Atanu Dey holds nerve of this country and analyze correctly about hurdles in the path of development of this country. In his article : The Perverse “Right to Information” , he pointed that information should be routinely available rather than being exceptionally provided.
All information of public interest should be available to the public as the default. No special effort should be necessary for a citizen to know what the government is doing with his or her money.
It is time we stopped congratulating ourselves about how wonderful the RTI is and started realizing that we have degraded ourselves to the point where we are actually grateful for the few scraps of information that is thrown our way in response to considerable groveling in front of those whose salaries we pay.
Atanu Dey continue further his roar in the article: "What Holds India Back " , that the Indian government is the greatest barrier to India’s development.
To summarize: Control of the economy does two things. First, it reduces economic activity and consequently growth. Second, it gives rise to rent, which then attracts the most criminally corrupt to gain control of the government. Rent-seeking rather than good governance becomes the sole aim of those in government. The criminally corrupt are not competent to make good policy given that it was not their public policy brilliance that brought them to power. Besides, good policy generally entails a reduction in government power and control of the economy. So why would they do it even if they were advised by others who know better.
I agreed with him. There is a huge rhetoric implementation gap while following grow first build later model that is widely followed in India. Looking back at the history , we observe that there were labour reforms with industrial revolution; 16 hour workdays, unsafe food, little education for the poor, and working conditions has brought communism today in the world. Also, capitalism came to Europe before democracy and in India its reverse.
As the economist Pranab Bardhab pointed out, the left in India while taking aim at the dictatorship of proletariat has given us the dictatorship of salariat. Protections and job safeguards of the worst sort - the kind without accountability are looting government offices. Take example of our schools only. Government policies have funded schools, not schooling. The child issues are neglected as they can't vote or raise their problem. The biggest barrier in decentralizing the power over to local bodies has been teachers union.
I am not opposed to the free economy in India. We have a first wave of pro business reforms in 1991 rather than pro market ones. Indian citizens has not got economic rights only few rare opportunities. Still, the micro and macro economics of a nation converge via its culture; this cultural convergence within nations causes economic divergence among them.
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong but not quite agreeable methods are adapted in confronting bad habits by government. Our institutions and conditions rest upon deep-seated ideas. To change those conditions and at the same time leave the underlying ideas and values intact means only a superficial transformation, one that cannot be permanent or bring real betterment. It is a change of form only, not of substance, as so tragically proven by Russia. We have to develop mentality that pitches reason and debate rather than organized hooliganism to challenge those ideas with minimum violence.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
OSHO on WISDOM and PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy, the very word, means love for wisdom, and they have nothing to do with wisdom at all.Wisdom happens only through meditation; it never happens by collecting information. It happens by going through a transformation. Wisdom is the flowering of your consciousness, the opening of the one-thousand-petaled lotus of your being. It is the release of your fragrance, the release of the imprisoned splendor.Real philosophy has nothing to do with thinking; on the contrary it has everything to do with transcending thinking, going beyond and beyond thinking, going beyond mind, reaching to the pure space of no-mind. Out of that space something flowers in you. You can call it Christ-consciousness, Buddhahood, or whatsoever you like. That is true philosophy.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Ten Issues - 7
1- How America Can Rise Again : The simplest measure of whether a culture is dominant is whether outsiders want to be part of it Any great nation can be judged on two parameters : continued openness to immigration, and a continued concentration of universities that people around the world want to attend.
2- (Hi)Story, Truth and Nation: South Africa is facing the process of developing a new identity for itself and its people, and to deal with its past. Jyoti Mistry looks at the meaning of nations and the nation state in examining this process of creation of a national identity. Story-telling, history and memory play vital parts, particularly in South Africa, in building this "whole". In a story that has no end in sight, she looks at how a country is dealing with its past and stepping into its future.
3- A virtual counter-revolution: The internet has been a great unifier of people, companies and online networks. Powerful forces are threatening to balkanise it. The future of the internet is looking bleak;
4- Power, privilege, corruption, hypocrisy : There is nothing to be proud of India's ranking in the Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index 2009. The country ranked low also in the Bribe Payers Index among emerging economic giants.
