Bharat Ratna to Sachin

Seriously, what does bharat ratna stand for? why was that initiated and who were it awarded to during the early years of this nation.
Just a glance of the initial recepients of the highest civilian honor of this nation, gives an idea of what kind of "performance of highest order in any field of human endeavour" deserves it. These are people like Rajaji, CV Raman, Vishweshwarayya, Radhakrishna, Ambedkar, MGR, Nelson Mandela, MS, Satyajit Ray, JP – some of the recipients who I feel, really did something worth calling a human endeavor.

There are issues of highest seriousness that they dealt with, crusaded against all odds, inspired masses, turned the course of this nation, and are responsible for Bharat as we live in today. Issues like rights of the oppressed, framing of the The Constitution of India, politicization and empowerment of people, upholding the heritage of this great land in the form of music, vocal and instrumental, potraying the reality of lives of the wretched masses of this land in the form of alternative cinema, building the temples of modern india in the form of dams and institutions etc…only to name a few.

It is the issues these people stood for, the ideas, the values, the heritage that makes people of this land feel proud about that is to be the deciding factor for Bharat Ratna. I do not mean to say Sachin does not make me proud. Just that cricket is not as real, serious, as life changing, as course corrective of the nation as the issues I spoke above.

Was there a dearth of such people who deserved bharat ratna? Absolutely not. There are people like Dr. Kurien (who could have been awarded but died in 2012) who gave milk to starving children of this nation and also changed the lives of millions of rural women through rural cooperatives (go read about amul), then Dr. Swaminathan who gave us food in the form of Green revolution when this nation was living off wheat donated by the US. Not to forget AB Vajpayee, and many others.

If at all sports was to be included, why not Vishwanathan anand. Its coz nobody watches his game (neither do I). And cricket is more of public show off. Sachin’s award is more about politics. The sports category was included with the aim of awarding Sachin, so that some of crickets show off could be turned into votes. Speaking of cricketers serving the nation, I think they serve themselves primarily and any service to nation is only purely incidental. Anyway, I don’t even think Sachin should be in Rajya Sabha.

UPSC got its English wrong: a contra response

 Apropos the article ‘UPSC got its English wrong’, the author Kankipati Rajesh, IAS;the article is filled with non-sequiturs and betrays his warped thinking, though he uses great terms like Right to Equality and Right
to Expression.

Where was the Equality when Mains allowed 2 optionals, written in multiple languages, not to mention about 18 language literatures as optionals? Where was the yardstick to evaluate Expression when candidates like doctors, engineers etc. who until then, never had any interest in Literatures , suddenly opt for them and learn (read mug-up) the syllabus in 2-3 months with guidance (read coaching classes) and fetch insanely high marks and get through the exam. Literatures optional were turned into a fraud on the system; where the
evaluators of literature papers tend to award high marks as the candidates would belong to their State. This could be the reason why, as the author himself says, ‘90 per cent of the candidates clearing the exam qualify with a language as an optional subject, and write the exam in regional language and that this is true for many other States of India’

Coming to the point of not allowing candidates to write Mains in regional languages, the author mentions that many students shift to English medium for their college education, but are not very proficient in English. Now why would students shift to English medium? It’s because they believe that English is inevitable in their future
careers and without English, their prospects would be grim. Why should the same thinking not be applied when applying for government jobs? Is public service a fair game to be filled with those who are not good at
English? For god’s sake, these are the people who would make policies, become bureaucrats, represent India’s interests. Though English is not the indicator for a good administrator, this nation deserves people
who are comfortable with English and not shy away from it. Sixty years of visceral bias against English in government service has produced umpteen number of highly placed officials who struggle to clearly
articulate in English what then intend to convey, as we see on television these days.

The author mentions that ‘During the training of IAS officers at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, 40 per cent of the time spent in Phase-I of the programme is for the language of the State where the officer will serve’. When 40% of training can be spent of learning the regional language, and the trainee officers are fine with it; is it excessive to ask the candidates to write the exam in the medium in which they did their graduation? The reason they do not crib about spending 40% of time learning local language is that they are already selected and they don’t really care what they are asked to learn. The fight is all about getting through the exam, when, all of a sudden, they fall in love with Literatures and their mother tongues. Strange, isn’t it?

When there are loud calls for UPSC to make the exam more common and make it an equalizer for all the aspirants, these reforms were a step in the right direction. There is some merit in asking ‘when Hindi is
allowed as a language medium for the UPSC mains examination unconditionally, why not other languages like Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati? UPSC should think about only this one point and make some changes to address the concern here. All other changes are in the right spirit and should not be reversed.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/upsc-is-taking-a-step-in-the-right-direction/article4533258.ece

Hindu on paper but Buddhist at heart

You know what, now I totally disbelieve in god and his existence, not that I ever believed all that fully. Now I call him the vainglorious ****. Yes, its all bullshit. But does that give me the freedom to become immoral, inhuman, anti-human. No. Being pious only on the belief of existence of god is forced, fake piousness, fake goodness. Trying to be good under the fear that this force will punish for wrong doings is no goodness at all. Despite absence of any such force, a person should be naturally humane.

