Thoughts And Trivia

Most of us are unhappy with what is happening in the society and the country. There is extreme poverty. There is corruption. There is communal intolerance. The Administration acts more like an Occupation Force than Public Servants. We are unhappy with almost all spheres of public life - Healthcare/ Education/ Governance/ Media/ Law and Order/ Status of Women. Most of the time people think that punishing the guilty will solve all the problems. (Isko hang karo, usko umar kaid do). Naxalites think that revolution is the only answers (Uda-do sabko). The philosophical essence of my experience of 37 years in Public Life - is that reconciliation rather than retribution or revolution can mitigate all the ills of the society. I will flesh out my ideas later, (perhaps in a separate blog with the Heading from subtitle above). But gist of the basis of my conclusion is given here.


I will state only the conclusions here and will give reasons and logic later. All the problems that our society faces are due to the way one group of people treats and behaves with other groups. How we perceive other groups and individuals? All the problems are arising out of interpersonal dynamics of the society. The problems are not due to imperfect laws. The problems are not due to imperfections in Political structure or bureaucracy. There has to a change in this interpersonal group relations for things to change. This change cannot come about by violent means. This change cannot be brought about by the Govt. or politicians. There has to be reconciliation through intense interaction between the groups. This can come about by a social movement. This will need that type of energy - that was there at the time of independence struggle. To an extent such energies are seen in youth movements - say JP Movement during emergency. Only a countrywide motivation of young generation can acieve it. It needs kick-starting. But once started no body will be able to control it - nobody can stand in way of youth power.

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One post from this blog was quoted in BBC correspondent Sam Miller's book on walking tours of Delhi named above. I was under an assumption that quoting from a blog would need prior permission or intimation at least from/to the blog-owner. I not only don't mind that but rather feel elated. Thank you Sam! One of my class-mate from school (out of touch since 43 years) noticed it first and followed the footnote mentioning my blog and contacted me. It was a pleasant surprise?
The post quoted is a passing reference to history of my school's building "Ludlow Castle".

The author makes well-planned walking trips in Delhi, covering all the hidden nooks, corners and oddities. He has a questioning and overly inquisitive mind, which remains unfazed by bizarre situations. During his perambulations, many circumstances tested his mental poise, but that was equally matched by his recessionary physical equilibrium. He had propensity to suddenly become horizontal during his vertical ambulations. He measured the floor length of a Metro coach by sprawling over it, he paralleled the act of a "Sashtang Pranam" devotee; he also measured the depth of a manhole by falling into it(Vertically). He was also floored by assorted pigs and pie-dogs. No wonder he discovers Delhi, like nobody has done it before, with this down to earth, ear to the ground approach.
He has a knack of turning the turd over to look at the hot and steaming universe underneath, peopled by voice-less power-less strata. As a child, I enjoyed doing that to real cow-dung with a twig. What disturbs you more is his post-mortem doctor's non-judgemental factual observations. Really pithy are his social comments on the abject poverty and shadowy world of people left behind by India Shining. Delhi is like a shiny over-polished apple which has worms inside. Cut it open at your own peril!! But Sam has gone ahead and done it, and has left it for all to see.
No, No, It's not a dark look at Delhi only a 'Gestalt' view.

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Flame of an oil lamp, flares up, one last moment, before it runs out of oil and it just starts spewing black soot.
Evolution of societies also follow this route to oblivion. The dying society flares into megalomaniac creations just before being snuffed out. Is the present 21st Century also the last for the Human Race? From the megalomaniac creations - it just looks to be the case of burst of the dying flame.
There is a web-game about what it would be like for the human race to die in year 2100, if do not wake-up.
But look at the megalomania. We have created a Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe to just smash two protons (travelling at almost the speed of light) together, just to prove whether two mathematically elegant theories could actually govern the sub-particle universe.

LHC has been built in a circular tunnel 27 km in circumference. The tunnel is buried around 50 to 175 m. underground. It straddles the Swiss and French borders on the outskirts of Geneva.
The statistics and Money spent is nothing Human Race has ever seen. For example:

1. The combined strands of the superconducting cable being produced for the LHC would go around the equator 6.8 times. If you added all the filaments of the strands together they would stretch to the sun and back 5 times with enough left over for a few trips to the moon.


2. Part of the LHC will be the world's largest fridge. It could hold 150 000 fridge full of sausages at a temperature colder than deep outer space.
3. The cost of the accelerator only (without experiments and computing) but including manpower and material is 4.7 Billion CHF (that's around 3.03 billion euros)

There is more on the web, officially.
...and unofficially
I think there could be a simpler way to do science.
This is not all. The type of buildings that we are now making in the Middle East is super-megalomania.
Mahatma Gandhi used to say: "There is enough on earth for our needs, but not enough for our greed."
We are going to kill the Human Race if we do not temper our use of Earth's resources.
What Do You think? Please leave comments!!!

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Volker committee report, instituted by UN has reported financial-scam of astronomical scale in UN sponsored Oil-For-Food program in Iraq. Is it not another example that our primordial-evolutionary ingrained programme makes human cheats, dishonest and hypocrites at heart.

So sad! This is nothing but snatching of food morsels from the hands of hungry Iraqis by a few influence wielders.
In general what are sure-shot ingredients which facilitate such large-scale corruption : -

• 1) When there is a large, artificial gap between the market-rate and the transaction-price. This gap is called "Rent" creation by Economist.


• 2) When such "Rents" are assigned, allocated or awarded in non-equitable, non-transparent and non-competitive manner, for reasons other than commercial.


• 3) When access to facts of such transaction is not made public for sake of commercial secrecy.


• 4) Even if 2) and 3) above are followed but when the group capable of such transactions is small and forms a cartel.

Why could such shenanigans escape the notice of press and public? What should be done?
Firstly UN should be reformed to conduct its business in competitive, transparent, equitable manner and in Public. It should also have an Ombudsman to look into such misdemeanors. There should also be external audit by independent experts.
Secondly, press and public has to be vigilant.
I also think UN should setup a mechanism to monitor large flows of moneys in the world economy and make these public. Drug trafficking, Terrorist funding, corruption and such scams would get detected. Violation of privacy of individuals and corporates is no arguments against it. After all commercial transactions are in public domain.

Business should be conducted like dogs do it - openly!

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Virus! Vi r u s(ick)! Bird-Flu pandemic scare scares us all. Sometime back it was SARS. I wonder what the viruses are upto?

Virus in dormant form are not living things but large protein molecules. Still the tendency to perpetuate their genes is much more virulent than in larger living things. The animal-human viruses like bird-flu, mad-cow disease and SARS create a pandemic. Even AIDS is rumoured to have passed on from monkeys to humans. I suspect a purely human (or purely animal) virus is not virulent since its not programmed genetically to totally wipe-out its parasite-host. In animal-human virus this restraint is not seen. Does my hunch make sense?
Virus spreads from one living parasite-host to another, but not from vegetable and fruit. Why are vegetable kingdom immune to cross vegetable-human virus? If we all revert to vegetarian diet and stop keeping pets except in Zoo, can we avoid at least animal-human viruses - that are a real danger?

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