5- The Economics of Monogamy and Polygyny : Overview of the the economics surrounding marriage institutions by professor Marina Adshade who teaches a popular undergraduate course called "Economics of Sex and Love," in which students apply the analytical and statistical tools available to economists to examine human sexuality.
6- Creating scientific culture : The first step towards an African culture of science is to make science relevant to local people, says development expert Oyeniyi Akande.
7-Loving the enemy: Al qaeda version of west - 9/11 organizer Khalid Sheikh Mohammed exploited his trial to remind the court of its own human rights obligations, while Osama bin Laden's video statements include appeals to religious pluralism. Al-Qaeda's use of liberal categories is central to its rhetoric on war and justice, writes Faisal Devji.
8- Language, Poetry, and Singularity: A joint Arab-Jewish identity seems an impossibility given the current political situation in the Middle East. And yet it was a reality, exemplified by Arabic-speaking Jews and their writers. In his extensive essay Reuven Snir investigates the complex history of Arab Jews.
9- Fellows Friday with Sunita Nadhamuni: Water and sanitation are among the most crucial issues facing India today, Sunita Nadhamuni notes in her interview with TED. But while these problems are daunting, Sunita says India’s many innovations in managing water can teach the rest of the world a thing or two.
10- An Open Letter to Manmohan Singh : Not everyone is happy with the working of our appointed prime minister due to his apathy towards corruption and the issue becomes large as an IAS officer wrote an open letter in Livemint journal - The government has lost all credibility with the people, and the buck stops with Manmohan Singh;
Quotes:
“The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion” - Henry Steele Commager
"Political tyranny is nothing compared to the social tyranny and a reformer who defies society is a more courageous man than a politician who defies Government." - B. R. Ambedkar
The Buddha said: ‘If you knew what I know about the power of giving, you would not let a single meal pass without sharing it in some way.’
2- (Hi)Story, Truth and Nation: South Africa is facing the process of developing a new identity for itself and its people, and to deal with its past. Jyoti Mistry looks at the meaning of nations and the nation state in examining this process of creation of a national identity. Story-telling, history and memory play vital parts, particularly in South Africa, in building this "whole". In a story that has no end in sight, she looks at how a country is dealing with its past and stepping into its future.
3- A virtual counter-revolution: The internet has been a great unifier of people, companies and online networks. Powerful forces are threatening to balkanise it. The future of the internet is looking bleak;
4- Power, privilege, corruption, hypocrisy : There is nothing to be proud of India's ranking in the Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index 2009. The country ranked low also in the Bribe Payers Index among emerging economic giants.
5- The Economics of Monogamy and Polygyny : Overview of the the economics surrounding marriage institutions by professor Marina Adshade who teaches a popular undergraduate course called "Economics of Sex and Love," in which students apply the analytical and statistical tools available to economists to examine human sexuality.
6- Creating scientific culture : The first step towards an African culture of science is to make science relevant to local people, says development expert Oyeniyi Akande.
7-Loving the enemy: Al qaeda version of west - 9/11 organizer Khalid Sheikh Mohammed exploited his trial to remind the court of its own human rights obligations, while Osama bin Laden's video statements include appeals to religious pluralism. Al-Qaeda's use of liberal categories is central to its rhetoric on war and justice, writes Faisal Devji.
8- Language, Poetry, and Singularity: A joint Arab-Jewish identity seems an impossibility given the current political situation in the Middle East. And yet it was a reality, exemplified by Arabic-speaking Jews and their writers. In his extensive essay Reuven Snir investigates the complex history of Arab Jews.
9- Fellows Friday with Sunita Nadhamuni: Water and sanitation are among the most crucial issues facing India today, Sunita Nadhamuni notes in her interview with TED. But while these problems are daunting, Sunita says India’s many innovations in managing water can teach the rest of the world a thing or two.
10- An Open Letter to Manmohan Singh : Not everyone is happy with the working of our appointed prime minister due to his apathy towards corruption and the issue becomes large as an IAS officer wrote an open letter in Livemint journal - The government has lost all credibility with the people, and the buck stops with Manmohan Singh;
Quotes:
“The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion” - Henry Steele Commager
"Political tyranny is nothing compared to the social tyranny and a reformer who defies society is a more courageous man than a politician who defies Government." - B. R. Ambedkar
The Buddha said: ‘If you knew what I know about the power of giving, you would not let a single meal pass without sharing it in some way.’
