People, Politics and Government

Population Growth Rate

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 00:01:00 +0000

Rapid population growth rates can make it difficult for countries to raise standards of living and protect the environment because the more people there are, the greater the need for food, health care, education, houses, land, jobs, and energy. Adding more people to a country’s population means that the wealth must be distributed among more people, causingGNP per capita to decrease at least in the short term.

DEPweb: PGR Text 1:

'via Blog this'

Indian Democracy – Majority Consideration is the Must

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 01:10:00 +0000

Indian population is segmented in to castes, communities, religions, etc and there is hardly any person who is not touched by these narrow considerations and is a true Indian. Therefore, considerations of a nation are missing from the minds of the people of both kinds – ruling and the ruled. This deficiency in Indian mentality is severely affecting the democratic institutions and procedures, thus badly affecting the quality of governance and hence the administration of the country.

By all indications from the time of achieving independence to the day, we have been going down on quality of life, economic harmony, and quality of governance in the country. Since, we have not yet begun moving in the right direction, we have no hope of any improvement in the times to come.

The reason of our going downhill is seeded in our constitution wherein we curtailed on the basic democratic norm of a basic majority for getting elected to a government position, and linked it to the maximum number of votes. As a result, we have our elected representatives with votes as low as 20 percent of their constituents and running the government. Therefore, up to 80 of our population has no representation in the government making it the highest irresponsible governance in the world.

Out of many ways to correct the situation, I am of the opinion that one of the simplest act would be to get our constitution amended to make obtaining 50 percent plus votes (an absolute majority) for getting elected to a position in the government. This is a basic requirement of democracy as envisaged by her father Democritus about 2,500 years back when the concept of democracy was first mooted and tried very successfully in the city state of Acropolis (now Athens). Aristotle was the greatest opponent of the concept who managed to ruin Acropolis through invasion by a wild king Phillip of Macedonia.

Presently, our constitution commands to declare a person elected by getting maximum votes our of all the contestants. This is easily achievable by alignment of two or three communities in a constituency and division of votes of who don’t align among different contestants. This, on one hand, provides a minority government in the country and deepens division of population into segments.

With provision of 50 percent plus votes for getting elected, there would be only a few constituencies in the country in which caste or community based alignments would work for electing a candidate. Of course, this would require modification in voting system to either preferential voting to different contestants or two a multi-phase election process as practiced in many democracies in the world.

Further, my suggestion for adopting the Presidential democracy instead of the present Prime Ministerial democracy remains the must for curing democratic ills of India.

The Quality of Governance of India

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Sat, 26 May 2012 14:15:00 +0000

In the last 13 years, the government of India has revised price of petrol 65 times – once every 2.5 months on an average, tripling the price to Rs 73.18 for a liter now. The latest revision of 11.5 percent is the steepest of all the revisions of the 13 years. These price revisions have no impact on the politicians and highly paid government servants. Businesspersons too accommodate such revisions through putting the increased levy on the general public through revising prices of their products and services. But for the common people who need to earn more with every price rise for survival, such revisions do matter a lot. But who bothers for the common people?

The administrators who run the country have been managing to isolate themselves from the petrol price rises since 1999. In 1999, when the petrol price was Rs 23.80 a litre, top bureaucrats of the country were allowed to use their official air-conditioned chauffeur-driven cars for personal uses against a monthly payment of Rs 700 every month. The facility continues with the same monthly charges through the 65 revisions in these 13 years.

Poor Bureaucrat

The government is fast enough to revise the price 5 times a year, and simultaneously sluggish enough not to review the monthly charges on top-most and the richest bureaucrats for all these 13 years. A simplistic logical sensibility dictates that the monthly charge of Rs 700 must have been proportionally revised every time the petrol price is revised. At the present petrol price level, this comes out to be Rs 2,100 a month, a negligible amount for the highest paid bureaucrats of the country. But the mentally bankrupt bureaucrats like to avoid such burdens on themselves, because the poor helpless people of the country are there to bear their burdens of illegitimacy. Incidentally, these mentally bankrupt bureaucrats run the country of India. Anybody far or near can easily assess the quality of governance Indians might be under.

Instances of burdening the poor helpless people while favouring the richest community with an isolation again and again is not incidental but a way of governance of India by the nasty junta of politicians and administrators for whom people are there for crushing and burdening for the luxuries of those in power. This is after all a democratic country which is often ruled by people who get voted to power by only 20 to 25 percent of voters. If we look at community-wise demography of the country, there are many communities who can elect a government single-handedly to become rulers of the so-called democratic India. The present government in the U.P. state of India is elected to power through such a move of a community.

Presidential versus Prime Ministerial Democracy : A Direct Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Thu, 24 May 2012 07:06:00 +0000

For management of an ongoing project of constructing a memorial in honour of Freedom Fighters of India from my village Khandoi with main financial support from the villagers, I was given the overall charge with support from a committee of 11 members. The preparations started with collection of contributions from the villagers, but only 3 members of the committee showed some enthusiasm of participation, with all others choosing to be dummies. In these 3 too, one was just a follower, one only worked as a spokesperson taking credit for everything that was supposed to be done, and thus only one really took active interest. In a fortnight, even all the members of the committee did not provide their financial contribution, and in total only 15 persons made their financial contributions to the project. This was too meagre an amount to begin the construction work.

At this disheartening display of working of committee members, I called a meeting of those who had made their financial contributions, and made the pronouncement that the Committee members are not showing any active interest in discharging their duties, therefore the Committee should be dissolved, All attending the meeting agreed that the system of joint responsibility has not worked, therefore, someone must be given the full responsibility of the project and authority to choose his/her team to work with to ensure successful execution of the project. With this decision of all, the responsibility was given to me, along with the authority to choose my team of executives. The project has now taken off and its progress is visible to all.

This is the glaring example of why the Presidential democracies, like that in USA, are more successful than the Prime Ministerial democracies, like those in UK and India, all over the globe. For the same reason, all industrial and commercial establishments are managed through presidential systems of putting responsibilities and authorities in the Chief Executive’s hands.

Decisiveness

The worst thing about collective decision mechanism of Prime Ministerial governance is lack of decisiveness for which decisions get delayed unless someone has vested interests in the decision and takes initiative. In my experiment in my village, even collecting people for a decision takes about half an hour per person on an average. So for a committee of 11 members to take a decision, five persons absent themselves, on an average, and the rest 6 take about 3 hours for coming to the table. This hampers not only the decision process but also the spirits of those bearing main responsibility of the project.

Conversely, in a Presidential system, the responsible person takes the decision immediately and begins implementing that. Such a decision, however, may have some lacuna for the application of single mind, which comes to be known while implementing the decision, and may easily be removed. This works faster and in a more efficient way.

Economics of Corruption in India

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Mon, 21 May 2012 12:44:00 +0000

Institution of Corruption

Since Rajiv Gandhi's involvement in corruption with respect to Bofors deal and Asian games about 3 decades back, media, judiciary and people in general have been remaining alert and bringing out many high profile to local level corruption cases. The way so many corruption cases have been unearthed in these 30 years or so, corruption should have been stamped out from Indian governance and administration. But increased frequency of corruption cases coming to light indicates that the evil is still on the rise. Politicians and administrators of the country have no fear of being caught some day if they get involved in corrupt practices, because they have learned from the past practices that it is still economical to be corrupt even if caught red-handed. I have tried to understand this economics of corruption in the country and enlisted some key reasons for the economics.

Out of millions of cases of corruption from the level of a peon in judiciary to that of the Prime Minister of the country occurring annually, only a few, only a few dozens, are coming to light. This reduces risk in being corrupt to less than one in millions.

No politician in power has ever been punished for involvement in a corrupt practice. A few a caught only when they are out of power. Since politicians never think of being out of power for the tradition of dynasty rules in the country, they never imagine of being punished for their misdeeds.

The punishments to a few awarded so far for being corrupt have been negligible as compared to the gains of the corrupt practices. Therefore, corrupt persons don’t mind getting imprisoned for a few days or some of their wealth being confiscated when caught. Still they have a lot to gain.

Old politicians and administrators nearing retirement become more corrupt for their fewer days in power which they manage to transfer to their next generations before their days of being out of power.

All such corrupt politicians and administrators have been demanding abolition of death penalty for fear of being hanged someday for being corrupt if some day the country finds an honest and tough person at the helm of affairs to finish all those found corrupt in the country.

Corruption through Dynasty

Those raising their voices against corruption in the country and are in the media limelight are also involved in corrupt practices in their own ways. Therefore, those who are proved corrupt and those who are displaying their will of being against corruption are the same at their conduct levels.

