The liberal outburst against porn filtering by Indian government is very interesting: the same boggy of people want the body/ their children's body not even looked at on streets, but wants to fight for the right to enjoy the voyeuristic pleasure of witnessing them getting abused and raped on internet !!

Religion is the manifestation of fundamental flaw in humanity : Fear !!

at the height of success all one derives is ego...sad

"I do not give up on my world just because others want to manipulate me, take me for granted, misunderstand my sensitivity for incompetence and my silence for ignorance... they don't realise, leaving them in their fool's paradise I've rejected their world long long before, so that I don't have to give up on this beautiful world where I can remain unattached to aspirations, unbound with heart felt smile ..." an old zen buddhist wisdom smile emoticon

word

In Twenty first century a word can not bypass its visual impression as it can not be from its semantics, sign and signifier. It is loaded with historical baggage, social construct and "narrative" associated with it that artistic imagination always renegade. The difference is the boundary understood from inside and outside.

(The sanskrit article made me think as an artist and also I wonder what one would have done, if one were to be the boundary of freedom or liberation??)

Why I would not mind, if India hang Yakub Memon

When the court sentenced Yakub Memon to dangling rope, Yakub Memon was not a pious Muslim but probably a surrendered criminal who might or might not have collaborated with Indian agencies. But the fact remains that he was also a collaborator in the heinous bombing of 295 innocent human beings on the streets of Mumbai, in 1993. Before that his family was deeply involved with the crime syndicate of Dawood Ibrahim, that perpetrated the rot on the streets of Mumbai .

In the court of law, it is the gravity of criminal intend that is argued upon, not the repentance. Let us not confuse and question the intend of judgement, since Law of the land under constitution is a procedural out come for defined collective good. Yakum Memon is given 22 years to explore all the legal option available to any citizen in this country and he was represented by the best among the best and costly legal luminaries of this country ( a possibility otherwise not available to millions of people in this country.) If he was collaborating with intelligence agencies, probably it was only a tactical deal to salvage his skin and perhaps not the sign of a reformation as it is now being projected. Like the earlier deal with ISI and Dawood went wrong, this deal also would have gone wrong. So far there is no other account by anyone , at least in public domain to prove it otherwise. So be it. Let him face the consequence of his heinous act that constitution prescribes. Let us understand Allah’s path is not that of vengeance, bombing and mass murder. It is compassion and mercy. When he committed the crime he violated the basic tenets of humanity and Muslim and when he face the consequence of his action he can not be just only a human being and Muslim. He is a collaborator in a heinous crime, now being punished through the best-civilised legal process. Whenever his brothers are caught let them face the legal consequence too. No debate about it.

Of course as a civilised nation, is it appropriate to have a death penalty in our legal system is an important question each one of us has to take a call. My strong belief is, there should not be a death penalty in any civilised society and our sacred constitution should not be reduced to a gruesome murderer. Since there is no study on earth ever established any connection between crime deterrence and death penalty, in twenty first century validity of a judicial process that hangs its own citizen is a shame.

It is also not to say that our judiciary or state is fool proof and guilt free. We have umpteen evidences where rioters, criminals and antisocial climbing the ladders of social acceptance, dignity and authority in connivance with colluding judiciary. But aberrations cannot be an excuse to generalise any crime and legitimise violation of constitutional trust, the basis of democracy.

Like any human being I am sad that one more life is sent to gallows. But so long as the death penalty is not abolished in this country, for the collective social good, where the accused is given best of the best opportunity to defend his position, when the court sentences the accused to a punishment it feels deem legally appropriate, even if it is the death penalty, I would not mind.
if India hang Yakub Memon all I would do is pray for him for mercy in Allah’s court- peace upon him.

One year of Prime Minister Modi.

Part -1

For a while leaving aside the politics of compulsions and concerns of left- right and centre and approach the one year of Mr Modi as prime minister, one will have to accept he did managed to achieve many positive impacts compared to the numbers of regressive decisions.

