Reservation argument

A lengthy argument was in progress in one of the groups that I am a member in about the recent indian supreme court judgement on the issue of reservation in IIT's, IIM's etc. A friend of mine, Naina alias Naveen, produced this gem. Thought it would be nice to reproduce the same here.

--- Start of mail ---

hi all,

am finding it very hard to take sides in this reservation debate. coz i feel the whole wrangle is based on dangerous/superficial notions of 'sucess', 'happiness', 'development','education','status' etc etc and it doesnt matter who sits at the emperors throne, they are all naked. (be it upper caste, lower caste, white man, black man, yellow man)

how is it going to matter to the sparrows,dolphins, the penguins, the salmon,the tiger, the mangroves and the millions of abused others in the earth family, whether the next student at IIT or IIM is a bramhin or an OBC? how is that going to reduce their exploitation and decimation!?

the theory on equitable distribution of wealth (and opportunities) sounds nice, but how often has that even when sucessful, brought about voluntary moratariums on egocentric ambition, greed, and "progress"? once beyond roti, kapada, makan(and a lil bank balance), how often do we see individuals, communities,or countries saying "ok we' now have enough. lets stop progressing!"

how is a greater share of this factory-baked industrial pie going to stop us from bringing the house down soon?
how is it going to stop THE race? is it time to bake a NEW and DIFFERENT pie!?

and what is the nature of these educational institutions we are hankering to get more folks into? how often do we find them turning out sensitive, smart human beings with good values,courage and love in their hearts? are the dreams some of us 'misfits' hold because od the system or despite it! dont we know better, than to push more of our beloved ones into these zombie factories?

plz explain,
naveen

--- end of mail ---

What is the point in fighting to ensure equality in the results of a rat race? That too a race in which the winners (who are less than 1% of the lot) are crowned and the losers are mercilessly slaughtered. Stuff to ponder over.

Gross and repulsive.... but TRUE

Watched a couple of documentaries in the last couple of weeks. Both were gross and repulsive. But they just showed the truth. I almost puked after watching the first one and the second one brought me to tears.

1.) The empire in africa
Have linked to the trailer on Google videos. This documentary has many extremely graphic and violent scenes. Some examples would be footage of rebels blowing of the head of a man with mortar, footages of people chopping the head of a man and hoisting his head on a stick, etc... Very very graphic. But, these are not footages from some third rate horror flick. These were real life events that happened within the last 20 years in Sierra Leone. All the events shown are nothing but the fruits of the seeds sowed by the exploitative capitalistic practices of western companies in Sierra Leone. The role played by UN in perpetuating the horrific practices is also shown quite clearly.

2.) Earthlings
Have linked to the documentary on Google videos. This documentary also has equally graphic and extremely repulsive scenes. But the bulk of the footage is necessary to prove the point of the video that humans are to other species what the nazis were to the jews. This is NOT a debate on vegetarianism vs. non-vegetarianism. Instead, it describes how we humans consider animals as "things" that exist primarily to satisfy our carnal and devilish desires. This is no different from the roman enjoyment of the gladiators' fight to death, nazi extermination of the jews, indian 'upper cast' domination of 'lower castes', apartheid, african slave trade etc...

I'd pray that you watch those movie despite their gross nature. It is important to realize the extremely cruel nature of the world we live in. Unfortunately, we all take the easy way out from not confronting problems by being oblivious to their existence. Not the right thing to do.

New author - Sarav

A friend of mine, Saravanan, has joined this blog as a new author. He has been a close friend of mine right from my first day in my undergrad. He is currently a grad student at Georgia State university, Atlanta. He will be posting here intermittently to start with and, hopefully, more regularly later on. Look forward to his posts.

Allophilia

Allophilia is defined in wikipedia as positive attitudes for a group that is not one's own -- is a term derived from Greek words meaning "liking or love of the other". Read about this in a post in Cuckoo's call. It immediately struck a chord in me. Its about something that I am very passionate about. The economist carried an article on this recently and suggests that we could do with more study on this topic. I absolutely agree. In fact I would say that we could do with more practical adoption of the same.

Love is a theme that occurs with unerring regularity in almost all sacred scriptures that I have read. Some examples from sacred scriptures in my native tongue Tamil would be

Thirukural - 72
அன்பிலார் எல்லாம் தமக்குரியர் அன்புடையார்
என்பும் உரியர் பிறர்கு
Meaning: Person bereft of love wants to own everything whilst a person filled with love does not consider his bone his own

Thirumandiram - 270
அன்பு சிவம் இரண்டு என்பர் அறிவிலார்
அன்பே சிவமாவது ஆரும் அறிகிலார்
அன்பே சிவமாவது ஆரும் அறிந்தபின்
அன்பே சிவமாய் அம்ர்ந்திருந் தாரே
Meaning (paraphrased): Love is god

Thiruvasagam - 518
வன்புலால் வேலும் அஞ்சேன் வளைக்கையார் கடைக்கண் அஞ்சேன்
என்பெலாம் உருக நோக்கீ அம்பலத் தாடுகின்ற
என்பொலா மணியை ஏத்தீ இனிதருல் பருக மாட்டா
அன்பிலா தவரைக் கண்டால் அம்மநாம் அஞ்சு மாறே
Meaning (paraphrased): I am mortally scared of loveless people though I dont fear any other gory thing.

