Opinionated News

Spoon-feeding has been ingrained in our DNA. Our life starts, literally, with spoon feeding and ends with spoon feeding. I mean, what would you prefer- rice, dal, oil, mustard, salt etc etc in front of you or deliciously cooked Kichdi. We always liked that one professor who would give us IA questions in advance, dint we? So we, as people, always like ready-made, cooked goods. But unfortunately it has even extended to the way we consume news.

A news that comes out as a narrative, as a story appeals to more people than plain facts. Facts are boring. But these narratives are built on opinions. Yes! they are built, created, not presented! So it shouldn't come as a surprise when Mr. Arnab Goswami tells that the future of news is in opinions rather than facts.

Is it wrong? I am not sure! But it is more prone to misuse on two accounts. Firstly, Opinions are biased. 10 different people have 10 different opinions. We form opinions based on our own convenience. Our upbringing, our surroundings, our nationality, religion, caste everything influences our opinions. So why only air opinion of one particular individual who happens to own a news channel. So, naturally, if news becomes opinionated then one sided viewpoints will be broadcast as news.

Secondly, media could become hub for vested interests. In the OJ Simpson trial of the century that's what the attorneys of OJ did. They created narrative, brushed off the facts. Their story appealed to the already biased jury. Hard hitting facts of DA failed to make any impact. Opinionated news can thus easily overshadow the facts. This would lead to a situation where the newsrooms would actually become soap operas showing us alternate Utopian reality.

Opinions are important (after all ain't I giving my opinion here ;)). They should be part of media too. But they cannot replace facts. They should be clearly demarcated from the fact based news. When this happens automatically a news channel would accommodate varied opinions unlike now where a channel has cornered itself towards one facet of the news. Only then can we accept media as the fourth pillar of democracy.

The Judge, the Jury and the Executioner

Movies - Bollywood -whether you like it or not has been an integral part of our society. Do movies influence the cultural ethos of society, or does the societal behaviour cast influence on movies? The answer to this question is not akin to unidirectional flowing river. This river flows in all directions. That discussion is for some other time. But one can find certain pattern in the movies that catch the nerves of people and become instant hit. Movies like Shehenshah, or Sunny Deol's late 80s films like Ghayal, Ghatak, or even for that matter RDB or (this sentence cannot be foreclosed without mentioning) the South Indian mass movies are the ones I am talking about. People/Family/Hero wronged by the system/rich fellows take law in their hands. Loudest cheers go to the ones where the protagonist kills the antagonist  doing all kinds of physics defying stunts. Keeping all the antics apart the phenomenon we are talking about is called as mob justice.

I would not have been worried if this was only restricted to reel life, but mob justice is a hard reality in real life too. To top this, mob justice is not seen by many people as a crime or something which is morally wrong. There have been numerous instances where people have taken law into their own hands where they deemed injustice has been meted out. At the least level, we all have, in our life time, seen a robber being beaten black and blue by the "mob". It does not look ominous to us at that time but it is just a tip of the ice berg. In mid 2015, mob breaks into prison and beats an 'alleged' rapist to death, the episode of Dadri lynching, lawyers (cannot emphasize the extent of irony in this) beating the 'alleged' anti-nationals in the court premises are certain examples. I have just quoted recent examples, but free India has seen many such 'mob justice' incidents.

I would be wrong to say that such incidents are restricted to India. Mob justice or what is euphemistically called vigilante justice is quite prevalent in developed part of the earth too. There are many cases where individuals or groups have taken upon themselves to stop rising crime rate in their cities! No doubt vigilante comic characters are so popular in USA.

There is a view that lack of competence in the law enforcement agencies is one of the reasons for this vigilantism. But in real life two wrongs do not make right. The basic principle of natural justice is that the accused has the right to be heard by a bona fide judge. This principle is tossed into the air in case of mob justice. In spite of the gravity of crime, law has to take its course. Gandhiji always stressed that good 'means' is as important as good 'end'. Unfortunately, this has been losing its relevance in the fast forward modern world.

While as they say every cloud has a silver lining, Indian legal system set an example few years ago. The trial of Ajmal Kasab is the case in point. The culpability of Kasab was beyond doubt, but he was given a fair trial which went for a over an year.

In a nut shell, the legal system including the enforcement agencies have to prove their competence to restore faith of public in the system but at the same time the society at large has to understand that failure in the implementation itself does not mean the system is wrong. The public should use their collective power to improve the implementation rather commit a crime to prevent another crime.

The Ugly Face of Social Media

Social Media has been quite a revolution in recent times. It has given voice to the unheard section of society. A person stranded in a foreign land tweets to the MEA and instantly she gets required assistance from the govt. There have been examples of families getting reunited via Facebook. Instances like these tell us the impact of social media in common man's life. But as with every invention, this invention also comes with riders. In fact, very dangerous riders.

The idea of Social media is very novel. Its impact has been very notable. But again, this very quality has made it a hot commodity. A commodity that can be easily manipulated. It has become one of the major tools in the hands of media pundits, management gurus, who use them to their desired end. Twitter and Facebook, with their immense membership, have been the main actors in this manipulative game. Tweets are artificially promoted, while some are promoted with all the transparency, some are artificially made to trend. Twitter is full of fake, dummy profiles, which are used to send the same tweet with required hashtag (#), to make it trend and hence catch the attention of public in general. This is predominantly seen during a movie or a product launch.

While, the above misuse is deceptive but not harmful per se. But this is not the end, but just the beginning. Lets see how this takes a harmful shape. Fareed Zakaria, host at CNN, wrote an article in Washington Post on how he was trolled in internet. In the article he comes with an interesting proposition - "group polarization". Anybody familiar with internet trolling can easily identify with this phenomenon. This group polarization has taken very dangerous turn in recent times and in some cases has manifested fatally in real world.