For all such reasons, corruption in the country is continuing unabated and quantum of amounts involved in such practices have been escalating at a much faster rate than the spiraling rise cost of living in the country.

Hence, there is no need of fearing anybody. Recent exposures of corrupt practices in Noida/Greater Noida under U.P. Government prove that the culprits had no fear of being caught someday for their getting support from other higher level corruption perpetuators.

Therefore, leaders of India! don’t be afraid of being caught some day, and, continue your evil practices, because it is still gainful to be corrupt. And my poor people! don’t get swayed by media propaganda of exposure of corrupt cases. Nothing is going to change in the near future as we have not yet begun moving in the right direction.

India, from Habituation to Domestication

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Fri, 18 May 2012 21:31:00 +0000

Transition of life from independence to dependence is domestication, and the route of domestication is habituation. People who remain dependent under foreign rules, first get habituated to their dependent status, and then over a long period of time in this condition get domesticated to those ruling them. Transition from habituation to domestication makes some genetic changes in the people, for which they remain so even after they get independence from the foreign rule, and hence fail in ruling themselves properly. India of today is in such a state. Wolves got domesticated to become dogs in the same way.

Domestication is of many kinds leading to correspondingly different genetic changes, some such changes are discussed here.

Domestication to Surrender to High-up

Sitting high in the unfathomable sky is a terrifying phantom God, below him are terror-cultivating religious/spiritual preachers, and below them are the latter’s allies – the political authorities. People are first domesticated to surrender to the phantom at the highest level, then to the next .. and gradually they come to be domesticated to everything above them, and surrender calmly.., all curiosity dampened. And this is the secret of why politics of free India has not freedom to people from slavery of economic, social and psychological exploitation of the people.

The people of India don’t want and enjoy their freedom for their inability to shoulder any responsibilities and failure to exert for their rights. They are just dependent on somebody above, from God to religious preachers to political authorities and relish this status for the convenience of freedom from any responsibility.

Domestication to Ignorance

In my earlier writings, I have established that humans have developed curiosity as an instinct over other species of life on the earth, and this curiosity makes them distinct from other life forms. Once the curiosity is subdued for any reason and remains so for a few generations, genetic changes do take place suppressing the naturally evolved curiosity back to zero and making the people happy with their ignorance for no curiosity in them.

Such domestication has been cultivated by religious and spiritual preachers for serving their vested interests by preaching ‘neti, neti...’ that the God is unknowable, let us not argue through intellect but have a ‘blind’ faith in his existence. Since the people don’t want to stand on their own feet and be responsible citizens, they are dependent for everything on the socially higher-ups for everything in matters of life from birth to death.

Domestication to Immorality

Similar to domestication to political dependence but the worst to humanity is domestication to immorality when people fail to realize what is wrong or right. For inspiration and imitation in matters of morality, they look forward to religious preachers and political authorities who are highly corrupt and immoral, and follow their footsteps without thinking or realizing what is right for them, their society and the nation. This begins with a trial of an immoral act, then to habituation to it and over a long run, to domestication of the immorality. I see in my village about 300 families out of a total of about 500 being involved in thefts of electricity from public distribution lines without realizing that it is wrong, immoral and damaging to psyche of their young children. It is because of the genetic changes occurring in them over a period of only 3 generations. Even rich and super-rich people of the village without having economic compulsions get involved in immorality without any hitch or hesitation.

Domestication and Habituation in respect of Indian Democracy

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Tue, 15 May 2012 22:17:00 +0000

Independent cat

I just read an article wherein the author demonstrated that dogs are domesticated animals while the wolves are not. Accordingly, domestication makes genetic changes in the animals to make them dependent on humans for a secured feeling and feeding. Habituation is a phenomenon wherein the animal just coexists with humans without dependence on them for anything. With this background, I consider 3 cats living in my home and attached garden without any dependence on me for feeding or caring. They often pass close to me, sleep carelessly in my presence, but never allow me to touch them. They simply know that I am not going to harm them but they remain alert about my incidentally changed behavior with them. In the opinion of the above-referred author, these cats are just habituated to my presence but not domesticated.

Dependent hare

These cats in my home are of grey color. Another type of cats I see in some homes are white, brown or of mixed color and are pets of the home owners, dependent on the owners for feeding and caring. These are the domesticated animals. Even grey cats are found to be living with humans for hundreds of years, but not yet domesticated, hence without any genetic changes in their wild lifestyle. Therefore, cats living with humans are of two types – domesticated and habituated.

With this background in mind, I consider common human-beings with respect to elite class of people – say rulers and administrators in democratic countries like India. Since my living in a village for the last 12 years, I notice a common feature in people that they keep on expecting some assistance for their survival from the elite rulers and administrators of the country. This prevents them from standing on their own feet for survival through own hard work. Are these people not domesticated animals of the elite class of people? Like the pet dogs and cats, these people long for closeness of the elite class and have a developed a feeling that they can’t survive without the aid from the elite class. Surely, they treat themselves different from the elite class of people. This difference makes the two classes of people like the two classes of cats discussed above.

People from India

The dependent psyche of Indian people on others is resulted from long duration of dependent status of the country under rules of foreigners in varying areas for nearly 1,600 years after the Gupta dynasty rule over India. Surely, there are people living in India whose mentality is different from the common people. These independent people are just habituated to living with other types of people but are not domesticated by the others. This puts Indians in two distinct classes – domesticated and habituated.

Domesticated animals have some attachment to their masters irrespective of the latter’s merit as compared to other persons in their contact. This attachment is basically for the pets’ vested interests of expecting the feed and care from the masters.

Even voting pattern in democratic elections in the country makes this difference quite apparent – these common people vote for some gains, direct or indirect. For example, Muslims of north India invariably vote for Muslim candidates only subject to availability, without any consideration of merits of the candidates. This is true for many other classes of people too who vote for candidates of their own caste only irrespective of merit. Are such voters in the country not of domesticated types? Since, this is quite obvious, genetic differences, like those in the domesticated and habituated animals, are also quite obvious.

Therefore, Indian populace may be put in two categories, genetically – domesticated by vested interests, and habituated to vested interests. Since, this makes a great difference in thought pattern and expression of choices in democratic elections, putting all the people in one category with equal voting rights is no justified. For this unjust imposition of democracy over the country, the whole political system of the country is corrupted resulting into anarchy through mismanagement of affairs of the country, based on shear opportunism and vested interests. Unless this difference of domestication and habituation is understood and a constitution of the country is reframed accordingly, no improvement in the political environment of the country is expected.

This also proves that anybody in the human form is not a human-being like others of the same form, like the two types of cats discussed above. Human-beings need be further classified in the Indian context. In reference to people, the domestication leads to dependent thinking while habituation corresponds to independent thinking.

National versus Narrow Leadership

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:48:00 +0000

When a politician focuses on development of a certain locality, community or an interest group, he/she is a local, community or the interest group leader only, and certainly not a leader of the people or the nation. With this criterion, India does not have a single political leader of the people or the nation. Every leader in India today is found to be concentrating on the development of his/her village, area or constituency, a particular caste or community, or a particular interest group like a business, profession, religion, etc. This trend has caused a few villages, areas, constituencies, castes, communities, groups, etc to have developed more than the rest of the country. Examples are numerous like –

Nehru family concentrating on the development of Raibareilly constituency and caste Vamans,
Mayavati focused on her village Badalpur and her caste Jatav,
Mulayam Singh Yadav family concentrating on its village Saifai, caste Yadav and Muslim community,
P. Chidambaram focusing on interests of South India only, ...

Thus, these so-called national/State level politicians behave like other local and community leaders. A common factor to all such politicians is that their prime focus remains limited to their own family members seconded by their vote-banks.

Vote Bank Politics through Religious Fundamentalism

A strategy begun in Indian politics by Muslims is to vote in a united way to one candidate, preferably a Muslim, to tilt the balance in the chosen candidate’s favour without any consideration of merits of the candidate. This way, they are able to slave the candidate to serve their vested interests. For such a united action of voting, their religious leaders in nasty league with the candidate issue their dictum to the voters to vote for the particular candidate. This way, the community wins, the candidate too wins, but the people suffer, the nation suffers and also merit in Indian politics suffers. As the latest example, Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party won in the U.P.State Assembly election through support of Muslims voting under a religious dictum from Shahi Imam. Now, the U.P. government’s all actions are tilted in favour of Muslim community, neglecting interests of the State and the Nation.

To counter such a tactics of Muslims, I suggest that no other person should vote to such a chosen candidate favoured on religious or community lines.

