaborate on and that is really what is the role of the left in Bengal. Left. Exactly. It was Bengal for 34 years, it won seven consecutive elections all the way from 1977. Earlier the Congress had ruled this country for a few decades, but today these two forces, both the Congress and the left, have been completely wiped out of the West Bengal legislative assembly. So what are the three reasons now that the left... I think there are many things here and I'm going to talk about some of them, but one thing that's very important is that left made a big blunder and that of equating Trinamool with BJP. In fact, they used words like DJ Mool. Today, I don't know what you have seen in the newspaper. Today, Surya Kanthamistro has come up openly that that was a big blunder we did and I think they now recognize it is a blunder. Even though their own party ex-Chief Minister Kripura Maniksharkar has been warning about them about this for quite even before the election, but they did not pay much attention, but at least late, better late than never, they have recognized this. Now that even if you recognize it, there are many problems that left us to grapple with. One of the reasons they were so much against Trinamool is because in a sense they have suffered from the local tyranny of Trinamool goons. In fact, in the 2018 Panchayat elections, about one third of the Panchayats uncontested. So that tells you about the local mafia-type tyranny of Trinamool. But having said that, let me add, this is not a qualitative difference from the CPM, the left-rule earlier. I mean it was far less. Exactly, exactly. But it's not a difference in, it's a difference in degree, but not a qualitative difference. I have been to many of these neighborhoods during the CPM rule, they had local mafia, they had syndicate Raj. If you want to build something, build a house, you have to buy materials at high prices or low quality from the local CPM Dadair-controlled syndicate or local committees. So local tyranny was there under CPM, particularly toward the latter part of the 34-year rule. And then Trinamool, in a sense Trinamool has really learned and took it to a larger extent the same techniques that CPM used to use in terms of local tyranny. I think one of the first things that the left has to do has to convince people because the people who are really suffered from that tyranny, they still have that memory. So you have to convince the local people, we have understood we made mistakes at that time, will not allow the local goons to dominate the local neighborhoods. That's something you have to do with. I think both the Trinamool also needs to learn these lessons because I remember, I interviewed a Trinamool member of parliament, Chowkottu Rai where he said, what happened during the panchayat elections should not happen. He said it in so many words. Right. So first thing I would say left has to convince with exact actual examples. Left I think still has under control even though they have no assembly seat, I think we still still control some panchayats. And in those panchayats, why don't they do and show people that they really mean when they say they don't go back to that earlier regime of local tyranny. So first you convince people in those panchayats where you still number one. Sorry, very good to say something. Yes, please continue because we are running out of time. So number two, I think the current leadership is not really too late. They now admit they're blunders. They are prone to blunders and the current leadership is discredited. I think they should give the leadership in the party to younger people. The first time there were a lot of young people who contested, they lost all of them. But they are at the junior level. They are the junior level. I know there are some of them are the JNU, junior level. But I think even at higher up levels, they should leave to two kinds of new leaders. One is younger leaders and the other is Dalit and Adibasi leaders because unlike in Kerala, in West Bengal, the leadership is dominated by uppercuts. That's number two. Number three is I think given that they have zero seats, I think it's unlikely if you ask me. Obviously they can't sink any lower. They can't sink any lower. But I think I don't think in the next 2026 election, I don't think the left is going to come back in a big way. But they can come back in a significant way if they apply their mind not so much to the election machinery, not so much to these short run tactics of who do they ally with. They should focus their mind on changing the what they do when they reach the people. And I've already talked about local tyranny. But let me now add, I'm going to add some things at the social level and at the economic level. I think it's a very good sign. They understood that doing social work makes them popular. In fact, in the, you probably know during the COVID pandemic, there are these red volunteers who come in a motorcycle with the help of various kinds, masks or oxygen, etc. And that made them very popular. So do more social work. And in fact, during the Amphan cyclone, they also did good social work. So I think you apply not so much in electoral tactics of how to win the next election, more to winning people's hearts through various things. I'm going to make a list. The first one is social work of that kind. Next would be another social thing. Take up important social issues, not necessarily economic issues. I'm going to talk about economic issues, but social issues that are important. Like for example, unlike in many other states in India, I don't know how many people know this, marriage at a very early age, marriage of little girls actually, 14 year, 15 year, 16 year old marriage is very common in West Bengal, in rural West Bengal. And that is something. Now some of the girls are now going to police to say that my parents are marrying me, but I want to study. CPM or left can take up these kind of causes which exercise real people. If you can briefly touch on the economic issues because we have limited time, Professor Walden. So social issues, but the other social issues that I want to mention is that in Kerala, they have used, they have not made