jabdakhata

A democracy, one would argue, would pave the way for a more liberal and tolerant regime and people would be aware of any transgressions in an era of fast communication. Dissent can be voiced and people can throw away elected representatives if they do not function properly. Secularism and pluralism are encouraged. Just puase, look around, and think. You are living in a democracy, are these the traits around you? The media, which is supposed to be the watchdog of a democracy often connive with the ruling elite as they propagate certain ideologies and hate campaigns against others. Media exhibit certain biases against specific classes, creeds and communities as they are controlled by organizations and insititutions which have their own vested interests. Thus news and opinions promoted are often false or worse, selectively false. Ruling classes often suppress information, esp. the ones which would be detrimental and inimical to their interest. Power and money play the supreme role and pe

In West such checks and balances were not elaborate. The king in the middle ages in Europe was often in cohort with the church which interefered extensively with the state affairs,and the nobility, who had their own vested interests. Thus Rajtantra in West was often of an inferior form and therefore people suffered a lot, whereas in India we hardly find any notable instance of people suffering for long under a corrupt regime, except during the period right after Shashanka in Bengal (known as Matsyanyaya) when there was no strong king at the helm and when the lawlessness reigned supreme. That state of affairs was discontinued when a strong monarch came to power (in case of Bengal the Pals ascended to the throne of Gauda). However when we come back to the flawed democracy that we’ve inherited we find that much of Swami Vivekananda’s apprehensions have come to be true. There is a heartless bureaucracy at the centre of affairs which is also largely corrupt and which has largely retaine

Swami Vivekananda was not very comfortable with the concepts of Western democracy, although he was aware of the merits. He saw various democracies from close quarters and felt that in their present form they would not be ideal for India. Because in a democracy, people should be intelligent and educated enough to understand the nuances of various decisions. Otherwise there is an inherent risk of an unintelligent or honest majority being taken for a ride by a cunning, devious but shrewd minority. Swami Vivakananda also felt that a democracy run by bureaucrats, is unsuitable as bureaucracy is normally heartless. Bureaucrats go strictly by policies and procedures and peoples’ woes do not matter to them. In an informal discussion with his disciples he cited the examples of many innocent persons from India who lost everything, including their lives, while nurturing a vein hope of going to England to lodge their complaints with the Queen and getting their problems resolved. He said that t

When Swami Vivekananda was wandering as a mendicant in Varanasi, he was once troubled by a group of monkeys. He started running out of fear but the monkeys chased him. Seeing this, another ascetic shouted at him, ‘Swami, turn around, face the brutes!’ Swamiji did just that and the monkeys vanished. Later, while recalling this experience Swamiji said that problems in our life are like that of these monkeys. If we run away from the problems, they will chase us and hunt us down, but if we face them bravely, we may be able to beat all odds and emerge unscathed. It is a vital lesson of life that unless we stand up and face the challenges, the challenges will multiply and will eventually destroy us. What is a vital lesson for an individual is also a lesson for a nation and for the entire world. India has repeatedly been attacked but it has not faced the brutes. Time and again for the past 60 years or so it has proved that it is a nation of cowards, non violence and tolerance are just its f

Another terror attacks strikes Mumbai. The pattern is now oft repeated – bold headlines, TV channels running for TRP and excitement, innocents losing lives, families getting shattered, politicians including the heads of the state “condemn” and request people to maintain “calm” (why don’t they just hand over a previously recorded version instead of repeating the same glib statements is something beyond my limited wisdom, and why do media attach so much importance to their repetition is also strange). Another thing that comes up repeatedly, esp. in the media is the “resilience of Mumbaikars”. Now that leads me to wonder, what is meant by resilience? Is it to suffer attacks time and again and do nothing, just go back to old business, forgetting everything – is that what is resilience? Silently suffering all corruption, bad civic infrastructure, monsoon flood – are these all part of the same resilience? To my mind, this is not resilience but far from it, it is cowardice. It is the tendenc

