Deepu Nair's Official Blog

What India can learn from Maoists/Naxals Part 1

2013-05-28T09:36:00.002-07:00

Disclaimer
First of all, I'd like to make a disclaimer that I am no Maoist apologist and this article is by no means to extol the Maoist/Naxal movement. The Maoist modus-operandi of violence and armed rebellion to overthrow the Indian state is reprehensible and unacceptable.

Purpose
The purpose of this article is to highlight certain strengths of the Maoist setup, weaknesses of the state (particularly in some regions) that has enabled the Maoists to gain a stronghold in certain pockets of India. In any conflict, it is strategic common sense to assess your adversaries: their strengths, their weaknesses, and to use these to develop strategies to combat them. In keeping with that spirit we take on deconstructing certain strengths and weaknesses of the Maoist movement and the state.

Government weaknesses turning to Maoist Strengths:
The state's weaknesses, are the Maoists strength. The lacuna of governance left by the state provides ample space for the Maoist ideology and activities to fester and draw strength. The state, and people of this country cannot afford to ignore these weaknesses and we do so at our own peril.

1) Displacement of marginalized sections from their land:

The problem:

This is a big one, The ELEPHANT in the room. Due to the infamous nexus between politicians and businessmen in several regions, it is no secret that business interests have assumed priority over fundamental human rights.

Several tribals across central India have been dispossessed of the land that they've been living on for generations. All for what? For wealth ill-gained through the practice of illegal and/or unethical mining for resources. In the short term there may be gains for the politicians and businessmen from such practices but the long term consequences of such practices are unsustainable.

History has long been witness to the conflicts that have developed over land, and the Maoist conflict, which is being chalked up to be "India's greatest national security threat" is to a great extent a conflict over land rights. For the tribals in central India, being removed from their own land leads to further marginalization, discontent, and disillusionment with the institutions of government. These circumstances lead victims to then align themselves with and support movements like the Maoists in an attempt to salvage self-respect, and a lost way of life.

The Maoists prey upon the resentment and hopes of such individuals with promises of violently overthrowing the government that failed to protect their rights, and to remove those who occupy their land.

The state abdicating its responsibility to protect the human rights of its own citizens and worse being complicit in such unscrupulous activities is unacceptable. It plants the seeds for further unrest.

Attempts at a solution:

Changing the way we see the problem
The change needs to begin in perception. It is something that the government, the "mainstream society" are far too often responsible for. There is this distinction being made of "tribals". Yes, they may be a weak, marginalized community, but they are citizens of India, just the same with fundamental inalienable human rights sanctified in the Indian constitution. The state needs to legitimately (and not just as political lip service) recognize this, and act in accordance with decisiveness. This notion may well sound overly idealistic and in a sense funny. If politicians and those with political clout and connections are responsible for the situation, expecting the state to safeguard this right would be akin to leaving the wolf in charge of protecting the chicken coup? This is where we, the people, come in. It is also our responsibility to hold our people's representatives responsible to push this in government and legislative bodies whenever it arises.

Legally recognized land rights
The change in perception necessary, and well and good in theory, but implementation is the absolute key. The very first move ought to legally recognize the entitlement of people to their land. The rights of the tribals to their land needs to be legally recognized with land deeds. They need to be made aware of their right, and their avenues to legal recourse.

Oversight commitees
Another suggestion has been to institute transparent oversight committees that report to the courts, government and the people transparently. The mandate of such committees ought to be to protect the right of the tribals to their land. The committee ought to have representation from leaders elected from within the communities in a election commissioned sanctioned mandate, have civil society representatives, have representatives from the law, civil administration, and government.

Corruption control
This is a real complicated issue of its own, but there's no denying it, the seed to this issue lies in corruption. All the solutions suggested to combat corruption (Too big for the ambit of this post) including a Lokpal, increased transparency and accountability for government dealings etc. and parts of the puzzle to solving the problem.

This article will be continued in the next post. Stay posted by signing up your email with feedburner.

How to type/insert special characters in chrome

2013-05-25T09:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I briefly touched upon typing special characters in my previous post (in the lessons learnt bit in the aside regarding typing "vis-á-vis" with the "a" with the accent grave). By special characters here, I'm referring largely to foreign language characters like in: French, Italian, Portuguese, Greek etc. In the previous blogpost I just used the Windows ALT+ codes, with a link on how to do it. But that quiet frankly takes too much time, especially if:

You ocassionally type in foreign lanaguages
Just use a lot of French or Latin derived terms when typing in English
You type a lot in web browsers (you'll see why later, part of the solution)

I thought to myself, there must be a better way of doing this than actually typing the Windows ALT+ codes for each character, which are quiet frankly just cumbersome.

I do a great deal of typing, obviously blogging on a web browser. In my case on Google Chrome, so enter the solution for all of you using Chrome out there (statistically should be the majority of you guys): The Special Characters Chrome Extension.

It's a pretty neat tool to use to insert foreign characters.

Lowdown on how to use it (really simple):

Click the add to chrome button
Right next to the chrome search bar (omnibar) there should be a little button with an accent grave. Looks like this:

Click on it.
Click on wanted character
Paste where you want to insert it.

Few extra options:

Clicking shift gives Capital case characters
Using number 1 to 4 allows you to copy to clipboard, the 4 recently used characters

Hope that was somewhat useful.