Neglect of Intellectuals and National Interests

Since intellectuals can’t go so mean in expressing their democratic norms and choices like the dirty politicians and narrow-minded religious fundamentalists, they get neglected in the elections, leaving the political arena for free plays of nasty politicians.

A person may win an election, a political party may grab power through nasty political games, but the Nation suffers. And when a Nation is suffering, nobody is victorious.

Regional Politics

A demeaning trend in Indian politics is the rise of regional political parties with no national agenda but with focus on narrow regional issues of transient nature. Such a choice in politics proves highly disastrous when public sentiments are directed against something of national importance. The politics of southern states, particularly of Tamil Nadu, has been flourishing on anti-Hindi plank and every regional leader washes his dirty hands in such antinational campaigns.

With every rise in regionalism, the nationalism suffers, paving way to an ultimate disintegration of the Nation. When nationalism suffers, anti-national forces become strong, posing dangers to the people of the nation.

Family Rule

The dirtiest game played by Indian politicians is due to their biases in favour of their kiths and kins for establishing their family rules on the Nation. This was pioneered by Nehru and is being followed by most of the politicians in the country like Mulayam Singh Yadav of U.P., Karuna Nidhi of Tamil Nadu.

Reservation in Promotions - U.P. Takes the Lead

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Thu, 10 May 2012 10:42:00 +0000

U.P. shows the Way of curtailing reservations

India has been suffering under reservations in government employment and powerful positions at the cost of merit. While the meritorious persons are being neglected in the selections and democratic elections, caste-based reservations rule that merit has no place in Indian governance and administration. This devastating policy has been applicable not only for entry to the positions of authority but in later promotions too.

As a welcome step, Uttar Pradesh state government has taken a lead in stopping reservation considerations for promotions in government employment, under directions from the judiciary of the country. With this, even though entry of meritorious candidates to government employment won't be affected, but those already in the government employment and suffering in promotions, would be benefited. This would improve chances of a better administration in the state.

Caste-based reservations have been in force in the country since independence, and their gains have been enriching only those who are already rich in the scheduled castes and tribes and other backward classes in the country through providing them multiple benefits while the really poor and downtrodden classes of people have been suffering as before. These sufferings increased as the upper castes got biased against them for the reservation policy imposed by the government.

Modern Rulers of India through Reservations

Instead of no considerable gains to the poor classes of the country by the reservations, this evil has been on the rise with more and more classes demanding reservations for themselves. Recently done reservations for women in government and administrative positions is also playing havoc with governance and administration of the people.

The step of U.P. government of stopping reservations in promotion of government employees is the first step in the country towards curtailment of evil of reservations, hence, is a greatly welcome. This will pave way to a similar curtailment in other states too, and later in further curtailment in reservations in the country. This way, the merit will find some respectability in the country, so far neglected badly.

Need of a Role Model in Indian Politics

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Sat, 05 May 2012 01:26:00 +0000

Lal Bahadur Shastri - A role model

Before the era of Indira Gandhi’s imposition as Indian Prime Minister by her father Jawahar Lal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri was the role model in Indian politics – a simple, honest, truly patriotic person, who rose to leadership through his sincerity and simplicity of nature. For eliminating such a role model from the scene, he was killed by those who wanted to rule the country autocratically. Nehru and Indira had never liked rule of the people through democratic means, but had always been pro-aristocratic rule over the country which they displayed by induction of pro-British, anti-Indian aristocratic families of the country in the ruling Congress Party. With the elimination of Lal Bahadur Shastri from the scene, the possibilities of having some role models in politics for others to follow have been totally eliminated. Since then until now, all politicians in the country irrespective of their party and policy affiliations, have been generally the same through their omissions and commissions.

Now, there is no body in Indian politics whose character and conduct may guide the younger generations of the country to follow and yet remain active in politics of the country. A general notion has taken deep roots in the people’s minds that the game of politics is strictly reserved for anti-social, anti-patriotic, anti-people persons only with none else daring to enter the political arena in an effective way.

Still, need of the times is to have an ideal person in the political arena who must stay there even after repeated defeats and humiliations by those in power to show his resilience to hold values high in this highly degraded field. Since, such a person has to play a role of a model politician for the future of the country, he is neither required to spend any money for getting elected in competition to other candidates spending millions for the purpose. The person must be satisfied with holding moral values in the dirty politics of India like a lotus flower rises above the mud to shine high up above the muddy waters. As far as the person him/herself is concerned, purpose should not be to win in the elections but to provide an opportunity for voting based on moral values to other few like-minded persons amongst the common masses, who have no option available under the present circumstances.

Some important expectations from such a role model are –

No compromise with other dirty politicians and their political parties for gaining their favour of any kind,
Close contact with people to put his/her moral values before them if they need them some day, and to keep these values alive in the political arena of the country,
Fighting with the rulers and administrators for the legitimate rights of the people and working for improving their quality of life,
Telling the people about their responsibilities towards society, nation and future generations and whenever they drift from them,
Getting satisfaction from his/her role as a model politicians

With these ideals in mind and practice, such a person would be doing a great service to the nation and some day - may be after his/her death, his/her voice shall be echoed by the people all over the country.

Earth Day Call : Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:47:00 +0000

Since 1969, people on the globe celebrate the Earth Day through their respective organizations and display their superiority over each other. It is a competition of over 15,000 organizations spread in 174 countries. Still, it has failed to touch the minds at individual levels. Millions of dollars are collected by these organizations from their members and governments for the celebrations of the concerns at organizational levels only. Except these global celebrations, there seems to be no change in attitudes towards ecology at individual levels. What is lacking is the individual will to improve the ecology through sacrifices on comforts through unlimited consumptions.

Celebration versus Concern

For over 4 decades, spreading to two generations of people, we have been celebrating the Earth Day with the originally mooted purpose of ‘shaking up the political establishments and force the issue of ecology into the national agenda’. I view all these celebrations as gross misguidance to people to show pleasures of joining hands in the name of the issue, but doing nothing to ward off the problem. The events and programs are just socializing celebrations by some people trying to be in limelight. Had it been a real concern for the Earth, we would have made efforts to shake the individual minds, rather than the political establishments, to reduce their respective consumptions of energy and materials to bring ecology back to its natural norms. The principal reason of our failures on ecology is that we are celebrating the Earth Day, rather taking the concern to our homes.

Organizational versus Individual Approaches

We all have been trying to soar up our consumptions of energy and materials at individual levels and adding to problems of ecology of the Earth. Simultaneously, since 1969, the Earth day comes likes a storm shaking organizational walls but leaving individuals untouched while the real culprits are we all at individual levels. The global population is on the rise with couples all around me trying to have larger bunches of voting power to capture political power for the family or the community through using or misusing democratic rights.

Maximizing profits has become the sole motto of each of us at individual levels in order to beat the neighbourhood in earning and spending money for having everything in our homes, not necessarily to use it but to display it to the neighbourhood. We are organizing in novel ways to maximize profits.

IDEA, a mobile phone service provider in India puts up huge banners to display their concern for ecology and thus attract more and more customers to their network with a single purpose of maximizing profits for the owners and their associates. They sold me a SIM through misguiding me but with no use to me and refused to take it back in-spite of my requests on daily basis once I found futility of the SIM in my working. Ultimately, I threatened them with complaint to the police of their fraud played on me, when they agreed to cancel my account with them but blocked my money for 60 days with them for getting the profit. In this process, I travelled about 500 kilometers, made over two dozen phone calls, sent and received one dozen email messages, and undergone mental agony, all adding to problems of ecology for all of us. Still the company displays their concern for the ecology.

The Essence : Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

The essence of ecological concern lies in three R’s – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle of everything we make use of in our routine lives at individual levels and has nothing to do with our organizational affiliations. I am happy for not having a mobile phone for myself and I never feel the necessity of it. But wherever I go, whomsoever I come in contact with, I am being psychologically pressurized to own a mobile phone and carry that in my pocket. Rapid urbanization of humanity and their passive entertainments in their homes, their isolation from each other etc have put heavy demands on them to own everything individually. In the process, a friend of mine boasts of having everything in his home, with most of the things being used only once or twice in a year. I find his home as a garbage store and fail to get a sound sleep lying in bed amidst the garbage all around.

I pedal my bicycle for travelling up to 20 km in a day, which I had purchased 10 years back from a garbage shop, replaced some of its parts and repainted it in aluminium gray colour and to me it looks fabulous. But all my friends and relations ridicule me for using that shabby-looking bicycle in their views. They all celebrate the Earth Day with high spirits and enthusiasm while I keep aloof from such displays. Where is our real concern for ecology.