Even political elements have not stayed back in capturing this media for ulterior motives. "Internet Armies" have been created by the political establishments. They, very intelligently, seep content in to the social networking sites favouring them and in worst cases the contents are targeted at political opponents. While, such efforts from politicians are not new and not unique to social media, but social media has taken the vile to very high level. Social media has been abundant with misinformation campaigns, wrong data are fed as facts and many gullible social media users fall prey to these tactics. With large following in these social media sites, the misinformation spreads, literally, like a wild fire. Unhindered flow of misinformation has certainly given rise to 'more' intolerance, and this is not unique to India, if one has followed Donald Trump's campaign can associate with this.

Social Media has many many advantages and has made flow of information very easy and lightning quick. But it is slowly but surely showing its ugly side. While it is next to impossible to regulate the data that is being transmitted, one way out could be making the users more knowledgeable and aware of the ills of social media. The more we neglect this, more powerful it will become. 

The Apathy of Electronic Media

Media, has been and, presently is a key part of the society. It just doesn't play an important role in disseminating information but it actually acts as a medium to propagate the society's conscience. This was quite evident in the coverage of recent Nepal earthquake crisis. But there is something else very peculiar to the current electronic media- its apathy. For instance, the Earthquake had taken a 3 month old boy's life. His dead body was lying in front of his father. It does not take great intellect to understand the grief the kid's father might be facing, yet a reporter from a popular media house, who-like numerous others- called himself to be the first one to report from ground zero, kept posing him questions one after the other. This shows the apathy of our electronic media towards the sensitivities of human life.

I like to mention one specialist's - forgot his name- quote on media- "several years ago corporate houses used to run media but now media house themselves have become corporate." Let's not get into the factual correctness of the statement. Just taking on its merit it does seems right. The way the top TV news channels operate, they look quite corporatey. The race to get higher viewership by hook or crook, the self gloating advertisements, the superstar images the anchors build for themselves to gather their own fan base- these all just show the corporate entertainment business at play.

Some may say that though they are in news disseminating industry, they still run a business and hence have to earn money. And hence they need to do the above things. And also they argue that people/public like to see such news items too. I would like to counter them with following statements. Yes, agreed they are in business. But media is not just about doing business, it is a responsibility. One must look into the role, media played during the national freedom struggle to understand this. Also, the current TV news channels do not hold any sensible debates on current prevalent issues. Debates are done on issues which they think would grab more eyeballs. And the key ingredients of such debates are chest thumping and screaming anchors coupled with equally vocal participants. There were debates when RaGa went on sabbatical and also when he came back. Such debates don't yield any conclusion- hawaa me teer dhaagne ki baat ho jaati hai bhas. Even when these news channels pick up some relevant issues they make it political by bringing in political representatives rather than experts. For instance, a debate on farmers' suicide will not have any scholars of agricultural domain. But there will be people from various political parties playing the Hot Potato game!

One last issue before I can give my concluding remarks is regarding the contemporary news presenters. It is the anchors of the popular TV news channels, who actually hit the final nail in the coffin. The self proclaimed All-I-Know anchors do not handle these debates as moderators but as judges who are hearing a case. Worse, some anchors decide the judgement before the hearings begin!!

Media is the fourth estate of the society. It is the society's conscience keeper. Thus, media cannot become just another business. Its a job with utmost responsibility. I hope there will be emergence of some new age media houses who would handle this responsibility. We need not look far away for inspiration. The way media operated during our freedom struggle can be the guiding light. The selfless work of Lokmanya Tilak, Surendranath Banarjee is a big source of inspiration. At the same time we as viewers need to be careful while choosing the news we want to see. Do we want to see TV news channel which shows "whether a TREE-MAN is real" or do we want to see a news channel which holds discussion, among the experts, about "Maldivian crisis and its affect on India". We always will have a choice, we need to choose wisely. Hopefully in future we can see more popularity to real news channels.

PS- for those who read the blog till the end. Visit these YouTube channels [1] [2] and watch these discussions. It will be quite refreshing. After all these are the real issues which Nation wants to know!

A Lesser World Cup ?

The Cricket World Cup (CWC) in its 2019 edition, in all probability, will be played among 10 nations. 8 top teams will be qualified automatically whereas next 2 teams will be chosen based on qualifying matches played before the world cup. The move has been criticized more than it has been welcomed. Cricket is not a very popular sport especially in European and American nations. There is a need to take the game beyond certain restricted incumbent boundaries.

One of the many ways to increase the popularity of the game is to involve the so-called associate nations in major cricket tournaments. As Rahul Dravid points out- "[it is important] for the growth of their [associate nations] game to be seen at a World Cup, the games being telecast Live back home in terms of sponsorship, government funding; its so important for them to be a part of this premier event. I think that's the least cricket can do." There are teams like UAE, Holland who have players, who are not regular cricketers but have other regular jobs. This does not augur well for the future of cricket in these nations. And a CWC without associate nations will further deplete the interest in the game in those nations. For any budding cricketer it is a dream to play in a world cup. It will be wrong to take that away from a player of an associate nation. This does not mean that every cricket playing nation should be allowed to play cricket but the current 14- team format seems fair enough.

Now lets see some of the counter arguments being made for the inclusion of associate nations in forthcoming CWC. It is feared that they will make the league matches a dry phase as more or less everybody can guess who will enter the knock out stages. This makes sense because the level of cricket played by associate nations are not upto the standards of a marquee event like CWC. But does excluding them make it up for that? Instead the cricket administration should look to develop the game in these nations by building required infrastructure. And also as Sachin Tendulkar opines "we need to look at how we can get these guys [associate nations] to raise their standard of playing and I think the standard of playing is only going to rise when they start playing against the top sides". He makes a valid point when he says that A- teams of top ODI playing nations should tour these associate nations more often.