this big distinction within class and caste. Nambutri, AMS Nambutri, starting from his time, who was a Brahmin, but he got the Aravava votes, the OBC Dalit votes. I think you cannot ignore caste issues in West Bengal. And even though you emphasize class issues, but you keep yourself open to caste mobilization and try to appeal Matua votes, Rajabangshi votes, and so on. Adibashi votes, etc. So use those other categories of social mobilization, not just class mobilization. Now let me come to economic issues. The West Bengal left has been very proud that they carried out some land reform, not a great deal of land reform, but some land reform and decentralization, the Panchayat system. And also Operation Borga, giving rights to the tiller. Operation Borga is the land reform, that's what land reform, the main thing is the Operation Borga and distributing some part of land to landless. Now I'll come to the land issue in a minute, but let me say decentralization in some sense has been distorted by two things. One, by Mahavata Banerjee. Mahavata Banerjee trusts the administration. So she trusts the video, local video more than the local Panchayats, Panchayat Pradhan. I think this has to change, because that's going away from local democracy, something that CPM used to be very proud of. The other issue is that this local tyranny that I talked about and local corruption, which is really now one of the reasons Mahavata wants to go away from Panchayats is because Panchayat's leadership is quite often corrupt. Panchayat leadership is quite often corrupt. So that's something CPM has to address. In the Panchayats that still control, try to make examples of corruption free and without free of local tyranny. The other issue is land, land reform. I think all types of land reform will no longer work, because in West Bengal, as in Bangladesh, the land has become over time small and smaller and smaller. Pragmentation of holdings. Yes. It's now so small, you have to go in the direction of cooperation. I'm not talking about cooperative farming. I'm talking about forming cooperative, keep your land, the land that you have, but you form cooperatives, which will do bargaining when you buy inputs, fertilizers, I think like that, or when you do marketing. And this is something, by the way, I used to discuss a lot with the CPM leaders, who are my friends. I said, look, you talk about neoliberalism, this and that, you are against capitalism. I understand all that. But if you are against capitalism, you have to give people an alternative. It is not enough to say I'm against capitalism. You have to then show with examples how you can have alternative organization, non-capitalist way. And as soon as you say non-capitalist, they will say, nationalize. Now West Bengal is a graveyard of failed state enterprises. So the old formula of nationalization will not work. So you start small organizations, non-capitalist organizations if you want, worker managed organization if you want, and show that even not at the West Bengal level, even at the local level, you can succeed until and unless you have non-capitalist organizations which succeed, you cannot convince people. And the other thing is their focus is on agitating for wage increase. But that is accepting capitalism. Wage increase is not enough. Most workers are not wage workers. Most workers are informal workers. Most workers are self-employed workers. Unorganized. Unorganized workers. So your trade unions have to not just enough to raise salaries of organized workers, which is a small island in a vast ocean of informal workers. Around 90% all over the country and also in West Bengal of the West Bengal. So again, not rhetoric. Create some organization, show that you can put in India the few successful examples of informal workers organizations and by Gandhians like SEVA and all that. Why can't the left have a single example of a successful organization of informal workers? SEVA and Gujarat, the self-employed women's association. Right. So you carry out some examples that you can carry out and do successful non-capitalist organizations and then people will be convinced. Otherwise, simple rhetoric, wrong with capitalists will not do. Professor Burgon, we've actually run out of time. I'm going to ask you a last question.  What do you see after the elections? The opposition to the Trinomul Congress has played up the whole issue of post-poll violence. There are a lot of claims, a lot of allegations, a lot of content. So the second thing we see is that according to some, the BJP has turned out to be a rather poor loser. It is attacking the Trinomul Congress. There have been CBI cases, there have been all kinds of other initiatives and the role of the governor, most importantly, the role of the governor. And there's been a running battle of few, which is, you know, we don't see this kind of few between the governor of a state and the incumbent chief minister. I know all of this. My reaction to all this, how do you, what else do you expect from Modi regime?  I know they're exaggerating the post-election violence, but there has been quite a bit of violence. So I think it is very important to deprecate that violence. Otherwise, BJP thrives on violence. It is a violent party. It is a party of communal authoritarianism and they thrive on violence. They may handle by being violent yourself, even if your violence is less than theirs. So I think you should honestly admit that there has been violence. We are very sorry for it.  