Gift of Government Medical Services to Indian Populace

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 08:25:00 +0000

A cursory study of health situation in India and apparent changes in it in the last 50 years or so, I am inclined to observe the following 6 points –

Deaths of young children in rural areas which was common about 50 years back has gone down,
In rural areas, old persons used to die quickly, now they are surviving longer as sick persons,
Government pensioners mostly reside in urban areas and they live healthier and longer,
Children of urban areas are healthier now than before,
Sufferings of rural women for diseases and child births have reduced drastically resulting successful births,
There is no considerable change in health of youths of urban or rural areas.

Rural Children

Thus, mainly affected populace may be put into four segments based on change in their health and longevity –

Urban children

Urban children,
Urban old persons,
Rural children,
Rural old persons

Healthy persons are productive while sick persons are burden on the society. The observations indicate that in urban areas, children as well as old persons are healthier than before and rural children and veterans, hence urban productivity has improved over the years. In rural areas, number of sick old persons has increased and number of births with survival of children has also increased. Thus, in rural areas, number of children has gone up as well as that of sick old persons. Both these factors increase burden on rural economy, making rural people poorer than before, while urban economy has improved.

One important factor for this difference in rural and urban situations is education of people. Urban population is generally educated while rural India has generally uneducated people. The education of a person changes his/her perception of life and hence lifestyle to suit the current situation. This makes the urban population generally free from age-old traditions many of which are harmful for health of people for the foreign rule over India. Rural population is sticky on their traditions and give little considerations to filter out bad traditions. For example, one such tradition is cooking food through deep frying in some oil on every festive or ceremonial occasion which is certainly a harmful practice to human health. Urban population is aware of this harmful practice and is abandoning the practice.

Traditional Indian Food

Human health is the most precious asset of a nation apart of it being an individual’s most precious possession. Since, in a economically heterogeneous society, all can’t afford to get due medical treatments to keep in good health, it is highly recommended that all health services must be provided to all the people uniformly and free of any charges. Any investment on human health begins providing rich dividend in about a decade’s time. In line with creating human assets of a nation, the government must provide free educational facilities to all the people uniformly.

Conflicts of Interests of Ramdev and Anna Teams

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 18:40:00 +0000

Media of Corruption Centre

Corruption is in the air of India on all sides - those famous for being corrupt and those trying to take credit for stamping out corruption without doing anything feasible in that direction but trying to shift centre of corruption in their favour. Politicians in power in the union government have earned a good reputation of being shameless in adopting and promoting corrupt practices in the country without bothering for public outcry on this matter. They very well know that the outcry is a face-mask created by their like-minded persons sitting on the opposite side of the fence. And that it could be calmed down on any day once a piece of bread is thrown to the other side.

On the other side of the fence, there are two wolves- team Anna and team Ramdev, fighting with each other to grab the political power to safeguard themselves and their corrupt practices. I was present in the first meeting in Madan Mohan Malaviya Bhawan, new Delhi of team Anna when fast by Anna was planned. I had proposed two things in that meeting -

Anna is our father figure so instead of risking his health and life for safeguarding our own interests is unethical and instead, we all must sit on fast unto death under patronage of Anna to usher in the desired change.
To finance the movement, we must raise funds through contributions form public.

The first proposal was rejected saying that only Anna's fast has that dramatic effect on the government. The second proposal was rejected by Arvind Kejriwal saying that we have enough funds to finance the movement, therefore there is no need for public contributions. I strongly disagreed on both these points hence dissociated myself from the movement from that day.

Anna+Ramdev, Conflict of Interests

Arvind and other dozen leaders of Anna team have no interest in making any sacrifices for the nation and are on the lookout for gaining maximum political mileage from the movement. Of course, they want Anna and people to suffer and sacrifice for their vested interests. They have enough funds means that they are in secret league with some persons providing them with funds. So, this team is as useless and corrupt as the politicians in power at the centre.

Secondly, Anna is a simple, honest, almost illiterate and foolish person to understand politics played by his team members in his name. On the behest of this team members, Anna has been changing his stand every now and then and many times made statements clearly looking to be pro some princely persons at the centre.

Ramdev, in only ten years of his spiritual frauds against innocent people, has become one of the richest persons of the country having personal business and assets worth trillions of Rupees. Many of the medicines sold by him are dirty excreta of animals to en-cash on sentiments of foolish people of India.

Since, both the teams have their vested interests, they can't work together against corruption because fighting corruption is not the real issue in their minds but gaining power to be corrupt is their real intention.

Indian Business yet to Gear Up for Service Sector

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 04:30:00 +0000

In India, marketer consumer relationship has been so far that of dominion and domain with the consumer having no say on price and quality of products they use. One reason for such a relationship is submissive nature of consumers in general. This is being taken undue advantages by the marketers who treat complaints about their products as disrespect to them. They still live by Capitalist Greed. To substantiate my statement, I provide two examples here.

1. BSNL

I get electricity for limited hours of the day, but its getting off at the prefixed time is certain but its availability at any time works like a gamble. With a wait of 8 hours for getting electricity, we feel lucky if we get it for 4 hours on an average. This works as a damper on spirits for working with use of electricity, as I do for my online writing works. This is not the only damper, I have much more harassing services to disable me to work. One such service is Internet connectivity by BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited), a government of India undertaking, the only broadband service available in my area.

On 31^st March 2012, I worked online from 6 to 10 pm with three trips of electricity in between and frequent failures of Internet connectivity in between. Then I got electricity at 12 midnight, got up from bed with a plan for compensating loss of work due to frequent failures of electricity and connectivity during day and evening times. As I switched on my laptop computer and modem, the Internet connectivity was missing, with pre-recorded message on the telephone that all lines on that route were out of order. Since then up to Thursday, 5^th April, electricity has been available to me from 6 to 10 pm and then after midnight to morning 6 am, but the BSNL connectivity remains missing after 9 pm for the whole night while I get up, try and wait for getting the connectivity.

The problem of bad telephone and Internet connectivity had been going for over 6 months now and I had been complaining to 6 official levels starting from Sub Divisional Engineer of my area to Chief General Manager (UP-West) with none showing any interest in improving the service to even normal level. I have the impression that all these officials – Sub Divisional Engineer (Telephones) Dibai, Divisional Telephone Engineer Bulandshahr, Assistant General Manager, Deputy General Manager, General Manager and Chief General Manager are in their respective positions just to pass their time when free from their lavish family life at the cost to the public. Their work culture is like that of post office clerks – handing over messages from their tables to the next, their technological capabilities are null to handle the high technological service of telecommunications. Thus, all these officials are blood-suckers of public like those in other government administrative positions.

2. IDEA Internet

Frustrated and disgusted with BSNL services and official’s attitude, I turned to Idea Cellular Ltd, claiming to have the strongest network in my area of UP (West), for their wireless service through their NetSetter. I was provided with a GSM SIM against a security deposit of Rs 500 on 19/04/2012 by their office at Bulandshahr and I was told that after the next day, just insert the NetSetter into your computer and you will be connected to the Internet.

Next day, I tried the connectivity but failed. On contacting the Idea representative Parikshit Teotia, he asked me to wait and let him check up. Within a few minutes, he informed me that the SIM is activated in their system, and that his responsibility was over. Through a dozen calls to him, I tried to insist that functionality of the SIM at my computer at my location was his responsibility with no results. I was left in the lurch. Then I emailed to customer care service of IDEA, next day I got the reply that they will look into the problem by 5 pm of 24/04/2012, meaning a gap of 4 days for initiating my Internet connectivity. Through their responses, I have the impression that they are not geared to provide technical services for Internet connectivity and have their work culture as retailer network of mobile phones. This way, I am again stuck up with even the private sector business in the country.

Difference in Selling and Providing Services

Selling a product is considered in India as a one-time transaction, though selling a durable must mean ensuring adequate services too. But that is not the business tradition here. This leads to mass-scale customer dissatisfaction for which business houses never bother for their keep on getting new customers for a huge population in the country. Their marketing strategy is limited to advertising through mass media and earning revenue as soon as a prospective customer approaches them.

The present work culture and marketing strategy is not enough, in any way, for providing services like that of Internet connectivity. It needs intention of the business to establish and maintaining a life-long relationship with the customers which is not in the imaginations of the Indian business.

Ways and Perceptions of Wealthy Persons

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:21:00 +0000

Poor and wealthy people think, about themselves and others, differently. Though there are a large number of factors of how people think, here I would limit myself to how becoming wealthy changes perceptions of a person about himself and others, particularly, poor people.

Simple logic says that since a rich person has enough of wealth, he would be more generous about helping other with his/her money than a poor person would do. With the same logic, a rich person would be less interested in exploiting others for possessing more money than a poor person would do under the same circumstances. But the psychological researches on the subject proves just the reverse.

