The Education Paradox

For a democracy to be as successful, evolved voter is of paramount importance. For the intellectual development of the voter, education is the tool. In India, as you get more and more educated and urbanized, you are less likely to vote. Look around and you will see that all IITs, IIMs and other top educational institutes are producing mind blowing professionals with an apathy towards voting right, which education should have ensured them to exercise.

This no way means that the young and the restless are apathetic towards the grim realities of the country. Its just that they prefer to use the voting day as a day to rest rather than spending it in long queues of voters at polling booths.

Plummeting voting numbers in metros is a case in the point. So at the end of the day, those who go to vote are the ones who are left behind in the drive for education, or rather, left un-evolved.

A better nation needs better democracy, which needs evolved voters. Education is the tool to produce evolved voters. Highly educated people do not go to vote. Democracy stays dependent on the uneducated voters. So nation doesn't develop.Paradox??

The people who understand the issues and can vote based on their judgement, instead of basing their vote on caste or money, do not go to vote. Those who go to vote are not thinking straight due to years of feeding of caste oriented hatred and misplaced allegiances in barter of liquor and money.

How do we improve the current political situation then? Those who should try and bring changes to the system stay away for paltry reasons such as time-constraints or responsibilities or the escapist excuse of disenchantment with the system. Who sets right, whatever is wrong?

The more pertinent question is what is the cure to this malaise? We will keep witnessing lower percentages of voter turnout in near future unless some sweeping changes are not put in place.The percentage may soon hit inferno, because the political scene is becoming worse day by day.

There has to be a way devised to give people an easy way to vote. The only way where the youth can become a voter is through online voting. Online voting is not a big deal, especially for us, with the IT capabilities that we possess. Superbly secure systems can be devised by any of our TCSs and Infys if government is ready to invest. Anybody listening??

Geek Mythology- the most useless blog ever

For long, Geeks have been misunderstood by the common , lesser minds. It is difficult to be a true Geek, almost impossible. Here is a fact book about Geeks which is based on my personal experiences, being a Geek myself, and by observing my Geek friends who have truly been the raison d'etre for this post.

1) Geeks are humans too.
2) Once a Geek, always a Geek.
3) Good looking Geeks are only found in fairy tales.
4) Geeks are often able to bore people to death by talking about Greek mythology, science
experiments and above all, how they had fun with a bunch of Geeks.
5) Antonym of well dressed is Geek. So is the antonym of dressed-for-the-occasion.
6) A girl in love with a Geek had run out of options.
7) Geeks own a blog.
8) Geeks always prefer brain over beauty. So if given a choice, a Geek will always buy a
computer instead of a Bugati.(If you thought in terms of women, you are definitely not Geeky enough).
9) Geeks are good drivers as long as it is not a bike.
10) IT revolution is nothing but a Geek Revolution.Look at it closely and you will realize that IT is the realm of the Geeks.
11) Geeks have a morbid facial expression for every statement.
12) Books are a Geek's best friend. But Geeks and Computers are "Just friends".
13) True love never dies for Geeks. They get bored of it.

14) A Geek always refutes another Geek. Agreement is never an option amongst Geeks.

15) Internet is to Geek what water is to fish.

16) Geeks like e-comics. Yes they do.

On popular demand: Geeks are "FABulous"

Short term memory loss

After the Baba Ramdev fiasco, I feel many people must have now have had a painful realization about what is wrong with our great nation.

When you corner a lion, it has no option but to counter attack. That is where UPA finds itself. With the civil society, embellished by some well strewn publicity by the media, cornering the Manmohan Singh government, it had one option and one option alone, which was to concede to the demand of formation of a Lokpal Bill Drafting committee. Baba Ramdev's fast, however, turned everything haywire for the government. Now it had run out of options and hence, had but one choice. Fight back. So it did. By taking the dictatorial stance, the government sent a clear message to the civil society as well-Enough of goofing around.

The episode at the Ramlila ground does pose a few serious questions. Did the government cross the line? When, in the dead of the night, it encroached upon the freedom of expression of a seemingly harmless legion of sadhus and their yoga disciples, did it act as a despotic junta? Was the UPA feeling cornered and was forced to pounce on the Yoga guru in the manner that it did? But the biggest question is still unanswered.

What is the future of mass agitations in the country? Not so long ago, Jasmine revolution gave hope to millions of oppressed across the world that if they stood hand in hand against dictatorial regimes, they could overpower them or at least force them into caring for them. We suddenly realized the potential of agitations and the power of media. During such protests, there were many instances where the tyrannical state heads unleashed their armed forces on the agitators and there was blood on the streets. It wasn't shocking as such measures of oppression are common to non-democratic governments.

But how is this different from what happened in India? The government unleashed the notorious Delhi police upon soporific protesters to kill a movement which was just asking the government to uproot corruption and punish the corrupt. Now what is so wrong about it that barbaric force was used to maul the masses in the middle of the night.? That too when we rare the so called largest democracy in the world.

Democracy is the weakest form of governance and that is what has been engraved in stone by Manmohan Singh and his cronies. Despite a hue and cry for democracy in the world, a democracy is inefficient and subject to wild swings as has happened in India. The government today is blatant about not allowing the Lokpal Bill to be effective. It has even given up the common courtesy of fooling the gullible people of India by being sarcastic about the Drafting committee meetings and trying to peg the leaders of the Lokpal movement by trying to resurface the interred skeletons from the past of the chosen members of the committee.

One more question is what happens now. By going for the movement all alone, Baba Ramdev tried to hog the headlines and it seemed to go right for him in the beginning with 3 union ministers welcoming him at the Delhi Airport. But as the events unfolded, Babaji realized that even in a democracy, there is ample space for despots to use brute force. His aspiration to be a power center has not found many takers and he has shot himself in the foot, if he wanted a political career. But worse than that, he has diluted the anti-corruption movement by providing the government a chance to add a political angle to the demands of the Yoga guru.

The memory of the people of this country is short lived. With Union elections still far away, the government knows that we will forget what happened. And anyway, elections in India are never going to be affected by a movement in born and bred in Delhi. We will forget this movement as we forgot the Emergency after 3 years, as we forgot 26/11 in 1 year, as we forgot terror attacks in every city in this country in little time. And no one can be blamed for forgetting these.

The political debates are for the evolved intellectuals who sit in cozy rooms sipping coffee and discussing the fallout of every event. They are seriously concerned about the future of the country. They are think tanks and can devise plans and strategies for setting everything right. They can echo the voice of a billion strong population, in impeccable language, on different media forums. And they have a good memory. The only problem is that they don't matter.

The ones who matter have
1) short term memory loss syndrome
2) time to vote(unlike the media maniac intellectuals and the newly"evolved and agitated" urban youth)

The people who matter definitely do not have time to watch a heated political debate on the intricacies of administration. They are far too tired at night to sit in front of the idiot box and witness intellectuals (idiots who feel they are important) tear apart the government (metaphorically).

So they will vote and will do so irrespective of a movement in Delhi or Haridwar. They will forget scams and scamsters. They will vote for "the family". They will forget corruption. They will vote for their caste. They will forget the insalubrious marriage of crime and politics. They will vote for money and alcohol.

When this happens, we get what we have today. And that is a weak form of government, led by an even weaker man who is supported by people with weak moral fiber who have been voted to power by people with weak memories.

Baba Ramdev's movement for creating Ram Rajya was decimated on the Ram Lila ground. Ironic??

Note: Ram Rajya here means ideal world and has no religious undertones attached to it!