A 10 nation CWC has its pros and cons but a sport's ultimate competition with only 10 participating nations does not sound good. If somebody is not good at something then the well accepted notion is to encourage them to increase their competency and not to push them out of competition. Many former cricketers have voiced their concern for this new change, how much will it affect the cricket administrators will be seen only in coming days. I would personally love to see the associate nations compete in next CWC.

Recent Amendments in RTE in Karnataka and the interlinkage of Language and Education

The Karnataka govt recently made two legislative amendments which could in near future lead to string of litigations.  The govt amended the RTE Act to make Kannada as the compulsory medium of instruction from I to V standard and introduced Kannada Language Learning Bill to make Kannada as a compulsory language to be learnt from I to X standard. The issue is not a new one, it dates back to three decades. In 1982, the state govt made Kannada as the first language of study. In 1989, the govt made mother tongue as the medium of instruction at the primary school level. In 1994 again issued an order stating the mother tongue as medium of instruction in all the state recognized schools. Petitions were filed against this issue by parents associations in High Court, which quashed the order citing that it was violative of Art. 14, 29 and 30 of Indian Constitution. Subsequently the state govt appealed the High court order in\Supreme Court. In May 2014, the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the High Court. Now to negate this Supreme Court order the state govt has come up with the above mentioned amendments. Only time will tell us how much the govt has been successful in doing so.

Let us look at the issue with two dimensions- one dimension is with respect to education and another dimension is with respect to language and hence culture. On the education front, the amendments are still violative of the fundamental rights of the citizens of the country. It is the right of every child ( hence guardian) to choose the subjects that he or she wants to learn along with the medium of instruction. Govt would be wrong, legally and ethically, in imposing the medium of instruction. Whether one likes it or hates it English education has become one of the key aspects of education. Even China which had locked itself to English language invasion is now opening up and promoting English education. Firstpost quotes, "English is the passport  to a good career and the gateway to opportunities overseas."

This decision will severely affect the schools which are running State Board syllabus. Now, more and more students will opt for CBSE or ICSE boards to avoid this imposition. There are surveys which suggest that the enrollments to Central Boards are on rise in recent years. This decision will only increase the rate. Education is a concurrent subject, hence state has equal responsibility in developing the quality of education in the state. The infrastructural aspects of education like teachers to children ratio, pedagogy, school infrastructure are not upto the mark. Lack of teachers and schools are pushing children to opt for private educational institutions. This has been particularly detrimental to deprived sections of society. Economically well of students can shift to private schools and pursue with better educational facilities. But the poorer cannot afford to join these highly commercialized private schools (25% of RTE quota also has not been successfully implemented) lest they want to spend all their earnings on the education. Hence the govt will be well advised to concentrate on these aspects of education rather than using the recent amendments as a political tool.

Now coming to the second dimension, one of the justifications of the govt in introducing these amendments is that if the mother tongue is introduced as medium of instruction then the overall cognitive development of the students will enhance and they will find it easy to understand and also to express. This infact cannot be denied. There have been studies which justify this remark. But this argument cannot be used as the pedestal to make mother tongue as the medium of instruction, as there are other factors like future prospectives etc that will be considered while choosing the medium of instruction.

The govt also refers to these changes as one of the steps to promote language. Promotion of language and it preservation are important aspects. Language is intrinsically linked to the culture and tradition of the region. It is ,of course, the state's responsibility to preserve the language. But, the aforementioned changes are not the way to do this. One of the steps that has been taken by successive govts is appreciable, that is, the publication of Kannada literary books and availability at lower affordable prices. Kannada literature is one of the highly regarded literature in the country. Govt can also further promote the language by conducting scholarship examinations based on Kannada epics like Pampa Bharata etc. Promoting Kannada film industry can go a long way in promoting language. Currently they run tax free across the state, this can be really beneficial once there are enough theaters to screen Kannada movies.

The two amendments of the govt have certain loopholes and hence they might come under litigation quite soon. Language and education are interlinked for sure, but they should not be mixed in such way that they will become political tool wherein the real issues get marred.

How superstitious are we?

One fine evening as I was walking down a road near my home, I saw a huge crowd in front of a gate. Seeing the crowd I thought it might be a raashan shop (Fair Price Shop), but curiosity made my eyes get a closer look. I saw the hand symbol. No, it was not a Congress office (got to be kidding me!!), it was an astrologer's office!! The number of people standing there shocked me. Then I thought may be in few days something "auspicious" might be coming that's why the crowd. But I was wrong. Everytime I pass that gate, I see the same rush if not more. In India, many believe that they can understand what is going to happen in their future with the help of astrology, even the educated ones. Superstitions mar the rationality inside us. This is how I saw that. This begged me to ask myself how superstitious are we?

Lets start with something light hearted, the superstitions of sports persons are well known- Sourav Ganguly did not use to shave while playing a test match, somebody as rational as Rahul Dravid believed in putting on the left batting-pad first. In exams many like to carry the pen that fetched good marks in the last exam etc etc. Apart from these localized ones, unfortunately, there are many superstitions followed across the world that lead to unwarranted consequences and send wrong messages. For instance, in many societies, Friday is an unlucky day and thirteen is an unlucky number. Mind you the ISRO (a premiere science based institution) skipped its PSLV being numbered C13. Continuing with the examples, crossing of black cat on one’s path is bad omen in Western countries and India. But, it is a good omen in Egypt. As the examples themselves show, there is no logical rational backing to any of these practices or beliefs. This itself is the biggest threat of superstition, As I said earlier superstitions mar the rationality inside us.