During my student days, I was in close contact of a friend of my father, Swami Abhayanand, who had renounced his family and home for serving the poor people under inspirations from Saint Vinoba Bhave, a missionary who toured the whole India on foot to beg land from big land owners to give it landless persons in rural India. Though his long experience of working with poor people, he used to say that nobody could turn to be rich without exploiting others. I agreed with him but my experiences guide me to say that a person becomes rich by exploiting other persons or business opportunities. Further, I add that exploiting other persons and exploiting opportunities are different things and can’t be considered equivalent.

Certainly, one way of getting rich is exploiting others who are weak and can’t resist their exploitation for various reasons Religious preachers, political leaders and government administrators in India are glaring examples of this thesis. The other type of rich persons, who have exploited opportunities, are like Bill Gates of USA, and Ambanis of india. The former type of persons are crooked while those of the second type are intelligent and diligent. Therefore, persons of the two types of persons are entirely different from each other.

Exploiters of People

These persons may simply be called antisocial elements as they are against human spirit of mutual cooperation. Such persons remain on the lookout for some prey of theirs and jump on the opportunity when a person weaker than them contacts them. Such persons are great opportunists – strong for the weak and afraid when confronted by someone stronger than them. They have no compassionate feelings for others but are generally god-fearing for their inner feeling of being guilty.

Exploiters of Business Opportunities

Such persons are generally very busy persons for the burden of managing their respective businesses well. Through being busy, they do a great service to humanity by providing employment to many persons in their enterprises, and generating wealth for the society and the nation through productions in their business enterprises. For being busy, they have little time to look at others and their miseries, thus remain generally isolated from society in general. For such reasons, they can’t afford to be compassionate for others.

Thus, both types of rich persons are less compassionate, but for different reasons, than common people in every society.

Basic Questions of Motherhood

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:13:00 +0000

A working group of Planning Commission of India has suggested that mother be declared as the first guardian of a child, in place of father. Through legal implementation of this suggestion, in all educational and other legal documents, mother shall the entered as the guardian of the child. So far, this so-called privileged position is enjoyed by father for being the principal bread-earner of the family. Will such a provision help mothers in any way?

I have been raising issue of veils on the faces of women through my writings. For being behind veils, women elected to constitutional positions in the country, for 50 percent reservations for them, remain in their respective homes serving buffaloes and collecting and carrying their excreta on their heads, while their husbands enjoy all official authorities. These husbands are allowed to attend even official meetings while the real representatives of people remain in total darkness about what is going on in their names.

Chief of my village is a veiled woman and her husband deals with every matter related to her official duties and responsibilities. A few days back, I went to office of Zila Panchayat at Bulandshahr for some development project in the village. The Zila Panchayat Chief is also a woman who was not in office at that time. I asked her steno about meeting her. He advised me to see her husband and gave me his telephone number.

With such official hypocrisy in the country and the society about using women’s names for powerful positions, what difference shall be there if women are declared as the first guardians of their respective children? In India, we are not accustomed to deal any problem at its very root, but try short cuts to create more problems.

In the matter of granting a higher respectability to women that they deserve than that to men, the basic questions are of rights and responsibilities with respect to their children. Even now, many women take care of their children singly while the official guardians of the children are their respective fathers. This puts the fathers in odd situations and they tend to provide due care to the children for their legal responsibilities as the first guardians. If their names are removed from guardianship, they will never bother to take care of the children once they are detached from them for some reason. Then, the mother shall be forced to take care single handedly. Thus, the suggestion of making mothers as the first guardian of the children would put more burden on them in case of a differences with the respective fathers.

What is more important here is determination of financial burden on the fathers, with or without any changes in the guardianship act to ensure that children get due care and the mothers are not unduly burdened even as single mothers. Second thing that requires due attention of the law makers is the care of mothers in their old ages. In my small village, there are a dozen widows and old couples whose children are grown up but don’t support their parents in their old ages. All such old persons don’t have enough resources to feed themselves. Social welfare schemes of providing financial support to all veterans of the society is desirable but Indian administration is not yet tuned to such a support.

Islamic Politics of Yadav Dynasty Rule in U.P.

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:03:00 +0000

Samajwadi Party (S.P.), under ownership of Mulayam Singh Yadav family, captured political power in the state of U.P. in the recently held State Assembly elections through massive support of Muslims, not only of the state but also of the national religious leadership of Muslims. The religious head, Imam of Jama Masjid of Delhi, had issued a Fatwa (dictum) to Muslims of U.P. to vote for Samajwadi Party. Thus, began the Yadav-Muslim rule in U.P. about a month back.

It must be noted here that Mulayam Singh Yadav has been advocating isolation of religion from politics throughout his political career. But this advocacy is limited to BJP getting votes on Hinduism. For him getting Muslim votes through religious leader’s intervention is no communalism. Every politician of the country has his/her own opportunistic definition of communalism and secularism. Mulayam Singh is one of the most glaring example of this. In politics, such games are common and every player of the field does his/her best to come to power using right or wrong ways. So, up to this point, such opportunistic manipulations may be considered traditional for Indian politics since independence. But the things are extended much beyond to the level of endangering national security.

A terrorist captured for bombardment on Parliament House (a representation of democracy in India) was ordered to be hanged until death by a judicial court who tried the case. But political patronage of the terrorist, Congress leaders in command of the political power of the Nation, have been keeping him safe for many years now. These leaders hope that someday some terrorists would bombard the prison and get him released. Such a thing has happened in Pakistan wherein 384 prisoners including 20 dreaded terrorists have been freed through attack by Taliban, a terrorist outfit operating internationally.

Now, U.P. Chief Minister Akhilesh yadav, son of Mulayam Singh Yadav, has declared that two Muslims arrested for serial blasts in Lucknow-Faizabad courts by Special Task Force (STF) are not guilty of the crime and his government is finding ways to take back cases against them. This raises many questions –

The two accused are not political rivals of anybody, so nobody has personal enmity against them. They have been arrested through a legal procedure and would be tried accordingly. Why the legal machinery not be allowed to function independently without any intervention of politicians?
Who is Akhilesh Yadav to know that they are ‘not-guilty’? What is his interest in saving them from the trial? And, why should he doubt on working of the legal procedure in this particular case only?

Things are very clear. Persons like Raja Bhaiya are in his cabinet of ministers, and birds of the same flock fly together.

How Antisocial Elements deal with Pioneers

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 11:18:00 +0000

Every society at all times is traced to have two types of people – antisocial who exploit others through seeding bad practices in the society, and pioneers who work for improving the society. Thus, pioneers oppose exploitative tactics of the antisocial elements and two are at loggerheads. Pioneers have no personal interests in improving the society, so they get easily satisfied by whatever results they get out of their efforts. The antisocial elements have vested interests in derailing the society from right path as their lavish lifestyles are based on exploiting others, and they find that the pioneers raise stumbling blocks in their paths of exploiting others. This makes antisocial elements to treat pioneers as their enemies and their principal objective becomes to win over pioneers by hook or crook.

During my social engineering of the last over two decades, I have traced that the antisocial elements use a 4-stage strategy to defeat pioneers for serving their nefarious objectives. These four steps are applied one by one in the order given below with the next step taken when the previous step fails to yield results. The process is depicted in the diagram given below.

Step 1 : Eliminate the Pioneers

The first step of antisocial elements for dealing the pioneers is to eliminate them from the scene. For this, even criminal actions are not barred. This is the surest way of getting rid of the greatest enemy of the antisocial elements. But all efforts to eliminate the pioneers don’t succeed for weakness of the antisocial elements as compared to that of the pioneers. If this step fails in its objective, the antisocial elements go in for the next step of ‘Corrupting the Pioneers’.

Step 2 : Corrupt the Pioneers

This is the most difficult step to succeed because pioneers are rare persons difficult to get corrupted. Even then, the antisocial elements try to allure the pioneers for adopting corrupt practices like themselves.

Some pioneers may get corrupted if they get disappointed by their right ways not yielding desired results in a given time frame. Those adopting corrupt practices no more remain pioneers and merge with the antisocial elements.

If this step fails on some pioneers, then the antisocial elements leave the path of confrontation with the pioneers, may be for cheating the pioneers, and go to the third step of merging themselves with the pioneers.

Step 3 : Merge with the Pioneers

On failing in enmity with the pioneers, the antisocial elements go in for merging their identities with those of pioneers to show to the public that they are one. This display is often false and the antisocial elements keep on working for their nefarious objectives from within the pioneers. This puts pioneers in trouble as they can’t deny the hands of friendship from anybody including their known rivals, and they can’t trust these antisocial elements even when they display their friendship with the pioneers.