First and foremost is certainly the foreign policy. After Nehru for the first time a prime minister is able to take India out of the traditional “Pakistan feared” skewed foreign policies that hampered India’s position very badly across the world spectrum. In the past, many countries including China were successful in containing India through this Pakistan ploy. In one year with his extended tours across the world, it appears to be look like that he has managed wriggle out the country from that precarious situation.

Second important thing could be Jandhan yojana: the rural bank account opening campaign. Although the actual intention could be that to tap the unregulated rural money back into regulatory system including access to business, but in long run this could be a hugely beneficial project by systematically replacing paper money with plastic cards. In the future this would become handy to ensure social security schemes. For example, I am already a beneficiary by getting insured for 2 lakh for death and another 2 lakh for accident for mere 330 rupees by the bank where I hold my account. Effectively this less than one rupee a day scheme can bring in lot money of insurance sector for investments and social security for common man.

Thirdly the make India campaign. Although the framework looks like unsure of any direction, certainly a much-needed beginning has been made. Considering the global economic situation, its time India make this much needed impact as early as possible. Across the world in 2014, only ten countries commanded 82% of the global trade and among that four nations of Europe controlled 47% of it. India is nowhere there in near vicinity. We have to make the call that India with its large young population, whether we want to remain consumer of this trade or should we stake the claim on it. In next twenty and odd years while many countries in Europe will become the land of aged population, India will still be the land physically strong young people. With the outsourcing of production to Asian countries, most of these nations are now slowly but steadily becoming only a trading nations. At this moment these countries may be retaining the technology, but in a long run, Asian countries that are the production hubs for these trade, where actual engineering is happening and technical jobs are created are the one who are going to dominate the technology and in turn the trade. China has already shown this to world. If we don’t take part in this game we will end up destroying ourselves by becoming only a consumer of European trade of Chinese goods. Make India argument certainly is a positive argument in that direction. We need to cultivate effective manpower for this. Good engineers, technologists, designers, craft men and artists are the need of the hour. Unfortunately Modi government’s educational policies looks shaky on that ground. Our vision for white color employment is clearly evident with the opening of more IITs, engineering collages and design colleges across the country. But to become a production hub, we should have larger vision and policies for blue color employment and its education. We should make them attractive and dignified. India should have million ITIs and Polytechnics than engineering colleges and medical colleges. More than the vocational course policy there is noting much to be seen that reassure the public that government has anything in mind for employment generation for common man.
IT revolution in the past had shown us that once we give education, our rural youth are capable to take any challenge and make it big. In India every states have benefited from IT revolution with their children making it big in technology. If one recall in India IT did not start at engineering colleges but was started in blue collar training centers like NIITs and others and initially the jobs were also of blue collar than white collar. So the make India is a right decision, but the government should iron out the lacuna of support education as soon as possible. A vision is the need of hour on education.

Fourth and most important, he is the first and only prime minister who used all mediums available on earth to communicate with people and that too in common man’s language. His selfie projections are classic example, the one that relates to young and trendy. If it had the flavor of not just the events but of the vision and work progresses this tireless communication would become some day the bench mark of democracy. Unfortunately in spite of his communication on all channels Mr. Modi could not dispel the shrouded grey area of him people believe he possess from public imagination.

Part -2

During the first NDA rule, in a television interview Mr. Advani attributed the success of his much acclaimed Ram Mandir Ratha yaatra that brought BJP as a reckoning force in Indian politics to the organization skills of one relatively unknown RSS backroom operator: Narendra Modi. Interestingly while complimenting Mr. Modi’s organization skills, he never differentiated the vote churn from that nation wide tour and the large-scale riots on its route. Perhaps Mr. Advani was unable to differentiate this complex ambiguity of Mr. Modi’s organization skills: the cold bloodedness and the performance. To a great extend Mr. Modi’s rise to power stems from this complicated notion exist even among his close confidents. They fear that he can do anything to achieve his objective and we have enough reason to believe that this image is not an accident but Modi has crafted it with much of his organization skill.