Superstition is the blind faith in an idea without giving any consideration to reason, logic and evidence. Not just that, they breed ignorance and fear of the unknown and incomprehensible. The impact of superstitions is so alarming that it decimates the reasoning capacity of well educated human, let alone the illiterates. Not just that, these superstitions ruin the material resources (money, time, energy) of the people who believe in them. The made snana  at certain temples or the appearance of Makarjyoti are some of the examples for this.

Looking at another extreme of superstitions, there is the prevalence of black magic or Bhanamathi. Falling of stones on one's house, appearance of fire from nowhere are some of the examples of the black magic tricks. The extent of this degradable practice can be imagined by the fact that even the politicians fall prey to this to get easy victory over their opponents. The politicians of Karnataka are highly notorious for this (apart from watching pornographic content in assembly). Even the local and regional media pry on these fears and try to get mileage out of such activities (remember the ridiculous Heegoo Unte! on TV9 Kannada?!).

I am not telling anything new or anything unknown. Now that's the issue, though the irrationality of superstition is known, very little has been done to counter it. Very few people have taken the bold rationalist stand. It has been a David versus Goliath kind of fight. Unfortunately, people who have been bold enough have been punished for it. Narendra Dabholkar was killed around a year back as he fought against the evil of superstition. Lately, Avijit Roy, a blogger was heckled to death in Bangladesh for his anti-superstitious and secular stands. On the other hand people like Asaram Bapu, Sant Rampal roam around freely and even enjoy popular support.

Now that's the point, superstitions have popular belief base. Why? I feel that is because superstitions dwell on fear, and fear is what keeps most people from being rational or logical. It makes them ignorant. To overcome the fear people take shelter in meaningless rituals or practices. You are not getting married? go and pour milk on the ant's hill- for the snake/nagadevata of course. 

There are talks of bringing in legislation to counter the superstitions. As far fetched to reality it may seem to be actually getting it done, it might not even work. Irony is that we all know what needs to be done to eradicate this evil. We all know that we need to develop a scientific temper (which is by the way a fundamental duty) and motivate ourselves to think rationally, but will that happen? Ever? Elders have always told me to be optimistic but in this case I am not. I am going to end this piece with a quote from an English philosopher Francis Bacon- "superstition dismounts all the outward moral values and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men." 

Fight against Freedom of Expression : A political tool?

Freedom is a vague word. Though we get a good feeling when we hear the word, freedom does not actually mean freedom. It is not absolute, it always comes with caveats. And rightly so, absolute freedom is a humbug. It does not exist, atleast in the modern society. This is because, if a society boasts of absolute freedom, the actions of one might inadvertently infringe upon the absolute freedom of other person. This means the second person in the discussion never had absolute freedom. This generates a paradoxical situation. Thus, every modern society, though, talks about freedom, it always has reasonable restrictions on them for the smooth functioning of the society. The same is true for freedom of speech or expression. Recent events linked to Charlie Hebdo, PK, AIB roast have opened up many dimensions of freedom of speech or expression (FoE).

For cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo their FoE enabled them to propagate their beliefs in the form of satirical cartoons. Offence was intended. The idea behind this intentional offence might have been to show a particular community about certain rigidness in its practices, or even the intention might have been something hideous, I am not here to judge that. But, it was right under the ambit of their FoE. Charlie Hebdo had been publishing cartoons that were offensive to Islam, and other religions including Christianity alike, for quite some time now, how many times did the representatives of Islamic fraternity in France tried to reason with editorial team of the magazine regarding their reservations? The fault is equally with the Charlie Hebdo team, did they ever thought of having one or two Muslim members in their team so that they could have given them a different perspective. I am nowhere condoning the heinous act of AQIY, the terrorist organization here in question had its agenda well thought out. These terrorist organizations come with peculiar political agenda, they knew that this shooting will not stop the Charlie Hebdo to stop publishing pictures but infact polarize the society there, which has some good number of Algerian origin Muslims. Behind the purda of so called "protectionists of Islam" they achieved this agenda quite perfectly. Anyways, what I intend to say here is that the existence of intellectual paucity both in the Charlie Hebdo team and the Islamic fraternity in France leading to the lack of understanding of the caveats that FoE comes with, helped the fundamentalist opportunists to polarize the society.

The opposition to film PK is on the grounds that it hurts the sentiments of a particular religion. Ok even if one agrees to that, what could be the next step if sentiments are hurt. There are legal ways to tackle that and laws in our country are quite good to handle such phenomena. Thus, nobody has the right to go and tear posters, make character assassinations of the creative people involved in the making of the movie. But yet posters were torn, screenings were halted, character assassinations done. The people who did this were quite aware of the legal ways to handle the issue but they chose to ignore that because one, there allegations could not have stood the scrutiny of law and two, the process would not have caught the eye balls of the people. Hence, this conscious inculcation of hate and vocal showcase of dissent were used as a political tool to garner some media space, publicity and were nowhere related to FoE or hurting sentiments.

FoE definitely comes with caveats and any infringement of one's right should not be tolerated in a democratic society. But the dissent to FoE can be shown in civilized manner without any noise and blood being spewed. Law will take its course. But as has been shown above, the incredible hurt victimhood card played here is nothing but another political tool.

Delhi- Paneer, Power and Politics

Yeh Dilli hain mere yaar.!! In my 18 months of stay at Delhi, there are many things that were memorable. They range from 6 rupees Tandoori roti, the under nutritioned rickshaw pullers, the angry car drivers, noisy CNG buses to high flying Thiranga at the Connaught Place, the Republic Day parade. Apart from these, the omnipresent Paneer made the cuisines exciting as well as boring. One thing that I noticed in Delhi is its unrelenting romance with power and politics. Power is to Delhi what money is to Mumbai or tech is to Bengaluru. I understood it within the first three months of my stay there, when I saw a homeopathy doctor with a revolver tucked to his `90s style trouser.

