My Comments made on news reports in BUSINESS STANDARD

For almost a year now, I have been almost regularly following news in various media about corruption in India and the fight against it at the initiative of Anna Hazare with the help of a team of several other people who are referred to as a small group representing the civil society of the a great country. There has been of thinking and agitation among the people of India due to the activities of these men and women who have been channeling the widepread resentment against in too many of places in politics and administration and in innumerable ways.

I am of the opinion that as long as corruption remains effectively nnchecked and the corrupt remain unpunished, India will suffer from a lack of ability to tap full human potential while its resources (of land, water, minerals, etc.), which are already highly limited -- relative to a hhumongous population of 1.3 billion which is growing, at a fast and uncontrolled rate -- will be increasingly denied to larger and larger proportions of the population due to theft and deception in various forms, by the corrupt sections in all spheres of India. Although several organistion exist with a constitutional mandate for vigilance over corruption, and investigation and prosecution crimes of corrupt people, this system has largely been rendered ineffective.

In the final analysis, it is not going to be ever possible to make the various systems like legal, political, administrative, business, mining, etc., truly effective in a fully corrupt corruption-free and efficient manner when a democracy exceeds a certain large size for the population. Which means, the people in such democracies must be willing to accept ount of a certain amount of curbing of democratic rights and privileges, in their own best common interests of survival and thriving with high economic standards and peace for all.

'IRREVERENCE' to 'TEACHER' [Ref: TOI dated Wed. 08 August 07]

# re: Why are the students becoming increasingly irreverent towards their teachers?
The reasons for the "irreverence" of "students" towards their "teachers" are rather complex to explain. Let us first get each of the three terms within quote marks right: (a) "Reverence" to the teacher, the opposite of "irreverence", does not demand that a student must silently put up with, if not accept, some nonsensical utterance or behaviour of the teacher. In the reported instance, the teacher exceed his limits of his normal powers of reprimand as a teacher, while he was allegedly "harassing girl students and passing lewd remarks". The teacher, in his wisdom, is expected not to do anything whatsoever which had even a slight chance of being perceived by the students as being tantamount to harassment of the weaker sex, either by the girls themselves or by the boys. Lewdnesss may be the order of the day in a permissive culture such as that of the modern Western civilization , even within the precincts of educational institutions, but the Indian society has as of today a culture that cannot give quarters to this phenomenon under a misguided notion of "tolerance" or "liberality of outlook or social interaction". There is in this incident of blackening of the offending teacher's face, this moral for India's entire teaching community, or rather that small section of it which may think otherwise. (b) That said, in (a), the "students" too have to ensure restraint before they take any punitive stance in such incidents. After all, their perception could be wrong - unless the "teacher's" behaviour fell in a familiar pattern with some precedents in the past. The "students" took a risk by swift, if not hasty, direct action against the teacher, of having unworthily acted "irreverently" towards one who was transmitting knowledge to them. (c) Taking "irreverence", what was demanded as a moral prerequisite of a worthy student, nowadays is gradually and imperceptibly becoming "permissible" due to the permissive culture of the West being more than willingly viewed - it looks like an increasingly favoured fashion - as a 'necessity' for "modernization/globalization" of India by our printed and electronic media (TV and internet) and the screen (cinema) and the theatre (drama). Our secular education does not offer scope for enlightenment of the students (and the teachers who were themselves students once) for imbibing through the curriculum, or even through extra-cultural activities an adequate 'dose' of real culture and values of even an unchanging nature (such as mutual respect and regard, for example) that transcend the barriers of time and geography. The false pretensions of the media and the theatre and the cinema are attributable to the pressures put by their owners to maximize sales and profit regardless of the cultural content of the message that should be carried by the media. And of course, since the profit will be shared with those who implement such a despicable goal, the writers and the actors involved also oblige to do the media owners' behest, but very often the mediocre executive quality, bereft of any "benign creativity", is the real culprit, since the media are more often than not good, cultured people, though sometimes they may be indifferent to what is going on with the scenario or news Editor's knowledge/permission. Posted by Posted by M Balakrishnan @ 8/8/2007 2:49 PM [Note on Blog: Slight editing for improvement has been done by me, except for which this is just a reproduction of my response to the TOI topic. ]

MY RESPONSE TO AN INCIDENT INVOLVING A QUESTION OF IRREVERENCE OF A STUDENT TOWARD A TEACHER [Times of India dated July 7, 2007]The reasons for the "i

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I could have added the following also in my above free-style and spontaneous, unedited response:: Our Vedic injunction is both for the teacher and the taught to begin their routine with a prayer : Let us learn together, Let us both enjoy this delectable routine together, Let us, both the teacher and the taught, seek the vigour of an enlightened personality through a well-directed endeavour of teaching and learning, Let us both, the Acharya and the Sishya, learn the essence of true love totally eschewing any iota of mutual hatred or disregard, May there be Peace that embellishes our Thinking, Speaking and Acting faculties". This is one golden rule that should be imbibed in the teacher and taught. Secularism of education does not mean anything if it follows a blind rule of totally ignoring even such non-denominational teachings of our eternally valid scriptures such as the Upanishads (the latter part of the Vedas which concentrate on 'Vedanta or Veda-anta' (a word which etymologically speaking, is cognate with "wit-end" (what we often use as "wits' end" referring to a state of persisting confusion despite our best to solve a tangled real life problem or just an academic "exercise" to test our grasp and understanding. Vedanta, however, offers reasonably satisfactory answers to our intensely searching questions such as what is the fundamental reality of all that is visible to our naked senses and of what is thus not visible, and so forth. It does not leave you in the confused or at least ever-questioning frame of mind with which you started asking another on these nagging questions. Incidentally, Vedanta is not, as some hasty seekers of knowledge (or otherwise seekers with just a mediocre dose of investigating and understanding power and persistence to enquire) seem to think, a futile mental endeavour, or even just an absurd pastime for idlers. Suffice it to say that some of the most brilliant and real achievers among intellectuals - such as Erwin Schroedinger, a great German physicist and a Nobel Laureate, and Arthur Schopenhauer a great philosopher of eternal fame (also a German) - drew inense and durable inspiration till their very end in their respective intellectual pursuits. They of course pursued their respective intellectual endeavours for the sake of humanity, not for any personal materialistic enrichment, per se.