Actually showcases where they're exaggerating. They're using fake videos, fake news of violence and all that, but there has been violence. And this is not for the first time in Bengal. In Bengal, even under the CPM rule, post-election, there is to be violence. Whoever wins, and this goes back to the local mafia thing I was talking about. Local political arena has become a gangland warfare arena, a star force between different mafias. So when one mafia wins, it tries to be violent to the other mafia. And this has been going on, this is not today. I used to see that when Congress and CPM is to fight, when CPM and Trinamolier fight every year, every time. And of course, BJP is using it. And so in order to fight this force of violence, to me, BJP represents violence against minorities, violence against dissidents, etc. You be extra careful and be apologetic if there has been violence and try to do something in order to reduce that violence. So that is my reaction. And the role of the governor in this regard? Governors have acted in an extremely partisan manner. They have not been autonomous there, after all, whether we like it or not. All the institutions, I don't want to emphasize this because everybody knows all the other institutions. Governor is only a small institution. Much bigger institutions have been taken over by the Modi government. And of course, they are running rampant on those. But may I, just a couple of things, just in two sentences, I want to just be concluding remarks. Yeah. So on the economic issues, I just want to mention two things. I think in CPM time earlier, and then Trinamol also, even when they do welfare, they give to private goods, private services. I think the emphasis should be on public goods, infrastructure, busily salakpani, which are public goods. Because otherwise what happens, CPM time. Exactly. Public goods mean to me, these roads, a busily salakpani, and health, and education. In education, for example, all over the world, the most important type of education you can give to children is preschool education. So given a lot of emphasis on Anganwadi's and preschool, so why doesn't left take up that as a major issue? And of course, then universal healthcare because of the pandemic. So that's take up issues like that, focus on them, and make it very apparent to people. That's the way to get public support. Not concentrate on electoral tactics. Okay, thank you so much, Professor Borden, for giving us your views on politics in Bengal and what according to you the left should do if it wants to come out of, if it wants to rise from its present position, it has no seats in the assembly. So you have outlined a host of economic and social initiative, which according to you should occupy the mind space of the left in the near future. Thank you so much for speaking with Newsclick and for the viewers of Newsclick, I will inform them that Professor Pranab Borden will be speaking again to Newsclick in the second part of another interview I will be having with them. This time the focus will be on India, the Indian economy and crony capitalism and oligarchy in the Indian context. Thank you very much for being with us and keep watching Newsclick.


Welcome to OE Global 2018. My name is Horwitz Führer and I'm the conference program chair. I'd like to invite you to review the tracks for the conference team, transforming education through open approaches and submit a proposal. We are featuring four formats, a presentation, an action lab, a panel and a poster. Additionally, proposals may be considered for a special issue of open practices. We will be reviewing your proposal on originality, on addressing significant issues, engaging and communicating a clear and relevant message. The submission deadline is on 23 October and we will announce accepted proposals on 1 December. We look forward to reviewing your proposal.


Hello and welcome to this session. In this session we discussed the following question which says if vector A plus vector B plus vector C is equal to 0 and magnitude of vector A is equal to 3, magnitude of vector B is equal to 5 and magnitude of vector C is equal to 7 show that the angle between vector A and vector B is 60 degrees. We know that angle between two non-zero vectors vector A and vector B is given by cos theta equal to vector A dot vector B upon magnitude of vector A into magnitude of vector B that is we have theta is equal to cos inverse vector A dot vector B upon magnitude of vector A into magnitude of vector B. This is the key idea that we use for this question. Now let's move on to the solution. Now it's given in the question that vector A plus vector B plus vector C is equal to 0. So from here we have vector A plus vector B is equal to minus vector C. Now next we have vector A plus vector B dot vector A plus vector B this would be equal to minus vector C dot minus vector C this further implies vector A dot vector A plus vector A dot vector B plus vector B dot vector A plus vector B dot vector B equal to minus vector C dot minus vector C that is vector C dot vector C. We know that vector X dot vector X is equal to magnitude of vector X the whole square and also vector A dot vector B is equal to vector V dot vector A. Since we know that scalar product or you can say the dot product of this is commutative. So using these two results this implies magnitude of vector A the whole square plus vector A dot vector B plus vector A dot vector B plus magnitude of vector B the whole square equal to magnitude of vector C the whole square. We are given that magnitude of vector A is 3. So this is 3 whole square plus 2 times vector A dot vector B plus magnitude of vector B whole square and we know the magnitude of vector B is 5. So this is 5 whole square equal to magnitude of vector C whole square that is 7 whole square since magnitude of vector C is 7. So this further implies 9 plus 2 into vector A dot vector B plus 25 equal to 49. So we get 2 times vector A dot vector B is equal to 49 minus 9 minus 25 that is 2 times vector A dot vector B is equal to 15 that is we get vector A dot vector B is equal to 15 upon 2. Now we take let theta be the angle between vector A and vector B then we have cos theta is equal to vector A dot vector B upon magnitude of vector A into magnitude of vector B that is we get cos theta is equal to vector A dot vector B that is 15 upon 2 whole upon magnitude of vector A that is 3 into magnitude of vector B that is 5 and this is equal to 15 upon 2 into 3 into 5 and 5 3 times is 15 this 3 and this 3 gets cancelled so this is equal to 1 upon 2 that is we get cos theta is equal to 1 upon 2 that is this is equal to cos 60 degrees so this implies that theta is equal to 60 degrees that is we have hence the angle between vector A and vector B is 60 degrees. So this completes the session hope you have understood the solution for this question.