This romance of Delhi with power and politics is what has made the current assembly elections the cynosure of all the happenings in the country (atleast w. r. t. politics). The campaign for the election was high octane with BJP coming with full force to counter the "Muffler Man". All is done, voting is over. Results are awaited. Exit polls are showing a majority to AAP. If the exit polls turn out to be true then this would come as a major embarrassment to the ruling BJP. Especially to Mr. Shah who used lots of strategies to counter the AAP's influence.

Ironically, I think, one of these strategies backfired fatally to Mr. Shah, and that was the induction of Ms. Bedi to the party and making her the CM candidate. One of the cartoons in "The Hindu" rightly depicted this irony, the arrows fired by BJP at AAP, manifested as feathers on the AAP's Gandhi Topi. I can't say that Ms Bedi would turn out badly in politics but to her merit I think she should have been given some more time to understand the intricacies of politics before she was anointed as the CM candidate. Her speeches have not been influential, rather have been dampener, but her credentials and experience in bureaucracy provide right pedigree to turn her into a good politician. Time is all she needs.

Coming back to the elections, politics of Delhi has some considerable influence on rest of India and a defeat in this election would come as a timely wake up call to the BJP and would make it to relook at its 9 months rule. Though the govt has taken a lots of right steps but there are some missteps too. A defeat here would mean a more vigilant govt = more development steps+ curbing fringe Hindutva elements - rhetoric talk.

I would personally want AK and AAP to come out as victorious. Yes, AK fumbled the first time, but he seems to have learnt from his anarchist phase of life that politics is not about rhetoric talk. As is the case with Ms. Bedi, time is all AK needs. Time on the political high seat. Has Delhi given both AK and Ms. Bedi the time they need?

Local Finality in the governance system

One of many factors that has driven me and keeps driving me to pursue civil service is the condition of poverty stricken compatriots. Nothing squeezes my soul more than the sight of homeless people, people with less than two sets of meal. Poverty is the sin that we have to live amidst, it showcases the hypocrisy of human race and of humanity as a virtue. If one wants to feel the pain of this then read the heart-wrenching depiction of poverty and human hypocrisy in the Late Shri K.V.Puttappa's poetry rendition Kalki.

The state of poverty is not new to India or to the entire world. The various governments of independent India have taken many measures to alleviate people from poverty. The definitions of poverty line have changed many times since it was first laid down in 1970s, yet the pain, the struggle remains for many people across the nation. Governments under the aegis of social justice has laid out many social welfare programmes like Integrated Rural Development Programme, Rural Employment Guarantee Schemes, Self Employment Programmes like National Rural Livelihood Mission yet more than 50% of our population lives with an income of less than 2 USD per day. The programmes do not have any problems per se but they have failed to deliver the required results. Why?

India is a nation with diverse population belonging to different races, ethnicity, religion etc. There is geographical diversity as well. The diversity reflects in the needs and requirements of the people as well. The requirements of people from Haryana are different from the requirements of the people from Kerala. Here in lies the problem, various schemes aka programmes have been designed in a uniform manner at a centralized pedestal known as Planning Commission. PC theoretically, gets inputs from Panchayats and other grass root organizations but when you plan for entire nation than in the adventure of looking at the big picture the reality fades away. The plans, though good, fail to accommodate the needs of the people. For instance, the NRLM strives to promote income generation especially in the female fraternity. It does so by setting up of Self Help Groups and by imparting skill training. The programme has failed to flourish and deliver the desired results as it employed uniform approach throughout the country devoid of the regional or local requirements or needs. It especially failed in tribal dominated region as the officials failed to understand the differing culture of tribal people. This is a clear indication that we need to develop a decentralized system of governance.

The concept of decentralized governance system is not new to India. Gandhiji preached about Sarvoday through Antyodaya which means welfare of all can only be achieved when it includes welfare of the most oppressed sections of society. To inculcate this inclusive approach there is urgent need to align the policies of the government with the needs of the people. One of the examples of this can be taken from the 70 point manifesto drawn by the Aam Aadmi Party. The party volunteers conducted mohalla sabhas in different constituencies and arrived at different plans for the different constituencies based on the needs of the locals.

If only two out of ten people are susceptible to contract a disease then it does not make sense to give preventive medicine to all 10 people. It is sheer wastage of resources. It is time to realize that local problems should be solved locally- this is called local finality. Local finality in the governance system is the need of the hour. It is high time the government attends to the needs of the poor and the needy, else the poor will manifest into Kalki and the fire of their hunger will burn everything to ashes.

The Vote Bank Politics

I have been witnessing, on Television, an ironical development happening during the current election. The people who are seeking mandate for themselves to book a seat in Lok Sabha are busy in personal attacks on their rivals whereas TV ads of various companies are talking about social issues like not treating women as kitchen appliance etc. Ironic isn't it? Let us concentrate on the election campaign, the debate on vote bank politics is not new to us or any other countrymen with multi-culture. Vote banks are those communities which are usually backward, deprived, minority but sometimes they can also be a upper class or majority community.

Vote bank as such is not a bad concept for democracy. If a person aspiring to get elected to Assembly or Lok Sabha seeks votes from a particular community so that he can, once elected, work for the development of such community then, at the outset, there isn't any problem. But the problem arises when this vote bank politics traverses to 2 adverse directions.