World of India!

World of India!

Going through the various comments, I wish to add my own - but definitely without hating the comentators so as to appear more 'nationalstic' (or is it more 'patriotic' - so many 'great' people confuse us with their definitions of these terms!), but merely making bold to say what I think many, many like-minded people also feel. Reading the comments one finds that we, as a nation, or society, or whatever, do not care a daman about our pride, prestige, which will be recognized when there is minimum of food, shelter and clothing with no Indian going without it, and when opportunities are thrown open to all equally, that are to be grabbed and used on a footing of competitive strength, and no quotas linked to vote banks. Some commentators are interested only in Tendulkars and cricket, and World Cup, even though a winning cricket match is no recognition of any outstanding muscular/physical strength which goes along with Olympic championships. How many original technologies have we, Indians, produced for Atoomic energy power generation, Fighter planes like LCA, - forget the bygone generations of the Colonial rule, or the mediaeval ages, or the hoary Vedic past, but - even restricted to the recent generations, at least of the post-Independence Era during which umpteen Universities, schools of technology or management, specialized research laboratories were set up ? Nil, or simply negligible if you prefer to insist. What about our way of implementing a democratic government : do the socalled people's representatives really work for the people's interests - uniting them to develop a sense of pride and natonalism which are at the very roots of any achievement; awakening in them a new energy and enthusiasm to compete with the rest of the modern world without allowing ourselves to be sweipt off our own feet on the ground ? How many science Nobel prizes. mathematics Fields Medals and Millennium prizes, are won by us during this Period ? (Ignore Peace and Literature Nobels which it is said are not 'wn' but 'given' for political or other extraneous reasons.) Is our Central government, the way it is formed election after election, really capable keeping us as Indians first and Bengalis, or Marathis, or Keralities, or Tamils, .... only next ? Are we utilizing our national resources meaningfully, for optimum national social benefit ? Take the example of petroluem, much of it continues to be impoted at a heavy foreign exchange cost. Can our roads, given their ridiculous conditions for the most part, really help to ensure a high fuel efficiency for our vehicles' engines ? But, are we really technogically capable of producing vehicle engines which can compete in efficiency on Indian rates with the Japanese engines that are great for the Japanese roads ? Or do we say the Japanese have to help us make such engines and produce cars priced at Rs.one or two lakh each ! And what is our DAE (Department of Atomic Energy) really doing all these decades - are our scientists at DAE or ISRO anywhere near the goals set for them, or do they just give reasons and explanations for covering up their overall incompetence ? Why should they argue national security being compromised if we have to accept conditions of foreigners for importing their technologies, restricting their use to only peaceful purposes like power generation, and not for making bombs and become another type of terrorirsts not caring for world peace ? Are we, as young generations of an India -that some or our own pseudo-thinker journalists with blissful ignorance depict as heading fast to become a Superpower - capable of thinking originally, to think of the macro cosmos of the modern scientists, let alone about think about 'Irreducible complexity' and ' Intelligent Design' which some Western thinkers have already started seekingt through the Superconscious of our own forgotten and despised Vedas ? Or are we just capable of simple titillation based on cinemas, consumer goods advertisements, and self-deluding writings of idiot journalists with just a gift of the pen, and nothing by way of a keen perception of what is the true nature of our problems ?

SPIRITUALITY/RELIGION VS. SCIENCE :: Where we stand today

I wanted to write a blog before the month comes to an end. So that June does not go away with a 'nil' contribution to my blog account. Yes, I did produce a lot of thoughts as I wrote a huge lot on the topic of Consciousness as perhaps the most engaging concern of an increasing number of scientists in both physics and biological sciences. Of course, religious thinkers and philosophers through century after century have never ceased to expound their thinking, based on speculation, generally resting on certain authorities which should not be questioned. The account was shaping quite well, at least as I supposed, but alas due to an inadvertent mis-typing of a key the whole bulk was gone into nowhere!, leaving only the first sentence in tact. I believe I typed the stuff - quite fast as Ihave been typing all my company reports for years, myself, and thus gained a lot of skill at speed typing, the only restraint arising due to the commitment to see that the sense intended is cogently presented and does not deviate in precision from the thought flow.
And so I defer continuing this for tomorrow, or rather 'a tomorrow' which will come, and come hopefully very soon!

Some Rambling Thoughts on the Present Predicament of Humankind

I am opening my Weblog with this spontaneous rambling.

At the moment I am in a philosophical frame of mind. Of course everyone who has matured to think for him(her)self does get into that sometimes. But then no more time just now for philosophy, or for speculating on what next after that bloody explosion in Hyderabad's Mecca mosque - for the tides of the outside world dash against you with force, and then, no more philosophy. You think of what to do for yourself, in the office environment of rivalries and forces of the 'executive jungle'; what to do for your life partner, and if you are a father, what to do for your children's future, and so forth. Or just how not to cut a sorry figure slipping on the delivery of your project over which you toiled and moiled and brought the thing to a shape but for that one final look to do something about those bloomers that entered in your draft, and smoothen out the Report, which just could not get time!