So here's another attempt at blogging... Again

2013-05-24T06:02:00.001-07:00

After a prolonged break, I figure, I ought to get back to blogging, posting my views on "stuff" on the net. I planned on doing this back in 2010 (yeah 3 years ago!), only to get one post in, after.... 1 whole month of resolving to blog again. Anyways, hopefully this time it works out better.

After starting off trying to get my blog to show up on Google for my name (i.e. the term Deepu Nair), in 2010 I was able to get it to rank 2 without much effort, see it here. After slacking off for 3 years, it's down to Rank 9 as you can see down here: (Click on it to enlarge)

Lessons to be learned here vis-à-vis this development:

Don't slack off
Post more regularly, keep content fresh for search engines to be able to find you
And to type the "à" (a with accent grave, used it for "vis-à-vis" three lines up): the windows alt code is ALT+0224. A list of foreign characters in windows can be found here: Penn State foreign characters site

I'll try to resurrect this blog with some interesting posts for you all.

This design's also getting kind of old, so a design update may also be on the cards, so stay posted.

P.S.: None of the guys in the photos below this blog is me!

R A Mashelkar: Gandhian Engineering

2011-12-05T01:34:00.000-08:00

This talk was given back in 2009, but it is still highly relevant. It was given by R.A. Mashelkar, former director general of CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research). I happened to watch it again recently, so I thought to make a post about it. More work needs to be done along these lines. A highly inspirational and informative talk. Here's the link to the talk: enjoy!

Video Link: Breakthrough designs for ultra low cost products

Gautama Buddha on action

2010-03-28T16:39:00.000-07:00

"An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea." - Gautama Buddha.

When one speaks of a man of action, seldom would one hear the name of Gautama Buddha come up. Usually, the names of conquerors such as Alexander the Great or renowned captains of industry such as Carnegie or Rockefeller are brought up. Will all due respect to the accomplishments of these men, I would argue that Buddha is a greater man of action than these other accomplished individuals.

Alexander the Great may have created one of the largest empires that the earth has ever seen, and these captains of industry may have created historically unparalleled fortunes, but Buddha's actions have had a more resounding impact on history than theirs. Buddha left the opulence and power of a kingdom in order to follow his idea of finding truth and meaning in life.

He was one who cast away materialistic wealth and power to pursue a realm that would save men from their misery and quench man's age old thirst for sustained happiness. These other great men may have made a mark in history by accomplishing great things for themselves, but Buddha left a legacy that these other men could not. He left the world with a path to attaining peace of mind, that about 350 million people on the planet still follow.

So if you need reason to follow your dreams, your ideas, and reach for the answer to all the questions to which you seek an answer, look no further than Gautama Buddha, the man who said this very quote. Find truth in what you are doing, and pursue it wholeheartedly, never let challenges phase you. According to Buddhist mythology, Buddha was faced with challenges such as an army of devils, and he was attacked with a weapon that could cleave mountains. But he sat in meditation, and wasn't bothered in the least by these challenges. He followed his pursuit of truth with single-pointed concentration. Then he attained enlightenment. He had reached his goal. But he didn't stop there.

Success is a continuous process, and Buddha exemplified this. He didn't limit the knowledge of enlightenment to himself, but he spread his hard earned wisdom to the masses. After attaining one's goals one should keep going on, and help others with what you have attained. This way Buddha became an individual who has had a profound and meaningful life, that has had a far reaching impact in the course of history. he doesn't remain merely a page in the history book, but a page in the lives of several individuals, who still gain knowledge and motivation from his inspiring life.

So next time you have an idea that can change the world, or even just change a single life for the better, think of Buddha and transform it into action.

With best wishes,
Deepu Nair

Back to blogging, and Deepu Nair's blog status

2010-02-05T20:18:00.000-08:00

I have been away from blogging for quite some time now, yet I see that the ranking of this blog hasn't fallen yet. I'll look at this as a positive sign and continue to strive for rank one on Google. But in the meantime I'll start making some meaningful posts on this blog, and I'll try to brush up the overall look and feel of the blog.

Deepu Nair's official blog is finally indexed in Google

2008-01-09T20:37:00.000-08:00

That's right my blog has finally been indexed in Google and for the search phrase Deepu Nair this blog ranks an amazing third on Google. I thought that there might be some trouble in this department. But, I'll keep trying to reach rank one in the Google search.

Deepu Nair's blog is on it's way

2007-11-16T19:07:00.000-08:00

This blog has as of now been crawled by Google's googlebot, but the process of indexing this blog could take a relatively long time. Once my blog gets indexed into google, I'll start to be able to truly express my views to the world. Off course, as I speak I'm continuing to try to get my blog indexed and then gaining rank one for the term Deepu Nair'.

Deepu Nair continues to strive for rank one

2007-11-12T02:20:00.001-08:00

I'm still trying to attain rank one position on google for the keyword Deepu or Deepu Nair. This blog hasn't been indexed yet, but hopefully it will be.

Deepu Nair's blog's first post

2007-11-10T21:34:00.000-08:00

This is the first post of Deepu Nair's blog. This is a part of my effort to reach 'rank one' in the google search pages for the keyword Deepu Nair. It is really terrible when I look online and search for my name and find other words, therefore I've decided to try to move this site up to the rank of one for the keyword Deepu Nair.