The best way for the pioneers is to avoid mixing their identities with those of the antisocial elements to avoid getting hurt by nefarious activities of the antisocial elements even after being one with the pioneers. If this happens, the antisocial elements use their last weapon of surrendering to the will of the pioneers.

Step 4 : Surrender to the Pioneers

If the pioneers stick to their principles and the antisocial elements fail in all the three steps mentioned above, then the antisocial elements have no way but to surrender to the will of the pioneers, acceptance of which the pioneers can’t refuse on moral grounds. This is the ultimate victory of the pioneers over antisocial elements, for which the pioneers make their best efforts through sticking to their principles.

What Indian Traditions are Damaging to Human Health

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:59:00 +0000

Indian history has seen rules of foreigners for a major period since the region was put on the world map through development activities by Theos about 2,500 years back. Agriculture, jewel mining, and building brick houses were begun at that time, making the people prosperous and the land famous all over the world. This attracted many enemies to the land who came here, settled here and spread many dehumanizing concepts and traditions among the people –

God and Religion

The concept of omnipotent and omnipresent God was introduced to terrify people if they don’t worship and please his agents on the Earth – the religious preachers. Each religion is a carrier of the concept of God and is supported by many of its organs like astrology, life-after-death, etc. To make these concepts non-challengeable through logic, concept of faith was introduced that confronts and block logical thinking of the people. Since, people are not allowed to think logically for terror of God, and they are made submissive to religious preachers, they are psychologically ruled by the preachers and may easily be politically ruled by anybody with the support of the preachers.

River bath

One of the most natural function of rivers is to take wastes and filth regularly produced on the earth surface to dump into oceans, thus keeping the earth surface clean and livable for humans. Rain water supports this function of the rivers and the rivers have been performing this function faithfully since their respective origins, making them unfit for taking bath by humans.

Further, when a huge number people take river bath, diseases in bodies of some of them infect all others. Thus, river baths by millions of persons on so-called auspicious occasions cause spread of diseases on massive scale.

In this connection, scriptural stories of Yaksh protecting river waters and asking everyone touching the water about his/her cleanliness, remind us that scriptures prohibit bathing in rivers. Enemies of people of India promoted this health damaging practice with ulterior motives. The practice continues with support from the religion.

The wastes and filth from the earth surface river waters become foods of a huge variety of life forms living in waters streams and oceans. It has also been established that these wastes are the source of petroleum production in the ocean beds.

Tobacco Smoking

In India, there are many traditional ways of smoking tobacco, and all are damaging to human health. Bidi, Cigarette, Sulfa and Hukka are common in many regions of the country. These varied ways prove that a large portion of population is used to smoking with each person knowing very well that smoking is injurious to health. This indicates that mindlessness in practices is also here.

Agar smoke

At every auspicious occasion, fragrant smoke of agar is used in India. It has been observed, under influence of this smoke, brain of the person becomes unresponsive and works as if hypnotized. Vamans use such a smoke while asking for their fees for preaching sermons again and again in so many ways and the client goes on paying him as directed.

Deep fried foods

In India, there are many festivals and each festival means cooking of deep-fried foods – poori, kachodi, pakodi, pua, samosa, etc. In deep-frying process, the oil gets oxidized with harmful substances reaching the belly. These weaken liver of the person.

Diuretic foods

Diuretic foods disturb water balance in the body of the consumer of these food items with water being drained out as urine. Many spices and even green vegetables are diuretic. Garlic and onion are commonly used in homes while cooking. These are medicinal plants to cure some diseases, but their regular use is harmful for their diuretic properties. Alcohol and caffeine are also diuretic substances.

Cow and Buffalo Milk and Fats

Firstly, keeping a cow, of the original Indian genus, is damaging to economy of the family. It is more so now as importance of bullocks has been nullified in the field of agriculture. Secondly, cow and buffalo dung is infectious to people living nearby or handling that manually. It is one of the greatest causes of sickness in rural India.

As far as milk is concerned, its quality depends on number of teats of the animal. This way, milk from women, goat, sheep, horse, etc. is the superior most, cows and buffaloes stand second, with bitches etc providing the inferior-most milk. Ghee obtained from cows and buffaloes milk is harmful to human health giving rise to heart and blood-circulation problems.

Age-old tradition of adding milk to tea is particularly Indian tradition while the whole world takes black tea. Tea with milk gives rise to problems of gums and teeth and produces undesirable gas in the stomach leading to blood pressure problems.

Cane Sugar

Eating raw sugar is highly damaging to digestion process because of the molasses present in raw sugar gets fermented in the intestines leading to sickness of the person slowly rising to a crisis. The most common damage to health through sugar is weakening of liver functioning. White crystal sugar made from sugar mills, used as sweetener in most of the Indian homes, is scientifically declared a white poison for the chemicals used in its manufacturing process. The best sugar for human consumption is that which is free from molasses yet refined without use of chemicals. Such a sugar is called ‘mishri’ in Hindi. ‘Khand’ is its cheaper alternative with a little amount of molasses in itself.

India in Reverse Gear

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:20:00 +0000

Day to day happenings in India force me to opine that Indians are moving in a reverse gear as compared to major societies of the world. In this connection, two basic facts come to my mind – education and politics, both damaging the whole nation in ways nothing else can redeem.

Education

A Govt. Run Primary School

A few days back an elitist spiritual guru of India, named Ravi Shankar, said that all government-run educational institutions should be closed as these produce Naxalites, while provate institutions are doing good job in the field of education. This guru has spoken not only his mind but that of all the business, spiritual, religious and political leaders of the country. The education is being commercialized by governments, business houses, religious and spiritual establishments with the clear intention of keeping it reserved to only rich sections of the society. Their intentions are not to enable the common people to get educated and confront their monopolies on their respective fields.

Education is the only way through which people get empowered to stand on their own feet for making positive progress, through getting rid of their superstitions, narrow-mindedness, caste-based politics, infightings, etc. Leaders of India, who had been monopolized political, social, psychological powers over people for generations, are in no mood to share these with other people.

Commercialization of education makes it a sellable commodity and not a means of human resource development. It is sold on such prices and other terms and conditions that common people can’t afford that, thus it becoming a powerful tool to keep the monopoly.

Politics

Seeds of Dynasty Rule in Free India

While the world humanity is moving towards globalization, Indians are moving towards their own families. Earlier, this trend was towards own castes, now further narrowed down. This narrowed trend is pioneered by politicians of the country who are promoting their kiths and kins to retain political power. All leaders, beginning with Jawahar Lal Nehru to Karuna Nidhi to Mulayam Singh Yadav, to Kalyan Singh find none other than their family members to be competent enough to lead the country. This nasty trend of politicians is changing tendency of common people to remain limited to welfare of their respective family members only.

To keep their dynasties in power, these politicians misguide people to remain divided on caste, creed or religious lines and seek their help when mutual rifts create problems for people. Each leader carries a caste, creed or religion with him to get its vote and then look after that caste, creed or religion only neglecting all others in their area of jurisdiction.

Why in Reverse Gear

Progress and development of a people don’t have absolute connotations, but depend of the people themselves what do they mean by these words. Their meanings get changed or even reversed by intentions of the people involved in these processes.

People with bad intentions will see degradation in morality and discipline as progress and development because of the former’s alignment with their malicious intentions. This way, while humanism is fast degrading in the country, it is being seen as a good progress with everybody becoming self-centered.

Mosquito Menace

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 10:10:00 +0000

MALARIA MOVES: The mosquitoes that carry malaria are expanding their range as a result of warming average temperatures in East Africa.Image: © iStockphoto.com / Henrik Larsson

Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do about It(University of California Press, April 4, 2011).

Elena Githeko was normally energetic and chatty. But on a Tuesday morning in 2003, Elena's mother, Anne Mwangi, found her daughter quiet and listless, her forehead warm with fever. Anne thought it was just the flu, so she did what any concerned mother would do: she stayed home from work to care for her daughter.

At age seven, Elena had her mom's mischievous almond eyes, her dad's chubby cheeks, neatly braided cornrows, and a broad smile. Until that Tuesday, she'd been perfectly healthy.

The phone rang late that afternoon at Mathaithi Secondary School, a girls' high school where Anne teaches history and Christian religious education. As the maid spoke, Anne's fineboned face knotted with worry.