Now that I have dismissed the idea of god, I ve turned to what is called karma, or let’s say law of nature, which means what you sow is what you get. I want to test it, experience it and if it fails, dismiss that too. I would like to know what happens of people who pained me, which includes my mother. I want to see what law of nature does to them. Trust me, I do not wish ill for any of those who pained me. But I just want to sit and see what happens to them. Will the law of nature take its course and dispense justice, or will it just never act as people expect it to. Mind you again, I wish no ill for anyone. If karma, or god, or law of nature would come to me in private and secretly ask my wish, as to what should happen to people who pained me, and also promise to me that my answer will not be known to anyone in the world, I would truly say, I have no answer, I wish no ill for anyone. I will say, I only want the laws of nature, to work, and I want to see for myself if they really work. But my strong gut feeling is, there is nothing like law of nature, the sayings like as you sow so you reap is a painkiller for the helpless, to endure the pain. World works wildly, at the directions of wily, powerful, ruthless people with some role for uncertainty and chance. Not karma or law of nature. Because, I know, I have not done anything ever to put anyone to pain knowingly. But pain befalls me from multiple directions. I have already half dismissed karma and law of nature, but just want to have few more case studies to base it on.

But does that still give me the right to be inhuman. Again, No. Absolutely not. I would have to be what I am. That’s what separates the weak but pious, from the strong, powerful, power addicted, careless, arrogant types.

Oh, it was after i wrote these lines, a few months later, that i realized this is what is Buddhism.

I believed in it even before i read about it under the name of Buddhism.

Razakaar Owaisi, Wafaadar CM, Bekaar DGP

That Owaisi blurted out his ideas of reigning terror like his ancestors called Razakaars is undeniably established. But what is worth noting is, was he too foolish or was he too brave to speak his mind. I think it was his firm and tried and tested confidence that neither the Government, nor Police, nor the Judiciary would touch him, as in the past. It’s not his mistake you see. He did the same many times in the past with none of the agencies raising an eyebrow. 

The chief minister just does not act; in the face of the State, the people being challenged and threatened with violence. He thinks it is appropriate to laugh the issue off. Well, he is a politician, and nothing better can be expected of him. Politicians would stoop to any level to hold on to their power. These are the most apathetic people in society today. Their life and vision revolves around selfish interests and ends with it. A saying in urdu comes to my mind: “CM miyan to CM miyan, DGP miyan subhan allah”.  

So this DG of Police (Mr. Dinesh Reddy) thinks that Owaisi needs to be treated charitably. How shamelessly the DGP says that the delay of ten days in taking action was due to the fact that the speech was made in urdu and so it needed translation. He being in an All India Service, being the police chief of a state, sitting in the capital where urdu is a government recognized tongue, insults not only his position but also the police force by saying that police does not understand urdu. If the police cannot understand the spoken local idiom of urdu, then only god knows, in what bad form our police intelligence is and what would they do if terror related communications happen in Arabic. What good is this DGP for the public when he cannot understand the local tongue, cannot identify the threat to law and order and cannot use his authority?

An IPS officer, who cannot hesitate to assert his rights and immunities under the Constitution viz Article 311 etc, shows no enthusiasm at all to uphold the values of the same Constitution. Mr. DGP, did you not have any better words to say, to hide your spinelessness and lack of public interest? 

Coming back to the larger issue: it not just about a rabid politician making some intolerable statements. It’s about how the muslims in the state are being allowed to be misguided, misinformed, encouraged to sow hatred against the State, the non-muslims, how the State looks the other way while the radicalization of muslim youth has been happening for years.

Elders say, some 20 years ago, there were not as many bearded, capped, taliban (students, no offence intended) like people in the city. The burqa was also not as widely practiced. In the past few years, the number of Taliban like youth, even little kids, and burqa and naqab clad girls has grown exponentially. Where are these young men going, what are they learning, who do they listen to, what do they do to make a living, what are their aims, what do they plan to become, etc, it’s none of governments concerns so long as they have the muslim vote. Something is seriously wrong here. Why cannot the wise men see this?

Govt does not keep tabs on what religious preachers are teaching to the crowds of thousands in hundreds of mosques in this city. But every mosque needs some police force on every Friday to prevent violence. Govt does not control which Islamic, urdu tv channel is showing what nonsense. Govt does not care to stop the young minds being swayed by the falsities, provocations, medieval ideas being propagated by men like Owaisi. By turning a blind eye to all this, the govt is in a way encouraging radicalization.

Now if the government thinks that this is just people choosing to live their lives piously, then we have learnt nothing from history. There is nothing to be debated.

But seriously, how can the government, the intelligence, the police, etc not find something amiss with such radicalization in a sensitive place like Hyderabad? I’m sure everyone saw it, but our politics prevents speaking in the interest of the nation. Our politics of getting the minority vote snuffs out public interest from governmental action.

There is nothing wrong in aiming to get the muslim vote, but one should not do it at the expense of the larger national/public interest. If parties are serious about muslims and their development, then should not have alliances with terroristic parties like the MIM.

While the larger parties get on to their knees before leaders of MIM, competing in appeasement of the worst kind, from throwing huge iftar dinners, wearing Islamic symbols, to using threats of violence (hands which rise against muslims will be chopped), the real power was being gained by the Owaisis, who assumed to themselves the role of brokers of muslims’ welfare, from the parties in power.

Thanks to unclear majority, the Congress has become so weak, so dignity less, so self-worth less that the party does nothing even when the Owaisis openly deride, call names, and pooh pooh the Congress leaders by name. This Akbar Owaisi proclaims that the Congress dances to the commands of MIM, and this goes unchallenged what so ever from any congress man.

What has happened was only an outcome of years of inaction, apathy and perverted secularism. In a way, it is good that this Owaisi has clearly spoken his mind and this should give us an idea of what his thousands of followers too believe. The entire world now knows the terroristic plans of the MIM.

But have no hopes, the government will not learn any lesson.