Friday, October 8, 2010
Overviewing Society
1- Human Values Unite, Religious Values Divide!
There are many different initiatives to strengthen the dialogue between cultures and religions, but they have not let to the desired results. The prominent Palestinian professor of philosophy Sari Nusseibeh see the weak points of such dialogue.
Nusseibeh: Whenever we talk about such a dialogue, we only ever mean the dialogue between the monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and we never speak about the relationship between Buddhism and Hinduism, where there aren't any very serious problems. On the contrary: Shintoism was originally the dominant religion in Japan, and when Buddhism came from China, the Japanese didn't give up their Shintoism, but became Buddhists as well and united the two religions.
The problems seem to emerge primarily between Judaism, Christianity and Islam, because they are so similar and have the same origin. Buddhism and Shintoism could co-exist precisely because they are so different.
The solution lies above all in the abandonment of all religious fanaticism, and in our orienting ourselves on human values, and not on religious values, because everyone can agree on the former. And if a religious principle is in conflict with a human principle, then we have to uphold the latter. That's the only way we will come to mutual acceptance.
2- ‘The Social Network’ and the case against intellectual property rights
Ideas — in this case, an online student network — bear none of the qualities of property. They are abstract and intangible. They don’t exist in any physical sense. If another thinker has the same idea, the original thinker is not suddenly deprived of access to the idea; it simply multiplies.
This is not the equivalent of stealing your friend’s apple. It’s the equivalent of having an apple exactly identical to your friend’s appear in the palm of your hand. Your friend still has his apple.
Defenders of intellectual property protections will object to your apple on the grounds that its existence lowers the value of your friend’s apple; your friend won’t bother to grow apples if you can obtain yours for free. This creates a free rider problem, they allege, in which nobody grows apples and there are none to be copied.
But such thinking ignores that fame can be as compelling a reason to produce something as fortune.
During a legal hearing, Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg makes the ultimate statement against intellectual property rights, asking, “Does a guy who makes a really good chair owe money to anyone who ever made a chair?” If people value Facebook and the system that made its development possible, the answer should be a resounding no.
3- The Others Talk: Women's issues, sexual issues, female genital mutilation, virginity problems and "honour killings” are all related to patriarchy and class. Rape is the result of the lack of dedicated societal attention to the safety, respect, and prosperity of women in peace time, as well as in war. That is why empowering women is so necessary to preserve and reform our culture.
Here is an inspiring lecture in which "Kavita Ramdas talks about three encounters with powerful women who fight to make the world better—while preserving the traditions that sustain them." On her bio page is this quote: "Being a philanthropist doesn't mean necessarily writing a huge check. It can mean mobilizing your community to start asking questions." Kavita Ramdas directs the Global Fund for Women, the largest foundation in the world supporting women's human rights across all borders.
There are many different initiatives to strengthen the dialogue between cultures and religions, but they have not let to the desired results. The prominent Palestinian professor of philosophy Sari Nusseibeh see the weak points of such dialogue.
Nusseibeh: Whenever we talk about such a dialogue, we only ever mean the dialogue between the monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and we never speak about the relationship between Buddhism and Hinduism, where there aren't any very serious problems. On the contrary: Shintoism was originally the dominant religion in Japan, and when Buddhism came from China, the Japanese didn't give up their Shintoism, but became Buddhists as well and united the two religions.
The problems seem to emerge primarily between Judaism, Christianity and Islam, because they are so similar and have the same origin. Buddhism and Shintoism could co-exist precisely because they are so different.
The solution lies above all in the abandonment of all religious fanaticism, and in our orienting ourselves on human values, and not on religious values, because everyone can agree on the former. And if a religious principle is in conflict with a human principle, then we have to uphold the latter. That's the only way we will come to mutual acceptance.
2- ‘The Social Network’ and the case against intellectual property rights
Ideas — in this case, an online student network — bear none of the qualities of property. They are abstract and intangible. They don’t exist in any physical sense. If another thinker has the same idea, the original thinker is not suddenly deprived of access to the idea; it simply multiplies.