The world would be a far better place if a lot of us could actually practice 'loving others' in our lives. By no means easy, but by all means the right thing to do. Others here refers not just to other groups. It refers to every form of life around us, every form of matter around us, every form of energy around us etc... This realization should proceed up to the point where one finds no difference between oneself and the rest. That is when, I feel, one will realize that 'me' does not stop at the boundary defined by the skin. This will ultimately lead to the realization that all matter are not just equal but they are actually same.

Singur, Nandigram et al

I've been following all developments relevant to Singur and Nandigram through the net. Primary contributors to my awareness on these issues are a few blogs - blog on Singur, blog on SEZ and this blog by an activist based out of Kolkata. Have been going over many of the posts in these blogs for the past hour and found some very poignant words. Am reproducing some of those that rang a bell in me...

'They also suffer from “modernity-fetishism”, which is simply another form of wearing fine suits and boots and sneering at the rustic peasant in his loincloth for his lack of finesse!'

'The poor do not wish to stay poor. They know what poverty is, like the self-proclaimed pundits will never know. They want economic growth, which will bring greater opportunities for improved quality of life. However, to assume that economic growth of any hue – through real estate development, through dubious international capitalists (recall Enron) – will automatically translate into removal of poverty is plaintively disingenuous.'

'I shout at all of you with rage, because I refuse to accept a haven for me that is a nightmare for others.'

As I was reading many such posts on the violence unleashed by the government of West Bengal in Nandigram and the cover up that followed in the messages posted in the google groups youthforsocialchange, viral nuniyil kural software popped up this kural.

கொலைமேற்கொண் டாரிற் கொடிதே அலைமேற்கொண்டு
அல்ல்வை சைதொழுகும் வேந்து

Literally translates to, 'An unjust ruler is worse than a professional murderer'. Coincidence? Mayhap, but germane nevertheless. If this is the case, how do you rank a government that employs professional killers to suppress the voice of its people?

The global warming swindle

The global warming swindle is a documentary that premiered on channel4 in UK on Mar 08, 2007 [1]. You can watch the video on youtube [2]. I personally feel that it is propaganda and not science. What I personally feel does not matter but what scientists feel matter. Scientists at Realclimate [3] have a lot of criticism for this video [4].

The video has clippings of Prof Carl Wunsch [5], Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography at MIT, saying things that suggests that he does not believe in human induced global warming. But the professor came out with a clarification the very next day [6] claiming that he was misquoted and had this to say about the makers of the documentary.
'I knew I had no control over the actual content, but it never occurred to me that I was dealing with people who already had a reputation for distortion and exaggeration.'

Martin Durkin, maker of the documentary, responded to the criticisms [7] and claimed that he expected much stronger attacks but the attacks were actually feeble. He also goes on to give a conspiracy theory that a lot of journalists and scientists have built their careers on this and hope to draw mileage by fanning paranoia on global warming. I feel thats the most ridiculous argument to put across. If we apply the same rule to people who oppose global warming and count the number of people who depend on fuel, automobile and allied industries, we can get a feel of the stupidity of his self defeating argument. Also wikipedia [8] has some very interesting and pertinent facts about his political affiliations and track record. It needs to be noted here that the article has been tagged to indicate that the neutrality of that article is disputed.


References

[1] Channel4's page on the documentary
[2] Global warming swindle on youtube
[3] Realclimate home page
[4] Realclimate criticism of global warming swindle
[5] Prof Carl wunsch home page
[6] Carl Wunsch responds
[7] Martin durkin responds
[8] Martin durkin - on wikipedia

Guinea pigs we are.

Spot the 6 differences
Collage done from images from Wikipedia and BBC

Read an article [1] in 'Times of India' as to how India has become a hotbed for clinical trials. Not great news when one considers the fact that companies usually move to India to increase profits by taking advantage of non-existent laws and lax enforcement of existing laws besides cheap labour. There has been a spate of drug withdrawals [2, 3, 4] by some of the major pharmaceuticals off late due to serious reports of side effects. This could be one of the serious side effects of a health industry driven by unbridled capitalism. Such events happen despite significantly better laws, enforcement and awareness in US. I shudder to imagine what the major pharmaceuticals will do in India where we already have millions of starving people ready to sell their kidneys for a pittance.

References

[1] India a hotbed for clinical trials - Article in 'Times of India'
[2] Torcetrapib - article on wikipedia
[3] Paroxetine - article on wikipedia
[4] Rofecoxib - article on wikipedia

BRB

Ill be right back.. after my winter term ~ April 15...
Realize ur true nature by watching this humans are monkeys video on youtube till then :)