thought of the day

Choices we make each moment give direction to our life.

60 years of Republic, are we still uncivilised!

Today evening I went to see the India gate decorated with lights of tricolor and the beautifully illuminated Parliament. It was dark and the whole view was awesome. Here on Janpath, I saw a group of well dressed elites also enjoying the view. Suddenly, I noticed that one of them turned toward the corner of the road (Rajpath) where the cars (including mine) were parked, looked here and there and started relieving himself. I was suddenly taken aback. One don’t expect some elite to show such uncivilized behavior, at least not in front of India gate on Rajpath! I intended to stop him but I couldn’t do that because I knew that there is no “Sulabh Shauchalay”(public toilet) nearby. When I asked a local vendor about it he told “ye lawn hai na..jana hai to yahi kar lo” (Use this lawn for toilet).

In a moment, all my joy of that panoramic view and proud of 60 years of republic, transformed in the feeling of frustration and despair. Before like everyone else, I could have ignored it by saying “Hindustan ka kuch nahi ho sakta” or “Indians and well as their government are hopeless”, I decided to write this letter to the authorities as soon as I reached home. I wonder why all around the world Indians are so easily identified and branded as most uncivilized people. In India, talking about toilet is as taboo as talking about sex education. I wonder why! Such a basic necessity is so prejudiciously ignored as no one needs it. It’s not that Indians are uncivilized, it’s because government is not active in providing basic facilities and above this our civil society has also ignored it.

I request Delhi government to kindly make some arrangement in all public/tourist places. A mobile toilet would be a very logical solution in such posh areas like Janpath/India Gate considering the space problem in Delhi. Moreover, think about women, they can’t use this liberty also as men mostly do.

I wonder how in a country with woman president, woman speaker, woman leader of both ruling and opposition party has such apathy for woman! (not to forget that Delhi itself has a woman Chief minister)

Evolution of God

God, a term which is most difficult to define but exist, even before we, the Humans, came into existence. A word, mostly used by all and believed to exist even when how, what, who and where GOD is , is beyond our imagination. God is defined by nothing but ‘faith’. God exist only for we have faith in that supreme entity. We defined God as per our own convenience to make it easy for us to present all our grievance and wishes to, to ask those questions which no one has answers of, to have a sense of security that someone is there to take care of us, to bless us, to control this very world we live in, to punish daemons and to reward the righteous, to help the helpless and to give us luck and prosperity. If human is most splendid extraordinary superior creation of GOD, God is the most selfish creation of human.

The idea of God originated from the ignorance about this world. We had no idea why we exist, why the sun rise and sets, why the rain, thunder, storm is there, from where river, mountain, sky and the stars came and the ultimate mystery of Life and Death. This ignorance, which gave birth to fear, made us to derive the idea of an almighty: The God.

So all that we need, we ask God for it. In the prehistoric times, we found God in Nature. Our Gods were as simple as Fire-God, Rain-God, Sea-God and Wind-God. God is so beyond our conception that we simplified God in Human like forms. God existed even before Ram, Christ or Mohammad. We believe in God’s human incarnation or Avtar. Almost all religions have ‘Avatar’ or ‘Son of God’ or ‘prophets’. And here comes the religion. The Religion, which probably was not something that originated from the God, rather, the religion, which was man-made and which made the concept of God narrower and rigid. Some mighty people of the society defined the norms of society and imposed there definition of ‘God’ to the people. So as our society progressed, the God and the Religion, both became complex. New Gods got introduced as per the need of society. The idea of ‘God’ evolved further.

As we became a more sophisticated society, the selfish man started exploitation of the God and the religion. Then we needed reforms, and some enlightened souls gave us better ideas of God and religion. We needed to come out of this rigid concept of God as restricted by the dominant high classes. These reformers redefined religion and re-simplified the idea of God. The modern religions like Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism looked for simplified and less orthodox ideologies that came in the ancient religions as a result of selfish strategies and politicization of religion. The Protestantism, Zoroastrian, Confucianism and others forms also looked for maverick ideas.