This is not the equivalent of stealing your friend’s apple. It’s the equivalent of having an apple exactly identical to your friend’s appear in the palm of your hand. Your friend still has his apple.
Defenders of intellectual property protections will object to your apple on the grounds that its existence lowers the value of your friend’s apple; your friend won’t bother to grow apples if you can obtain yours for free. This creates a free rider problem, they allege, in which nobody grows apples and there are none to be copied.
But such thinking ignores that fame can be as compelling a reason to produce something as fortune.
During a legal hearing, Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg makes the ultimate statement against intellectual property rights, asking, “Does a guy who makes a really good chair owe money to anyone who ever made a chair?” If people value Facebook and the system that made its development possible, the answer should be a resounding no.
3- The Others Talk: Women's issues, sexual issues, female genital mutilation, virginity problems and "honour killings” are all related to patriarchy and class. Rape is the result of the lack of dedicated societal attention to the safety, respect, and prosperity of women in peace time, as well as in war. That is why empowering women is so necessary to preserve and reform our culture.
Here is an inspiring lecture in which "Kavita Ramdas talks about three encounters with powerful women who fight to make the world better—while preserving the traditions that sustain them." On her bio page is this quote: "Being a philanthropist doesn't mean necessarily writing a huge check. It can mean mobilizing your community to start asking questions." Kavita Ramdas directs the Global Fund for Women, the largest foundation in the world supporting women's human rights across all borders.
Passing thoughts on Higher Education
I always have a idealism that education brings erudition and clarity in ideas; empathise and understand, lead and act to bring changes. And educational institutes catalyses this happening. I feel privileged to become a part of the ITBHU in 2004. It was feeling of eliteness and ecstasy of qualifying IIT JEE after dropping out 2 years post intermediate. Now, IT BHU is on the verge of conversion into IIT. ITBHU has potential and it will always have potential if the attitude of authority remains same despite of effective converted into IIT. BHU is ranked as top most university in India and IT BHU ranks in top 10 technical college of the country. Still, I can see the slow and orthodox behaviour of the authorities in day to day work. I started thinking about institutional aging and condition of universities in India.
Intellectual license permit raj is there in our all universities that is why we are out of world rankings based on any parameters. Universities are merely a passing-by station for most of the students. Our educational institutes has a large shortfall of teachers and a lacklustre administration. Indian college are social slums of the intellectual where action is resisted in favour of status. Initiative and experiment may led to wrong results, that is the way administration of the colleges are run overall. Andre Betellei notes, this approach has turned or universities into mere ABC factories, degree giving institutions whose primary focus is not education but conducting exams.
The truth is that the desire for change has to come from the top of the institutional pyramid. A rule of thumb for efficiency standards is that they should be 'tough' but not panic inducing'. Time and space is needed to react with new initiatives. When the best will not accommodate for inclusive policies and behave like elite branded model for market economy, its decay starts at the moment only. Flexibility to adopt new academic models and inclusion of lesser social and economical privileged scholars have to be incepted in our educational institute.
Let us go ahead and make our universities with Asian first and world latter in the similarity of Bologna movement that shake up the European academic centers. Latin America has 1980's as its lost decade due to bad policies despite of having a quite young population; India has large young population. The shortage of job is most combustible driver for social change. The failure to meet the needs of a vast young population can lead to instability and political rebellion against government. The push factor of economic forces with the pull factor of education can bring a lot of change to our educational institutions.
Knowledge and University :
The prime task of the university is to ensure the radical autonomy of the practice of knowledge. Without the autonomy of knowledge and education, the social world would necessarily be limited to the brutal reproduction of power and economic coercion. In other words, the university must be driven by political logic and not by economic logic.This means the radical autonomy of education.
Knowledge without education is impossible. Education without institutions is impossible. And knowledge is also impossible without an ethos of knowledge, without freedom of thought and a community of thought. Is there a contradiction between these axiomatic conditions? Is it possible to strike a balance between education and the common work of conception, co-thinking and invention? In other words, can we find the right balance between the "community" of knowledge and the "institution" of knowledge? In a philosophical critique of the pragmatic reduction of knowledge, Boyan Manchev defines the university as "locus of the unconditionally political". Read further in Theses on education and the experience of critical thought.