If one asks whether Mr. Modi is a religious fanatic or not?
His opponents will jump into the fray with hyperactivity claiming evidences of religious discriminations, riots and persecutions against him. They will unleash a cascade of evidences from everywhere to accuse him of subverting justice at every level during the riot trials, extra judicial killings, Pandya’s murder, dissemination of sleaze CDs of Joshi, IPS officer’s persecution, wrecking the family of IPS officer who challenged him, Snooping on his one time protégé interior design girl, systematically stifling liberal voices among academics by destroying institutions after institutions by appointing hawks and cronies in key positions and despite the existence of corruption everywhere during his tenure in Gujarat as well, no one has ever been booked for corruption during his tenure or at least punished!

Simultaneously his supporters will be equally or more vociferous, pointing out that there has never been a big riot after the 2002 Gujarat pogrom. They will point out VHP since 2002 riot has never been allowed to function in Gujarat. Juha pura, the worst riot hit Muslim dominated area got their first nationalized bank during his tenure. Many people in the Muslim dominated areas of Ahmedabad after sixty years or more of their existence in those areas, got their house numbers: a basic necessity for any financial deals in India during his term in Gujarat. Above all they will claim he is instrumental in bringing overall growth to state irrespective of cast, creed and religion so on and so forth.

Strangely Mr. Modi will never own up any of these accusations or compliments but he also will never deny or decline it. As a chief minister he strategically used these accusations to cultivate a halo of fear around him: both for his supporters and opponents to reap much-desired political dividend.

If one is not politically biased, one will have to tragically accept that one will never be able to prove or disapprove any of these accusations and compliments. In this game of political chess, he remained lonely and mastered the lone savior acts of Indian epics, where Karmayogis are always persecuted. This was good till he was the Chief minister of Gujarat, but as an elected prime minister of a multi party democracy, multi culture and cultural understanding of narratives, for Mr. Modi this paraphernalia of suspicion is becoming highly counter productive. Outside Gujarat, although people may have elected him but they are yet to be convinced about him or at least believe him beyond their “hindutwa call”.

In any narrative, mysteries have to be unraveled at some point of time and it cannot always hide behind a complex text. This is the sacrosanct rule of story telling. No hero can afford to be as complex as they might be in their real life. They have to be affable and presented as transparent. Mr. Modi in his make belief system of lonely almighty warrior is loosing this game very fast. People who elected him and wanted to believe him are slowly but steadily becoming doubtful now. Along with his anti poor, pro- selective rich image, even after a year of becoming prime minister, he is yet to emerge as a statesman with a vision forward from a hawkish politician's image. In a multi party democracy like India, fear has its limits -it can never stretch beyond one’s political fiefdom. Sonia Gandhi’s hundred-meter walk with MPs on Land bill and its impact exposed this limitation to Modi. Whether he accepts it or not congress is now mastering this game under Rahul Gandhi of dispelling the fear from public imagination. He is breaching that fear factor that Modi assumes as his strength.

Capable colleagues

Another big crack in Modi’s brittle castle is the competency of his colleagues. Except a selected few, most of his ministerial colleagues remain only as the stapled notes on their ministry letterheads. After a year down the lane no one knows what one can expect from those ministries or ministers!. No one has heard from them: neither the vision nor the policy decisions. Classic case to be take as an example is the make in India campaign. Apart from the trumpet blown on make India campaign from PMO and some pussy feet efforts from ministry of commerce, we haven’t heard any direction or policy decision to support such an effort from ministry of industries, corporate affairs or technology who have to deliver these promises! As pointed out in an earlier paragraph, education ministry perhaps is yet to identify the issue of skilled manpower to achieve these promises.

Prime minister’s reluctance to invite experts on board to augment his arguments will cost him dearly in an immediate future. We have enough and more examples in our country’s history to prove the need for the prime ministers to grow beyond party affiliations to lead the nation. The first Nehru government that included all capable people from treasury and opposition benches in his ministry to translate the political freedom into nation building and the pragmatism of former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s decision to invite a celebrated economist Mr. Manmohan Singh, a non-politician to head the finance ministry to save the economy from crumbling at the point of time are the classic examples in front of us. The time is certainly overshooting for Mr. Modi to lead a group of colleagues who are pragmatic and capable than being a collective of cribbing and whining bunch of arrogant cradle kids (about congress for every ill falls).

continued...