आज की राजनीति

आज राजनीति में महात्मा की ज़रुरत हैं, या कुटिल चाणाक्य की ?
रावण अनेक हों तो, राम की आवश्यकता हैं, या परशुराम की ?

Kabeer Vacanaavali

Some dohas (couplets) of Kabeer that I learnt in school:

तिनका कबहुँ ना निंदये, जो पाँव तले होय ।
कबहुँ उड़ आँखो पड़े, पीर घानेरी होय ॥

बडा हुआ तो क्या हुआ जैसे पेड़ खजूर।
पंथी को छाया नही फल लागे अति दूर ॥

कबीरा गर्व न कीजिये काल गहे कर केस
ना जाने कित मारे हैं क्या घर क्या परदेस

जाति न पूछो साधु की, पूछ लीजिये ज्ञान।
मोल करो तलवार का, पड़ा रहने दो म्यान।।

Rangeele

A beautiful composition by Naresh, Paresh and Kailash! I always wonder how they manage to capture myriad emotions like joy, sorrow, anxiety, agony, aspirations, desires, love, anger of ordinary people. There are many musicians who have mastered all ragas and genres, yet, unlike Kailasa, very few can manage to stir your soul, perhaps because their life is devoid of experiences of struggle, hardships and failures.

Indian knowledge based economy

The reality of Indian knowledge based society is: entrepreneurs = money hungry and power thirsty manipulators, managers = contractors and engineers = job-security seeking laborers. Knowledge based society and IT superpower is absolute ignorance. Open your eyes to reality, India is only a servile labor exporter. Is it wrong to be a laborer ? No. What is incorrect is being exploited as a laborer. What have we achieved with the service based model employed in the last 30 years ? Few lakh people could get food and homes, and the wealth of few business dynastic families have swelled by billions of times but India is a nation of 100 crore people. Without any intellectual capital, we will not be able to prosper in the long run. Firstly, cheaper and more efficient economies are on the rise and they have the potential to displace our IT workforce, and in this situation the dynastic business houses will quickly shift their money to a more profitable ventures leaving the employees to the same plight as that of the cotton-mill workers in Mumbai. Secondly, despite having a workforce of the order of 1.5 lakhs, these IT giants can not come up with innovative products and inventions whereas small companies of 100 people in smaller countries are coming up with game-changer products. As a direct consequence of this everyone in Indian IT industry is looked upon as a servile laborer, to whom you can outsource laborious bug-fixing, testing or support work. But more important than this perception is the fact that these companies are not producing any solutions to the problems that our country faces -- every technology is imported which increases the cost and hence the overall burden on the economy.  The mark of a good society is one which one practices the values that it preaches -- and we as a nation have a long way to go to achieve that !

Right to recall

Few questions to those who are rejecting the idea of right to recall as foolish and impractical. 

Here are few arguments made to dismiss the idea and my counter-arguments to them:

Right to recall will lead to political instability - 

If this is a mechanism to recall corrupt politicians. No political party ever admits that majority of their party members are corrupt. Then what is the problem ? We should not have any problem, if say, only 1% of the candidates are recalled and replaced every two years. One-third of the Rajya Sabha members retire every two years. It does not lead to instability. [ We will come to issue of elections later.] Saying that right to recall will lead to political instability is indirectly stating that majority of the politicians in India are and will be corrupt.

Right to Recall will become a weapon in the hands of losers to find a subterfuge way of defeating the winner - 

You are assuming that we can only build system which can be misused. The subterfuge could happen in the elections as well. If you can guarantee that no rigging happens in the elections, you should also be able to guarantee that no rigging happens in a procedure which is as important as the elections. You have to. That is your job, is n't it ? Secondly, in a democracy a person can be elected or voted out only if majority of people think so. So, majority of the voters have to express their dissent. In a country where elections are skipped for vacations, it is very unlikely that majority of the people would go to reject a candidate unless they are totally frustrated. Thirdly, if voters are believed to be capable of choosing right candidates, we can also trust their judgement of rejecting corrupt ones. 

Who will verify signatures ?

Why are we talking of signatures ? Are we not capable of building an electronic system ? It is not as complex as rocket science. We can launch satellites, send rockets to moon build nuclear plants. Then why not a computer based system for elections ? We have a post office in every village, town or district of our country. Percentage of these running without electricity should be very less. We can install computers / devices here for the purpose of registering recall votes. A citizen can walk into these centers anytime and register his dissent. At the end of specific period say 1 year or 2 year, these votes can be counted. Internet based services can be used as well. Internet banking has now become common in large cities. Many of our IT companies specialize in creating web based solutions. 

Cost of elections

What is the exact expenditure on elections, by-elections, state elections, municipal elections ? To whom is it costly -- for the election commission or the political parties who invest lot of money in winning them ?  EVMs are not changed for years, teachers and schools are always available for free. Nevertheless, if we make recalling  a permanent system powered by electronic means we can cut down the cost.

At the end, I would only like to say that we can improve any system only if we are optimistic to find solutions to problems rather than being pessimistic and discouraging those who are eager to bring about change. I certainly believe that we can change our electoral system, so that it reflects the aspirations of  billion people rather than few power hungry people - like it is today.     

Sapno se bhare naina

 

At times life seems to be an endless struggle in the chase of a dream, in search of happiness ... beautifully penned by Javed Akhtar and composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. Some times, I wonder, how few rhymes of a beautiful poem can capture what thousand words can not express. How can few notes of music can convey the emotions you feel ? We can do many things we can not comprehend ! Enjoy the song, see if it does strike a chord with you !

India's first computer and history of computing in India

Indian engineers had designed and built a vacuum tube based computer in the 1950's, when very little of computing knowledge was available publicly.

TIFRAC India's first computer a retrospective
Computing: 50 years on

Do read these articles from Indian computer scientists. The story of the first computer is inspiring. The second article describes the evolution of computing in India, reflects how India struggles with computer science research and development 50 years later.

Our political parties try to take credit and win elections, by claiming their prince charming, brought computers to India.  We should do our homework well to understand and appreciate the efforts of these great engineers who toiled to develop computing in India.  If we see half Indian name of a scientist in the US, we get excited and try to trace his/her lineage to India and start claiming how India runs everything in the world. While we glorify Indian-origin scientists in the west, we forget those who really worked for us.

Most of the glorified IT industry works for providing services and people for people in the developed countries to offload their laborious and unrewarding work. Last 20 years have seen the launch of many innovative products in the software industry. Not one has has come from an Indian IT giant.  Its time to think beyond outsourcing.

With Anna led  agitation against corruption sweeping across the country, people have started thinking and questioning the conventional wisdom of the leaders who try to concentrate all powers in their hands. The campaign is focused against political corruption, but the effects will trickle to other areas as well. I am very hopeful that new India will support innovation and research and which in turn will bring in development and prosperity.