Three Weblinks on Higher Education:
1- The Unsecret Shopper Goes Shopping: Iowa State University - The idea of “shopping” for a college or university seems pretentious on the surface, unless you’re Bill Gates or Kate Gosselin, both of whom could buy Drake; Look at universities fees and their offerings as they are retail stores.
2-The Science Network (TSN): Its mission is to build an online science and society agora, or public square, dedicated to the discussion of issues at the intersection of science and social policy. By engaging a diverse community of concerned constituencies in conversation, on and offline through signature meetings, video programming, and in developing partnerships with public television stations, TSN is creating a scientific no-spin zone - a trusted destination free from the tyranny of the sound bite.
3- Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission? : College should be a cultural journey, an intellectual expedition, a voyage confronting new ideas and information. But as Tuition charges at both public and private colleges have rising high, admissions are becoming tough for common man.
Thought of the Day:
Our society, throughout school, college, and life, conditions people to treat failing as something to be ashamed of, not as a learning experience. This breeds a subconscious but intense fear of failure, since it's now associated with shame/humiliation. This obviously leads to risk-aversion in the vast majority of the population. The key message here is, 'failure is a stepping stone, not a tombstone'.
Intellectual license permit raj is there in our all universities that is why we are out of world rankings based on any parameters. Universities are merely a passing-by station for most of the students. Our educational institutes has a large shortfall of teachers and a lacklustre administration. Indian college are social slums of the intellectual where action is resisted in favour of status. Initiative and experiment may led to wrong results, that is the way administration of the colleges are run overall. Andre Betellei notes, this approach has turned or universities into mere ABC factories, degree giving institutions whose primary focus is not education but conducting exams.
The truth is that the desire for change has to come from the top of the institutional pyramid. A rule of thumb for efficiency standards is that they should be 'tough' but not panic inducing'. Time and space is needed to react with new initiatives. When the best will not accommodate for inclusive policies and behave like elite branded model for market economy, its decay starts at the moment only. Flexibility to adopt new academic models and inclusion of lesser social and economical privileged scholars have to be incepted in our educational institute.
Knowledge and University :
The prime task of the university is to ensure the radical autonomy of the practice of knowledge. Without the autonomy of knowledge and education, the social world would necessarily be limited to the brutal reproduction of power and economic coercion. In other words, the university must be driven by political logic and not by economic logic.This means the radical autonomy of education.
Knowledge without education is impossible. Education without institutions is impossible. And knowledge is also impossible without an ethos of knowledge, without freedom of thought and a community of thought. Is there a contradiction between these axiomatic conditions? Is it possible to strike a balance between education and the common work of conception, co-thinking and invention? In other words, can we find the right balance between the "community" of knowledge and the "institution" of knowledge? In a philosophical critique of the pragmatic reduction of knowledge, Boyan Manchev defines the university as "locus of the unconditionally political". Read further in Theses on education and the experience of critical thought.
Three Weblinks on Higher Education:
1- The Unsecret Shopper Goes Shopping: Iowa State University - The idea of “shopping” for a college or university seems pretentious on the surface, unless you’re Bill Gates or Kate Gosselin, both of whom could buy Drake; Look at universities fees and their offerings as they are retail stores.
2-The Science Network (TSN): Its mission is to build an online science and society agora, or public square, dedicated to the discussion of issues at the intersection of science and social policy. By engaging a diverse community of concerned constituencies in conversation, on and offline through signature meetings, video programming, and in developing partnerships with public television stations, TSN is creating a scientific no-spin zone - a trusted destination free from the tyranny of the sound bite.
3- Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission? : College should be a cultural journey, an intellectual expedition, a voyage confronting new ideas and information. But as Tuition charges at both public and private colleges have rising high, admissions are becoming tough for common man.
Thought of the Day:
Our society, throughout school, college, and life, conditions people to treat failing as something to be ashamed of, not as a learning experience. This breeds a subconscious but intense fear of failure, since it's now associated with shame/humiliation. This obviously leads to risk-aversion in the vast majority of the population. The key message here is, 'failure is a stepping stone, not a tombstone'.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)