As our knowledge of this world increased, we started questioning more the idea of God. The science became the answer to a lot of our questions but still the idea of God remained because many questions were still unanswered. God is a traditional idea and largely depend on faith. God is knowledge. The faith of humanity gives shape to the concept of God. May be God is also trying to tell people to think about what, who, where and how the God is. All we need to do is to look inside and think over. The quest for the God made me write this. There has to be some God, or how else will we get the solace in this world of mystery and misery. Let there be God. May God Bless all!

me and my computer..the journey from 2001 to 2009

My hands are tempting to write something...after such a long interactions with computer, my fingers have fallen in love with the keyboard.. always want to write..to browse..to push the keys..they are so immersed in this love that they don't need much help of my eyes to the keys...sometimes i feel as fingertips have some memory. my fingers......all of them..are just always ready to touch their beloved (keyboard).

i remember in college days we used to dream that when will it happen when we would be able to type without looking on to keyboard like a typical software geek :-o . now that day is here... it had been 8 years of using the computers ...how much it has changed...from a bulky P3 with win98 to a small laptop with vista! but the funny thing is that in 2001-02, that 256MB RAM 4 GB HDD 800MHz PC was worth 35-40K and this 2GB RAM, 2Ghz, 80GB HDD laptop is cheaper than that!! and imagine the value of Rs40k then and now. And the irony is that , the old big box was faster than this hi-fi laptop! I don't know how is this happening ...we are having faster technology but still slower PC...we are having faster RAM but a heavy OS which eats up all of it!
there was no single PC in hostel which could bear me..as soon i start working on it, it used to hang ..and unfortunately i have yet not found a fast enough!
computers has become a part of an average family in India....i am so much used to of doing everything online...from booking of movie and travel tickets to bill payments and banking...everything! without internet, a computer is a soul without body (or vice versa). and now this has changed the way we live...out community is now ONLINE..we meet friends online...talk on video chat to friends and family on skype ..and can't complete without mentioning orkut..that enable us to keep our social circle alive!
we are living in virtual world!!
so lets get real.... go out of the door and meet the real people there :-)

RTI : bringing accountability in the Government

We are all used to of two things about Indian political system and Bureaucracy: "chalta hai" and "kuchh nahi ho sakta" . By these two we all accept them as they are. We dream of an accountable and honest system but don't bother how it will come!! Right to Information Act 2005 is one of the biggest achievement of a government and people of India. Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) deserve a big applause for its effort.
Now BIG problem is that people don't know about it. The good things is that address of all public information officers are available online. So here we all ..people of internet word..who care a lot about the world but feel helpless against the system can make a big difference . in RTI you can send application about any thing happening ( or not happening) anywhere in india. You don't need to even tell the reason. So if a particular got office is not working properly, you can ask them why..or can even visit their office to see how they work. RTI is properly utilized have empowered citizen.
So now we all should start a RTI campaign. Whenever you see a problem, right an application and send it. This is bare minimum we all can do..and here is how to do it:

1. Find out the address of PIO from internet or directly from the office against which you want to send RTI Application
2. Write application on a plain paper with all the questions and information you want to seek.
3. provide your complete address and contact number on the application.
4. Get a Indian Postal Order of Rs 10 from any post office and make it payable to the account officer of that organisation. Check the website or inquire in the office directly. Otherwise just write
"Account officer," e.g. Account officer, Department of Heath & Family welfare".
5. keep a copy of application and IPO number with you.
6. send the application only by registered post of speed post . Keep safely the receipt of your post. Do not send by normal post of courier.
If you submit application personally, take receiving on its copy with stamp of that office.

Withing 1-2 week you will see action on this. And if you dont get anything in a month complaint about that PIO to appellate authority.
You will find all the required information here
http://www.rti.gov.in/

you can also join
http://www.rtiindia.org/forum/

I would say just start sending RTI to all places you see corruption , unaccountability or harassment of public. If a good officer is transferred, send an RTI application with question why he/she got transferred. If a bad officer is still not handled, send a RTI asking why. If there are path-holes in your road, send RTI to municipality asking why. Just go on..wake up.and ask..why Public Department dont work for public. Just start it.. believe me...you will see the change!!