Elena could not keep her food down. She had a horrible headache, and she was burning with fever. Anne called her husband. Within minutes, Mwangi Githeko arrived to pick up Anne in the family vehicle, a blue 1970sera Toyota pickup. At 5 p.m., they sped home over winding, hilly roads. By the time they arrived at their house, Elena was crying. Her feet were cold, she was dehydrated, and her forehead was on fire.

They raced to another a nearby clinic for a second opinion from another doctor. Take Elena straight to the hospital, he the doctor told them. It was 6 p.m. At Jamii Hospital in Karatina, a doctor quickly took Elena's blood pressure and temperature, listened to her symptoms, and did some tests. Malaria, he said. She needed to be admitted—immediately. That horrible headache might be a sign of cerebral malaria, a condition in which the malaria parasites burrow into the cerebrospinal fluid that bathes the brain, and sometimes into the brain itself. Anne Mwangi had lived in Kenya her entire life, long enough to know what cerebral malaria could mean. "I thought my daughter was condemned to death," she says.

* * *

Each year, malaria sickens one of every 20 people on the planet—some 300 million people, a total roughly comparable to the population of the United States. In many ways, Elena Githeko's case was typical: intense fever, sweats, shaking chills, and extreme weakness. Many of those who recover suffer longlasting anemia, periodic fevers, and chronic disability. The World Health Organization estimates that malaria kills more than a million people a year, most of them children. In Africa, where 75 percent of all cases occur, a child like Elena Githeko dies of malaria every 30 seconds.

In much of subSaharan Africa, Elena's diagnosis would have been sadly routine. Here, in the foothills of Mount Kenya, it was remarkable. Mount Kenya is a massive, longextinct volcano, more than 50 kilometers (31 miles) wide at its base, with snowcapped peaks that graze the sky at an altitude of more than five kilometers. Despite being just 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the equator, Karatina sits in Mount Kenya's foothills at an altitude of 1,600 meters (almost a mile), high enough to have a distinctly cooler climate than the lowlying tropical areas of the country. When the first British colonists settled in Kenya in the late 1800s, the central Kenya highlands, like highlands in Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia, were considered a place to escape the mal aria—the bad air—that was thought to cause the disease. When Anne Mwangi and Mwangi Githeko were growing up in Karatina in the 1960s, malaria was unheard of. A 1970 national atlas had deemed the region "malariafree." "We never had this problem," Mwangi Githeko says.

Elena, however, definitely had a problem with malaria, and possibly cerebral malaria. As her mother watched, the doctor approached Elena with a syringe full of antimalarial drugs. "Doctor, do not touch me! Don't inject me!" she cried. But the doctor did what he had to do, putting an intravenous line into Elena's hand. A powerful antimalarial drug coursed directly into her blood, where it could do battle with the parasites then wreaking havoc in her frail body.

Bitterness of Sugar in India

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 21:58:00 +0000

Indian farmers produce a huge quantity of sugar cane in their agricultural fields which get divided principally in two ways of utilization – large scale sugar mills at area level, and tiny scale crushers at village level. Sugar mills produce white crystalline sugar and rum from the molasses. The crushers produce whole sugar cakes, called raw sugar or gud (in Hindi), usually of 5 or 10 kg each. The crystalline sugar produced by sugar mills is what we call table sugar used by a major population for sweetening foods and drinks, and by confectioners for producing a large variety of sweets adding other ingredients like dairy products, cereal flours, vegetables and colors for making the products eye-catching and tasty.

Major forms of Sugar in India

Gud : The brown colored sugar gud is consumed by consumers for sweetening their foods and for feeding their cattle. It has a limited shelf-life and gets softened during rainy season through fermentation of molasses contained in it.

Raav : Thickened hot matured-sugar-cane juice, if stirred during cooling, gets separated into crystalline sugar and molasses, naturally. On storage for a few days, the molasses gets accumulated in the center while the crystalline sugar gets deposited along walls of the container, which may be separated through decantation. The brown crystalline sugar, so obtained’ is referred as ‘raav’ in Hindi as a derivation of ‘ravaa’ meaning ‘crystal’. Raav used to be consumed by people along with loaves as a meal in old times when vegetables and pulses were rarely found.

Khand : Another process, which is almost dead in India, is to produce crystalline sugar by extracting and thickening the sugar cane juice, and separating the concentrate into crystalline sugar and molasses through a centrifuge. Thus, khand is mechanically refined raav, described above. This crystalline sugar is brownish in color and its crystals are not of well recognizable shape and size like cuboid-shaped crystals of white sugar produced by sugar mills. This sugar form is called ‘khand’ in Hindi and its industry is called ‘khandsari’ accordingly. Ancient Indian system of medicine - Ayurveda, recommends use of ‘khand’ for sweetening purposes. This recommendation is extended by modern researches in Ayurveda.

Boora : The khand may be further refined by boiling and then crushed into a white powder form, called ‘boora’ in Hindi. Earlier, boora was used in homes for sweetening foods and by confectioners for making sweets of various kinds. Since, khandsari industry is dead, production of boora from khand is also negligible. Now boora is produced from white crystalline sugar.

Batasha : Any sugar form refined to whiteness through boiling, added with some chemicals for bubbling the hot liquid sugar, may be converted to ‘batasha’ form by dropping the hot liquid sugar on cloth in small amounts. On cooling, the sugar gets converted to a crisp and highly porus sugar cakes, each called a ‘batasha’. On auspicious occasions, batashas have been used for distribution to people for eating. The practice is dwindling for arrival of many other confectionaries in the market.

Mishri : Any white sugar form after further refining during its boiling, if cooled slowly, may be converted to large sugar crystals of the purest form of sugar, called ‘mishri’. When purity is considered important, Ayurveda recommends use of mishri in its medicinal prescriptions.
White Sugar : The white sugar produced by sugar mills has an unlimited shelf-life and convenient to use. For the chemicals used in producing white crystalline sugar, this product is marked as a white poison for human health by food specialists and environmentalists all over the world. Still the whole world population consumes this sugar for sweetening foods.

The Khandsari Industry in India

The most dominating sugar industry, of about 70 and more years back from now, in India was khansari to produce khand from the sugar cane juice concentrate. Other forms of sugar like boora, batasha, mishri, etc were produced from khand. During inception of this industry, centrifuges used for separating molasses from crystalline sugar were manually driven. With the availability of diesel engines and later electricity, the centrifuges were also got powered by these new forms of motive energy.

The then British government in India categorized powered centrifuging process as ‘excisable’ and taxed the powered khandsari industry. Since khandsari industry has been a small scale rural industry, it failed in dealing with the complicated government tax regime and ultimately closed down. After independence of the country, the tax regime remains the same leading to almost-complete death of the industry. Thus, an industry that promises healthier forms of sugar – khand, boora, batasha, mishri, etc – is closed down leaving an open field to the white poison crystalline sugar produced by well organized large scale sugar mills industry. This suits corrupt politicians in power in the country and capitalist business community, but not the people for health reasons.

Health Perspective of Sugar

From the above narration, it becomes evident that molasses is the culprit in different forms of sugar – lesser its presence, better the sugar. Molasses gets fermented fast and gets decomposed to intoxicating substances, therefore, is detrimental to human health, in general. Its main use is in producing intoxicating alcoholic drinks.

Khandsari industry removes molasses from sugar through natural crystallization process, while sugar mills do it through chemical process with addition of chemicals to sugar. Therefore, white sugar produced by sugar mills contains many chemical substances in it making it harmful to human health, hence, categorized as a white poison.

Indians consume sugar much more than any other people in the world. Every auspicious occasion means consumption of sugars through confectionaries of various kinds. Therefore, every village, town and city locality in the country has confectioners doing roaring business. A huge quantity of milk is also used by these confectioners for producing thousands of varieties of their products.

In old times, people used to work hard physically, so were able to digest the large sugar content in their diets. Now, very few persons are involved in physically hard work in the country for the so-called progress in various fields through availability and usage of electricity and gasoline fuels as sources of motive power. But the age-old tradition of eating sugar and derivative confectioneries continues through traditional festivities and celebrations. Now, digestion of sugar by people in general is not feasible leading to wide-spread sickness of people in the country. The credit for this sickness of people goes to sugar-cane brought into India by Yahoodis about 2400 years back with malicious intentions.

A New Government in Uttar Pradesh

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:29:00 +0000

After the recently held U.P. State Legislature Assembly elections, Samajwadi Party (SP), a family owned organization of Mulayam Singh Yadav, won with an absolute majority in the new Assembly. This victory was not that of SP but a defeat of erstwhile Chief Minister Mayavati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Other parties in the fray were Congress - highly defamed for misrule at the Center, and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – a party of hopefuls without working enough. The combination of BSP, Congress and BJP made SP to win.