One, the person who gets elected with the help of his vote bank does not work for the development of that community. Why? Well, that is because of his 'foresight' where he calculates that if the said community does get benefits and start to climb up in the society then the very agenda with which he won the election will cease to exist. Once it happens the community development will no more be the election talking point but good governance, transparency, accountability will come into picture. So he will try hard to keep the status quo and at the end of 5 years he will portray himself as a martyr, who fought hard for the community and will again the fight the election on the same agenda as he had done 5 years ago. Time does not move here.

Two, the elected candidate will invoke a chauvinist agenda where he will work in such a manner that his community will be benefited (?) at the cost of other community. Why? The benefit, referred to earlier, may not exactly be a benefit but the propaganda will portray it as such. Here, the elected person catches that human psyche which makes people believe that their community is always superior compared to other communities. So when people see that the person whom they elected is working to 'show the people of other community their place' that psyche is reinforced and invigorated. Not only will that elected person can keep his vote bank in tact but also he can win more fringe votes. At the end of the day the real issues of good governance, transparency, accountability remain back benchers. Per se, time does not move here too.

The direction taken by the elected person might depend on whether the candidate is going for majority or minority appeasement. But the real losers are both of them, the general public at large. We are the people who elect such candidates then if such candidates use us as a pawn of election chess then we are ourselves to blame. We are the monetary assets of vote banks and thus it is our responsibility to give ourselves to responsible managers who will not lead the bank to bankruptcy.

The two sides

I was coming back from Belgaum attending a marriage. Every one of us, accompanying me, were tired so nobody was speaking. I was getting bored, just then I remembered that one of my friend had asked me to write about NATURE in my blog.

I started to think about what to write. Just then awesome lightning struck followed by a horrible thunder which, I felt, shook the bus. That moment was quite ironic- When I chose to think about nature- picture of a lush green meadow, water-falls resembling huge gallons of milk, tropical mountains covered with dense forest came to my mind but what I really saw was nature at its best devastating best!!

The climate just before it rains is the most romantic climates of all but if nature decides to precipitate heavily, it can put human lives at stake. It can cause floods and wash away key features of nature too.
Note: Nature devastating itself

On a nice weekend evening we all want to sit in our balcony and enjoy the wind gushing at us with a hot cup of coffee. The same wind can come in the form of hurricanes, tornadoes to destroy our weekday's commitments too. It can leave life quite exasperating. The winds can rip off the natural resources in a jiffy!!

Some of you might feel by now that I have written too much anti- nature quite pessimistically.
Nope.
Actually, I am trying to understand what we can learn from nature, probably learn something that it wants to preach.

Anything which is pleasant can be dangerously uncomfortable if not kept in limit. We all earn money, we spend it lavishly. We are greedy to earn some more money and spend more lavishly. Spending what we earn is perfectly okay. But trying to earn something which we do not deserve is not acceptable.As it happens with nature, the greed will destroy our own self. The bottom line is- We should know our limits!!

The INC : Gandhi to Gandhi

The year 1920 was significant for the Indian National Movement as it saw the lean-yet-courageous barrister from Gujrat actively immersing himself in the national movement. The year was also important for the Indian National Congress as it underwent a remarkable change in its party structure under the guidance of M. K. Gandhi. Provincial Congress committees came into existence, a democratic structure was put in place in the party. The party from then represented a democratic structure which continued even after our independence. Having said that, Gandhiji himself defied this structure at times  viz., SC Bose issue of 1939, Sardar Patel issue of 1947 etc. Yet, the party largely stood for the representative democratic structure in the Indian polity.

Come 2013, the INC has lost its charm as the legacy holder of our national movement. It has allowed itself to rot under the dynastic politics. The recent AICC meeting was a testimony of the dynasty worship. The party-workers were busy shouting the slogan demanding "The Prince" to be the PM candidate in forthcoming elections. They chose to be oblivious of the fact that the prince has never been part of the Council of Ministers (CoM). They seem not to care about the prince's (dis)qualifications. The prince is so much so worshipped that his request to increase the LPG cap was immediately put into consideration by the PNG minister, who was earlier too much reluctant to even consider it. The CM of a state had to reconsider his cabinet decision because the prince thought so. This blind 'puja' of a member of certain dynasty does not suit the INC which spearheaded the national movement. Now that he has mentioned only women empowerment to any questions asked in the "interview of the year", we can expect few, new half baked, women oriented programmes aptly named after Indira Gandhi in coming days!!

Well, the sad story doesnot end here. The party bigwigs are not even aware of the fall that the party is about to take (or are they?). The country is awakening and becoming more and more aware of the day to day politics. The youth is demanding a transition from representative democracy to participative democracy. How the INC can expect such a generation of people to support and vote for it considering its medieval style of politics? INC has to compete with Narendra Modi (not BJP ?!) who has been increasing his following day by day under the clout of Hindutva and Development agenda. There is absolutely no comparison between NaMo and RaGa (would you like to compare David Fincher and RGV ?!!).

Its a shame to see a political party with such a historical significance failing to stand up to the values on which it was built more than 100 years ago. Only a messiah can whisper a sense in the party now and help it to reinvent itself. At the looks of it, that messiah is no where near the party rings now.

Religionism, Regionalism, the Intolerance

        Recently we all woke up with a shocker of a news. Six worshipers were gunned down in the premises of Wisconsin Gurudwara in Oak Creek. Initial investigations points to the hate crime, which has become increasingly dangerous lately. The accused proclaimed himself to be an Aryan and was seen close to a white supremacist group.

       While Obama govt has to re-look into their gun policy, as it has become, lately, very easy to access guns in USA. As a Bollywood movie points out that of late everybody wants a gun- from chaprasi to a politician- as anger is seeping in everybody and one loves to see others in misery. The other question that the incident showcases is more severe and relevant to us also. The question about how tolerant are we towards other religions, to other regions, to multiculturalism.