Many articles are being written in favor of and in opposing multi brand retailing, but nobody is sure of a common ground. While multi brand retail would create jobs, it would also endanger the livelihood of unorganized retail industry. Thus arguments of both proponents and opponents are true, but the problem is none of them are appreciating the complete picture. Many small retail businesses may go bankrupt because they cannot simply afford the economy of scale and scope that big retailers enjoy. This is already a possibility with so many big Indian names entering the retail fray. This will be an even more menace with names like Walmart, Carrefour, Seven Eleven or Mark and Spencer with their deep pockets entering the arena. Small retailers have their margins eroded through wastages at various levels. They do not have an efficient IT infrastructure for managing sales or inventory, a sophisticated distribution and supply chain, access to easy credit or a reliable vendor base from where th

The right to education bill is passed and the government is elated. So is Indian media. Nobody cares as to how hollow the bill is when actual implementation is concerned. Another flopshow of Government is Sarba Sikhsha Abhijan initiative, which is supposed to provide education for all but in the end provides good money for corrupt bureaucrats and panchayat leaders. One CAG report showed sometimes back how money for this scheme from British Government was diverted by officials at district level to buy luxury cars, beds etc, while schools are ill equipped and children do not have quality education. Children from poorer section often do not have any money to buy books and only few schools provide free books and other accessories to them. Thus they end up in search for work.I happened to meet one of these kids who was a school dropout because of poverty, and came to Hyderabad from Bidar, which is about 130 km away, in search of work. When asked why is he not studying, he replied that he ha

It is a matter of shame that the good tourist places in India are so inaccessible from other parts of the country. Take for instance Ladakh. There is no train station. Only a few flights can go to Leh. Kudremukh in Karnataka is not connected by any train. Most of the hill stations do not have any associated train stations and it takes a lot of patience to plan for travel. Many coastal areas are inaccessible by train or flight.Again even if there are train stations, the trains are not available unless you book couple of months in advance. Roads are mostly pathetic and the operators overcharge. Therefore off the beaten tracks remain off the beaten and the few accessible ones are overcrowded, filthy and overrated. A few others suffer from non development and nonchalant attitude from administration. Most of the hill stations in India were discovered and developed by British and precious little have been done by successive Governments to develop them after independence. Is there any other c

A certain gentleman named Robert Bhadra (bhadra implies "civil" in Sanskrit) is exempted from any security check in Kolkata airport and that is declared very proudly by airport authority of India in a written instruction in front of the security counter. This certain gentleman (replace Bhadra by "Vadra" and you'll get the sense) is the son in law of UPA chair person, the most powerful woman in India. Both the honorable madam chairperson and the gentleman Mr. Bhadra would do really well and gain some appreciation from general public if they make sure that Mr. Bhadra undergoes security check just like any other layman and do not fall pray to the VIP culture which has so engulfed the nation's political class. With due respect Mr. Vadra/Ms. Gandhi, would you dare to be a little different?

Is 21st century truly a Chinese century? To answer this, you have to look into the rich and enduring history of China, which is so full of golden periods. China, no doubt is a great civilization and deserves a high pedestal in worldly affairs.Whether Tibet affair is a thorn on its global ambition it is a point which only the enlightened ones can discuss. China has a great history, except for a brief dormant period when Opium trade flourished and a large part of the population was engulfed in widespread poverty. The Great Wall is a testimony of what the Chinese can achieve if they will. China is now everywhere, Chinese immigrants are one of the most successful lot in almost every country that they are in, because they are hard working and always willing to travel that extra mile.China controls the manufacturing world, even though occasional quality problems may create embarrassment. The successful completion of Olympic games tells the world how modern China can transform and transcend.

NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme for the uninitiated) is another mammoth instrument of corruption in the hands of the political class. This scheme, which ensures a minimum wage to the rural labor, is flawed because it has no output, direct tangible benefit in the form of asset creation. It just disburses tax payers’ money to rural daily wage earners. But given the pathetic condition of our delivery mechanism, only a pittance of the billions of dollars actually reaches the rural masses. Rest of the money is conveniently pocketed by political parties who have floated the scheme, and their middlemen. This scheme is supposed to have contributed in insulating Indian economy from global financial crisis by creating demand and purchasing power at the bottom of the pyramid. Even if this is considered true, isn’t the Government encouraging reckless spending through this scheme? Given the fact that rarely the benefits of savings and investments reach the rural people who actuall

The so called very important persons in India, notably high placed Government officials and politicians are the neo feudal lords (as was discussed in one of my earlier blogs). Today the honourable Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh's convoy passed by my car. Police had vacated the roads for his highness, but somehow I was left, so the convoy overtook me and I had to give way to his highness. Otheriwse he would probably have put me behind bars (hopefully this blog does not consititute a contempt of court as I have nothing personal against CJAP). Further downstream I had the misfortune of meeting CM's convoy. A huge police force was deployed to allow the convoy to pass (note the colossal wastage of tax payer's money) and one constable did his duty so well ( My wife quipped that he was almost lying down on the road to prevent any car from getting in the convoy's way). He probably got a pat in the back from his seniors for being so loyal. So much for the democratic India where

There was an edit in one leading English newspaper that we need to “engage Pakistan in an innovative way.” Engaging Pakistan is a phrase which is now being used Ad Nauseum. This phrase was started by US political class, notably the friends of Pakistan among democrats (who are also responsible for bringing in Kerry Luger bill for wasting billions of dollar and putting further strain on an already strained US economy and fuelling its joblessness). Now “engaging Pakistan” had become instant hit with “secular liberals” in India. Since even they are a little tired of this oft repeated phrase, there is a new twist to this – “Engaging Pakistan in an innovative way.” Nobody knows for sure what engaging Pakistan means, nobody has even faintest idea as to how innovative could one be in dealing with a terrorist and a rogue nation which has got itself caught in a perpetual and vicious downward slope of failure and violence. Pakistan is an epitome of what intolerance stands for where religious min

Does anybody remember who Nevil Chamberlain was? Oh yes! He is synonymous with a foreign policy of appeasement and weakness. To the uninitiated Chamberlain was a former British priminister, who signed the Munich agreement in Germany in 1938 conceding Sudetenland to Hitler, overlooking and overruling the concerns of Czechoslovakia republic. He praised Hitler and Musolini and was too anxious to buy peace with Germany, even at the expense of Czechs and Austrians. Probably he was handicapped by his domestic problems, probably he had a wishful thinking that by placating Germany and Hitler a war could be avoided, or probably he truly believed that Hitler and Musolini were gentlemen who did break agreements and Sudetenland would be the end to Germany's ambitions in Europe. Well, history shows that whatever his intentions were, however good a man he was, he was wrong. Similarly we have a good man at our helm, who is anxious to buy peace with Pakistan and China, to placate the "wounded

Universal education is a concept fairly close to my heart. Of late, there has been a lot of deliberation from various quarters on universal education access. The major problem is the access to quality education. Not every institute or school has great faculty or infrastructure. Second thing to ponder upon is whether we are doing it right. Education in today's world is career oriented which creates competition and when the demand for few lucrative careers outstrips supply there is bound to be a fierce competition at various levels, resulting in rat race. These factors, competition, fear of failure, lack of proper education and of course the affordability part of it results in large scale school dropout, suicidal tendencies and building up of stress in the society. Also a large number of people do not have proper access to education. I think the access problem is easier to solve than anything else, leveraging technology. Esp. since mobile phones are now ubiquitous, once 3G comes thro

In India, one thing that is starkly different from developed world is the chaotic traffic and absolute lack of discipline and courtsey on roadways. Like other things in our lives, we take too many things for granted on roads. We fail to give the due courtesy to other road users, we are ignorant of road usage rules, we do not bother to learn the rules and take a great pleasure in violating them. Jumping the signal is a common practice, so also blind turns and dangerous overtakes. Bikers resent the fact that they will have to wear a helmet and they openly disobey the rule. The ignorant fools are not even bothered about their own safety, that wearing a helmet is endangering none but themselves. That even in low speed of 20-30kmph accidents can be fatal. Everybody jostles to go before others and result is a traffic jam, the thing that road users dont understand is that a disciplined traffic will never result in a traffic jam situation as there will always be rules to guide people out of th