SP Chief has made his son as the Chief Minister of the state who is the youngest Chief Minister of the state so far, and has no ministerial or administrative experience. So, nothing much can expected from the new government. Mulayam Singh has been famous for using corrupt practices and high handedness in politics. Therefore, corruption and problems of law and order must remain the same if not increase.

On the first day of taking over charge, the new Chief minister announced three important announcements for the youths –

Electronic garbage

Unemployment allowance of Rs 1000 per month will be paid for persons above the age of 35 and with High School education until they get an employment. Practically speaking, no person can afford to be unemployed at the age of 35. Usually, such persons are married and have 3-4 children to take care of. Secondly, anybody above 35 can’t get a government employment. These two realities will make the scheme a farce with a lot of discretion to the administrators to provide this benefit at their whims or conveniences. Naturally, bribing will be the main criteria. Anybody selected for the benefit will keep on getting the benefit for the whole of his life.
For education and marriage of High School pass Muslim girls will get a grant of Rs 30,000 each. This smacks of creating a communal divide in the society and is a purely political move by the SP leaders to remain in power with Muslim support, who often vote en-masses. It is a highly dirty politics of ignoring Hindu majority many of whom are poor. Muslims are hardworking people but still remain poor for their multiple marriages and production of large number of children by each couple.
A Tablet computer to each High School pass Student, and a Laptop Computer to each Intermediate pass student will be provided by the government with a cost of Rs 3,000 crore. Surprisingly, estimated rates of purchase of these computers are Rs 1,500 and Rs 13,500 only. Tablet computer manufacturing of the government of India is hanging in balance, and no laptop computer is available in the market at this estimated price. It is obvious that third rate computers shall be handed over to the students making a huge pile of electronic wastes in the country shortly. It is also notable here, that most of the educational institutions of this level in the state under government controls, suffering heavily with shortage of teaching staff and whatever staff members are available, they are highly undisciplined and rarely take their classes. So, students who are not provided their basic needs of education, will get computers for what purpose. Moreover, the state is badly suffering with shortage of electricity, hardly available for 6 hours a day in most of the places, that too with heavy fluctuations in voltage from 50 to 300 for overloaded lines and frequent breakdowns. With such state of electricity supply in the state, how these sophisticated electronic equipment will be useful.

Thus, by all indications, the new government in the state shall continue with anarchy, corruption and misuse of public resources.

What U.P. Election and Thereafter

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:56:00 +0000

Recently concluded state assembly election results in the state of Uttar Pradesh are astonishing for two reasons –

Return of Samajwadi Party to power with almost an absolute majority while a coalition government was expected,
People’s short memory of how the Yadav family as the proprietor of the Samajwadi Party looted the state through corrupt practices in general, and particularly, the youths in recruitments to state employment.

No Option before Voters

In-spite of the disappointment people have with the politicians ruining the country and the public interests for a long time, they have been provided with no option by the Election Commission to move in the right direction to cleanse the polity of the country. Provision of section 17-A to voters to reject all the candidates was not duly publicised and even the Presiding Officers on election duty were not well informed of the provision. Many officials were found to be discouraging and misguiding the voters in using this right.

Though, the elections this time have been peaceful and sober due to strictness of the Election Commission, money still played important role in winning voters support by some candidates. Character and other merit factors regarding the candidates has not been a consideration in the people’s mind for voting. Officially speaking, my representative in the Nation’s Parliament is an illiterate, and that in the State Legislative Assembly is a young-man, just literate and having 3-4 marriages at just 25/26 years of his age. If this is indicative of a trend for the future, days of harems of Islamic rulers and their lieutenants are not far away.

The Future

A closed-circuit of Yadav family is going to attain absolute power on fate of the state and its people for the next five years. As bribes to voters, the family had promised –

Free Laptop Computers to all students of secondary students,
Rs 30,000 to every girl passing Senior Secondary Examination,
Free electricity to farmers with provision of writing off unpaid electricity bills up to Rs 50,000 per farmer, and many more..

The State economy is already in a bad shape with practically no development works in progress, wide-spread unemployment on the rise. Educational institutions in the state under government control are in jeopardy with no regular classes and inadequate faculty members resulting into regularly declining standard of education. How the students getting free laptop computers at public cost will be conducting themselves may be seen through the influence of mobile phones in hands of the youths - illicit sexual relationships and crimes, marriages against parents’ wishes, violence and crimes against women, honor killings of youths, etc.

Of course, the Yadav family will have a field day out of the huge purchase order for the laptop computers by the government, and that seems to be the ultimate purpose of the freeship.

Since independence, no government has ever tried to enhance incomes of rural families of farmers and labourers to enable them to lead respectable lives standing on their feet. Their exploitation by industrial and political families have been on the rise making poorer as compared to government employees and urban population. For these reasons, rural people still remain uneducated and unemployed by and large. The politicians have been trying to help them through making them beggars mentally through offering free or subsidized things like electricity.

During the past rule of the Yadav family over the state, the state treasury was not having enough funds to pay salaries of government employees, forcing the government with diverting development funds for paying the employees. The same state of affairs is expected to return.

Religious Sentiments, Government and Public Welfare

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 23:48:00 +0000

I have always been insisting that the masses are conformists and they do usually oppose innovation and creativity. Therefore, many innovations get strangulated under avoidance of hurting sentiments of the masses. In a democracy, since future of a government hangs in balance on support of the masses, the governments, too, work in opposition of innovations thus, harming the whole humanity.

Government’s working is not only limited to opposing innovations for getting mass support, in many cases, even public welfare is put to stake for pleasing sections of public, sentimentally. Thus, sentiments of a section are given priority over logic or the public welfare. A case of an official action on behalf of the government in India has come to my notice that is largely hurting the public interests in the process of safeguarding religious sentiments of some sections of the public. Thus, sentiments of some are allowed to harm public interests by the government.

Monkey Menace

Monkeys, the most notorious of forms of life on earth, are flourishing in India in huge numbers with concentrations at some particular locations. This animal is considered as representative of an epic character of Hindu mythology – Hanuman, of Ramayan fame. Many devotees of Hanuman feed monkeys on Tuesdays with delicious foods to please their deity with a notion of Tuesday being a day of Hanuman. I wonder why a deity is pleased once a week only and left uncared for on other 6 days of every week. Or, why the monkeys are fed on Tuesdays only leaving them hungry on other days. Clearly, logic does not work in matters of foolish sentiments or religious traditions cultivated by vested interests.

Monkeys increase their population at a considerably fast pace, making their population thick at any place they begin residing at. I have observed in some townships of India, say Fatehabad in Agra district of U.P., the monkey population is so high that children are not allowed to move on streets without adults and all doors of houses are kept closed to prevent monkey’s entry and hence damages to household things.

Until about two decades back, monkeys were exported from India to advanced countries, like USA, for experimentation in medical research, wherein monkeys were used for trying new developments in drugs before making them available to public. In this process of scientific developments for human welfare, some monkeys used to get harmed. Therefore, the exports of monkeys were banned after a Hindu religious outcry of maltreatment to representatives of the Hindu deity. This has removed a throttle on population rise of monkeys in the country.

On complaints from some such locations, the government has arranged capturing monkeys from thickly populated areas and leaving them where their population is low or nonexistent. My village fell in the latter category and some truckloads of monkeys have been offloaded around the village, totally unprepared to deal with the menace. Thus, a new problem has been added to the life of people in the village by the government officials.

Three days back, a group of monkeys attacked an over 70 year old lone woman in her house and injured her severally all over her body with paws and bites as she fell down in the attack. Monkeys carry rabies virus in their saliva and a person bitten by a monkey may get mad if not treated with anti-rabies injections. The old woman is under medical treatment now which may continue for a month or so for some serious wounds on her body. The same woman was attacked by monkeys earlier also.

Apart from such attacks on individuals, monkeys destroy agricultural crops and fruits in gardens, causing huge losses to the farming community forming a majority of rural population in the country.

Blue Cow Menace

Another wild form of life has been increasing in India for a long time that showed its presence in Rajasthan earlier but now spread to Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. This animal is called ‘Neel Gaay’ (Blue Cow). Since, cow is considered holy in Hinduism, though no Hindu wants to keep cows as domestic cattle, killing of this blue cow is also prohibited while there is no scientific evidence of blue cow belonging to the cow of Hindu considerations. It appears close to horses and donkeys.

The blue cow damages agricultural crops to a great extent and the farmers are constrained to keep whole night watch on their fields to save their crops from the blue cow, which has no utility to humanity. It is a fleshy animal and its meat may be eaten by some persons, if allowed by the government.