      The intolerance is slowly but surely making its way into the minds of, intellectually weak, people. Examples were shown by - Anders Behring Breivik by bombing and killing people in Norway, ethnic clashes in England a year ago shook the entire world. These people who feel that they are superior to the others just because they belong to a different race, religion or for that matter country shows the level of sickness engulfed to their mind, to their thinking ability.

       These people are proud of something which they have not earned. I am Hindu because I was born, which happens in a natural way, in a Hindu family. An Aryan is an Aryan because his ancestors belonged to that race. In a global society- race, culture, region, religion- do not have significance. These things have been ancestral and will be for ages down the line. At the end of the day we are humans and we should act like one. No religion, region, race are superior from the other. All have their own significance. Violence in the name of these is cowardice. It does not bring peace to the executor or the executed or the survivors.

Lets hope for a peaceful world.

The Realm of Negativity

The newspapers, the news channels, the tabloids, the magazines and last but not the least- the human psyche have become a realm of negativity. Remember, the T- Bag of Prison Break mentioning about the Captivity of negativity- Well!! That's what I see now in the real world now.

Politically, if I see it, the government is a werewolf whereas the opposition is toothless tiger. Let alone the expectation of positivity from that arena. The news being thrown at us 24x7 have the news of all the bad things happening in this world. Human psyche has transformed and began to like this interference of negativity. It has become quite natural that we lean our attention to stuff that is negative, bad or gruesome.

Well! Good or bad is always relative. If we feel something is bad than it means we know what is good and indeed good exists! Mass do not want to see good and media, in a race to earn more money and survive, do not show good.

How does this system affect the country?
Well! Imagine a kid growing into a juvenile in this kind of environ- listening about the corrupt government, inefficient opposition, characterless society. This will manifest a very bad image of the country which is not so bad rather. Such youths will never loose any opportunity to leave this country behind, probably forever. So, we loose our own assets to somebody else.

Does that mean we should never see or show the bad aspects of the society?
Weight-age should differ. Positivity should have a major share. Letting the common people to take decisions about bad or good is novel idea. Youth should be mad to feel that it is not so bad to dwell here. After all, it is not so bad to be here!!

Looking at the cause not at the effect

The nation has again plunged into the streets with the same vigour and anger, if not less, as it had in the beginning of the year gone but for completely different reasons this time. Nation is outraged, angry, embarrassed after the recent rape and death of the medical student in Delhi. The political and judicial classes have reacted to the nation’s mood by taking many steps like setting up of Fast Track Courts for the speedy trials of rape cases, institutionalizing stricter punishments for the offenders, setting up hotline for the needy etc. But, as the days have gone by we are still reading about many other rape cases coming into light, many more victimized by the dreadful, inhuman act. Many victims have even tried to commit suicide.

Here, there is a need to pause and have a re-look at what exactly is going wrong and why the society is not kind to the fairer sex. TN has vowed to give death sentence (or in some cases chemical castration) to the rape offenders, so does this mean in coming year or so the rape cases will come down regularly in TN (if not drastically)? The point, here, is not that there should not be any strict punishment to the hideous crime committed. There should be, but, the point is that whether this would suffice or bring in any significant change? Such steps should be looked as short term implementations against the crime. There should be an approach that will look at the cause of such incidents rather than looking just at the effect. As Praveen Swami of The Hindu rightly notes in his article that there are many contexts ‘as possible keys to the production of India’s urban-male dysfunction’.

Case Studies

A system where there will be a detailed case study of the convicts of rape in the past will help in better understanding of the socio-economic background of offenders. A psychiatric analysis of the convicts to understand the psyche or mental condition may lead to clearer ideas in understanding the contexts better. Once the case studies are done, deductions can be made to understand what exactly is wrong with the male dominated society of India. These studies will not solve the problem in a snap but it will certainly provide the guiding light needed to walk towards the probable solution. Also these studies should have some statutory or legal backing or else it will be just another case study done by any NGO which never gets read, let alone, getting governmental recognition and implementation. With many men believing that the victims of rape invite the crime on themselves showing them the mirror through these studies becomes important.

More visibility

Indian women are, by default, house-wives by profession, and thus there are very less number of women visible in the workforce of the country. The minority catches the eye of the people. In India, even now, a women working in any domain is an eyebrow raising issue(except say in IT industry but the workforce there is mainly single women, most of them who quit jobs after marriage to become house-wives). The patriarch ego of men condemns such presence. The possible solution to the problem can be to increase the women workforce. Way forward in this could be implementation of existing legislation strictly or drawing more legislation for the upliftment of women esp. girl children from the shackles of male oppression. Quota for women in Parliament might well be the first step in this direction. 

The change of the hour is not quick, hasty, ad hoc decisions but thoroughly thought, long term, ‘cause’ based decisions which will have long lasting and permanent effect on the society for its betterment. 

Can India do away with the Death Penalty?

We all woke up today with a very significant news breaking out of our televisions and computers. Ajmal Kasab was hanged to death in Pune. There has been increasing demand from the human right activists to the law makers to do away with the death penalty, now as we don't have the 14 years cap on Life Imprisonment. Can India afford to do this?

India right from its independence has been witnessing the barbaric, inhumane acts of terrorism. There have been thousands of casualties which includes significant percentage of women and children. These attacks are a great threat on the sovereignty of the nation. Only death penalties can be viewed as the form of punishment which set examples to future terrorists so that they fear the Indian law. There have been many cases in which there have been inhuman attacks on women like acid attacks, sexual assault- which sometimes leads to the death of the victim. There have been gross attacks on the right to life of dalits and other backward class people wherein the victim is humiliated, beaten up, sexually assaulted, killed in many instances. The law has to take stern action not just to punish the offender but also to set an example so that the similar offenses are not repeated- which is kind of main objective.

Taking a different perspective now let us think is death the only answer to this? If we take the terrorism angle then it takes to a different paradigm in which the fellow offenders, helpers see the death as martyrdom and take it as case study to educate future offenders!! Keeping this apart, if we consider domestic offenders then we should probably think a bit more deep and try to analyze- is a sudden death or a long lousy life in captivity with no freedom more effective. Probably accused prefer sudden death than a long painful, stressful, lonely life in jail. So are we justifying the punishment given to such gruesome offenders? In a altogether separate note, we do not live in a barbaric society where death for death can be the rule.

As we see there are certain loopholes in the concept capital punishment (death penalty). India being an active democracy, well lately at-least, has to consider people sentiments and aspirations. Its high time the law makers give some time to think through this.

London 2012 Olympics- Indian Triumph

The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad concluded yesterday i.e., 12th August 2012. The 17 day long sporting extravaganza came to a mind-boggling end in London. In India, it was a day of celebration as Sushil Kumar made history by winning back to back medals, first Indian to do so. India, totally, got 6 medals, gold being elusive and ended at 55th position in the events' medal tally with 204 nations participating.

India gave its best performance at the Olympics till date. Point to be noted here is India had sent the highest number of sportsperson this time, counting to 81. There were fantastic performances from the medal winners. Few missed the medals in whisker. Having said that, we expected a better performance from the contingent. Vijender failing in the QFs, Bindra not qualifying to the finals, Gutta and Ponnappa failing to reach semis were few of the hard to digest truths. The biggest of all was the first round exit of World No.1 Deepika Kumari in Women's Individual Archery event. She was definitely a gold medal hope.

Nevertheless, India did better its performance and there are lessons to be learnt especially for the sports ministry and sports administrators. The main reason for the failure of stars, probably, was the pressure of the big event and the conditions in London. Olympics is a mega event and has great significance, the thought of this might have got into the skin of lots of players who did not perform at par. Also the cold weather at London might have affected the player performance. Administration now has sit back and look at the reasons of failure and address them before its too late for Rio 2016. At the same time it should not forget to felicitate the medal winners.

Jai Ho !!

2012 Olympic Medal Winners from India

Chandramouleshwar's Temple in Unkal, Hubli

Legends are always fascinating. Are they true or just made up to sound interesting is not the question that will be answered now. Also it does not matter.
I happened to read one such legend about Amarshilpi JAKANACHARYA. He was a flawless architect dwelt during Chalukya's period.
The legend says he left his family consisting of a wife and an unborn child in search of his calling.
He went on to become the greatest architects of all the time. In the later part of his life he encountered his son, who identified a flaw in his design. Jakanacharya had to lose his right hand in the bet to his son. Well the legend says many more interesting things like this and it is indeed fascinating to read.

The reason why I happened to hear about him was because I recently visited one of a great work of architecture near my home at UNKAL (Yes u read it right, it is in UNKAL!!),thanks to my colleague Pranesh.It is the Chandramouleshwar's temple in UNKAL. It is said to be built in 10th century by Chalukya's. The temple is beautifully built with exquisitely carved stones. The exterior of the temple has stone carvings of many Gods and Goddesses including Dancing Lord Ganesh, Lord Narsimha, Lord Vishnu etc. There are two sanctums in the temple. One of the sanctum has Chaturmukh Shiva Lingu in it- Face of Shiva is carved in Lingu in the four directions. I guess this is pretty unique. In another sanctum, a bigger Shiva Lingu has been installed. The sanctums also have four doors in respective directions.

One has to visit the temple to inhale the fragnance of beauty of the architecture. A person sitting there, probably the priest of that place, mentioned that this temple was built by the great Jakanacharya himself. I could not confirm that. He said there are three temples nearby- one in Annigeri, another in Kundagol and this one in Unkal, which were built by Jakanacharya and his associates in one single night!! Woof!! As I said earlier lets not get into the actuality of this legend. The priest also showed us 3 small openings at the top of the main door. These three openings are just visible from the inner sanctum if we see at the level of Shiva Lingu in the sanctum. He said only on the day of Chandramaan Ugadi rays of Sun fall on the Chaturmukh Shiva Lingu. If so, that's serious astronomy and geometrical knoweledge. I was amazed by the skills of the architect. I just kept staring at the Nruptunga Hill which was looking awesome from the temple door. Deep inside my mind I was still appreciating the architect.

Legends are enigmatic with some kind of truth and some kind of myth in them. Nevertheless, they tell some story of past which will be spell-bounding and knowledgeable.
Hublites should visit this temple at least once.

Finding your Calling

            I believe that we live for a reason. A reason defined, designed, designated by the GOD or any eternal force or by ourselves. It is happening to me, might have happened to many of us that we spend years to find that "reason". To say more fashionably, we will be in search for our "calling".

          GOD or the Universe helps us in finding our calling in one or the other way. It is our duty to catch the signals or the so called "omens". A person is always being guided by these omens. One who catches them and proceeds with them, leads a successful life.

         As I understand it, there is always an exchange of energy between us and the Universe. When we think something positive we emanate positive energy to the Universe. And as the law says the Universe responds back by giving out the energy in the same form around us.

        Hence, as long as we stay positive the Universe helps us, through the omens, to find our calling - no matter what stage of life we are in. I guess the one who dies unsatisfied never caught the omens or never got enough of them.

        I believe, as long as you stay positive about your calling or for that matter anything, the Universe will help you get it as soon as possible.