Business ethics is turning out to be much ( more ) interesting then i ever thought, i've have no faith left in the education system in India. It keeps coming back to the same old discussion "Right or wrong".I have not changed a lot in the last 10 years, so i still believe that nothing is essentially right, or wrong for that matter. Societal norms, is a different story altogether.Is it easy to "live" oblivious of society, of social structure and the norms that it comes with.
What happens when you decide to "live" by your own, to do what you "want to" and not that is to be done and can such freedom be allowed in the shitbag we have created called human existence.Do people deserve such freedom, does everyone deserve to be ?
My sense of logic tells me that if theres one person who is a "nay" to the above questions, it'll be a "nay" for all.We cannot have one rapist amongst us with the freedom to be (rape) because , well society is usually good at encouraging such bastards and soon we'll have a Rapists Liberation movement.
What about the rest ( of us ), don't we deserve better.Nay.We are an integral part of society, we want to "be" but we can't, so we will die trying to be, rather "being".Which isn't bad really.
One thing our de- civilization has gifted us right from the instant we begin existence is , among other things, an identity crisis.If you have a penis you will (mostly) grow up to be man, or a woman.Stereotyping manifests itself upon us.We are taught to be "honest", "good students", "obedient" but noone asks us to be ourselves.We are never told to "be". In the convoluted process we call growing up, we acquire ( we don't really learn a lot ) the skills of joining a "herd", we become experts at "group thinking".We learn the art of conforming to predefined rules of existence, of set rules of society, we never really do anything ourselves.Someone else has already done all our thinking, deciding and provided us with very few choices.Reminds me of CAT.
In the midst of all the chaos we lose probably the only thing we are born with, ourself, our being.To make sure we don't lose our identity in society, we follow norms, abide by norms and make sure we "fit" in to the structure of modern society.If we could've been born again, at different places and times, won't we be different people.Where has our freedom gone, we don't make any decisions.Society makes them for us, when it makes sure we don't do things on our own, when we ensure that we don't do things to be looked upon as someone different from the "usual".The "usual" is all that there is.Suddenly we realize one day that we are not us, just one of "someone's".We pass with flying colors the ultimate test of mediocrity.
I'll probably lose my balls trying to be "me" and some other things as well.Will it be worth it, as of now, you bet it is.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Monday, May 15, 2006
Reply to VSV
I'd like to quote a figure form Voltaire's legendary work Candide, shes a wretched bunch of misery with half a buttock, she says that she contemplated killing herself a number of times but she didn't, its very human to be saddled with shit and still love life, love existence with the defiance of all rationality and logic.
Lots of issues you've come up with, the people we elect enforce their simplistic and ruralist policies on us, and well, I'm a pessimist so its actually true for me that the world is getting screwed up everyday.
As we've discussed, theres no real GDP growth happening (if anyone wants the details, please ask ), Iran will make the nuke bomb anyway, Petrol prices will keep rising, Inflation will never leave us, there will be more rapes, murders, communal riots once in a while, madrasi's will hate sardars and everyone else too, You and I will hate marashtrians, madrasis, gujus, bihari's..everyone except goans, discrimination will not only become institutionalised maybe even secularised and normalised, we grew up thinking its hindu's vs muslims, maybe our kids will grow up thinking its me vs u (they will play football though) , bramhinical superstitions can get worse, after discrimination on the basis of religion, color, caste, language maybe we'll turn to discriminate on the basis of height/weight/ eye color , we'll spend even more money on making nukes than on education and poverty , education might become a still bigger load of crap, in short, things will probably keep getting worse.
We cant change governments, kill people we think are bad, or eliminate evil in society at one go, but the earlier we can.Yes, what we were taught in school, everything happens for the best, and that the world is a rational place its another big sham.Things get worse or better, either way you let them and the world is no more rational than Ronaldinho's freekick that swings both ways.
So, what do we do, become arm chair pandits, write BS ( bullshit) , and become slaves to the system.Do you accept the second hand treatment given to you, or do you treat people second had as well, in revenge, do you try to rape women late nights, do you cut trees to put up hoardings, no to all that, and no to a lot more.The world might be falling apart, are you, no your not, yes you lie awake thinking of whats gonna happen and it all boils down and you come up with that and maybe watch fight club again.We think of the change that we can help happen, changing the world is a slower process than evolution but against all odds evolution did take place, so i don't wanna bet against this one.
I think we first "talked" after watching fight club, the fight goes on, the club never shuts down.Its not just you, binai, and me who decide not to be slaves to a system.Thats the thing, the fact that we keep thinking against the system and maybe on our way will drag more people into thinking the same way is what we can try to do, and maybe more along the way, surely more.We cant change governments, kill people we think are bad, or eliminate evil in society at one go, but the earlier we can.
Lots of issues you've come up with, the people we elect enforce their simplistic and ruralist policies on us, and well, I'm a pessimist so its actually true for me that the world is getting screwed up everyday.
As we've discussed, theres no real GDP growth happening (if anyone wants the details, please ask ), Iran will make the nuke bomb anyway, Petrol prices will keep rising, Inflation will never leave us, there will be more rapes, murders, communal riots once in a while, madrasi's will hate sardars and everyone else too, You and I will hate marashtrians, madrasis, gujus, bihari's..everyone except goans, discrimination will not only become institutionalised maybe even secularised and normalised, we grew up thinking its hindu's vs muslims, maybe our kids will grow up thinking its me vs u (they will play football though) , bramhinical superstitions can get worse, after discrimination on the basis of religion, color, caste, language maybe we'll turn to discriminate on the basis of height/weight/ eye color , we'll spend even more money on making nukes than on education and poverty , education might become a still bigger load of crap, in short, things will probably keep getting worse.
We cant change governments, kill people we think are bad, or eliminate evil in society at one go, but the earlier we can.Yes, what we were taught in school, everything happens for the best, and that the world is a rational place its another big sham.Things get worse or better, either way you let them and the world is no more rational than Ronaldinho's freekick that swings both ways.
So, what do we do, become arm chair pandits, write BS ( bullshit) , and become slaves to the system.Do you accept the second hand treatment given to you, or do you treat people second had as well, in revenge, do you try to rape women late nights, do you cut trees to put up hoardings, no to all that, and no to a lot more.The world might be falling apart, are you, no your not, yes you lie awake thinking of whats gonna happen and it all boils down and you come up with that and maybe watch fight club again.We think of the change that we can help happen, changing the world is a slower process than evolution but against all odds evolution did take place, so i don't wanna bet against this one.
I think we first "talked" after watching fight club, the fight goes on, the club never shuts down.Its not just you, binai, and me who decide not to be slaves to a system.Thats the thing, the fact that we keep thinking against the system and maybe on our way will drag more people into thinking the same way is what we can try to do, and maybe more along the way, surely more.We cant change governments, kill people we think are bad, or eliminate evil in society at one go, but the earlier we can.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Anti - Convention
Sometimes i just love being an Indian, this is one of those.India , it seems, is used to screwing up convention, let me explain.India was the nation to rebel against colonialism and was responsible for wiping it out, so that's one.Before the NPT, there was the CTBT, India didn't sign it, and we didn't sign NPT either and still we managed to make them both look ridiculous.
India received sanctions after the 1998 blasts inspite of not being a signatory of the NPT, in one stroke we had made the treaty look meaningless.The biggest hit we took after that was the ban on importing nuclear fuel, we do have nuclear resources but they are enough only for civilian purposes not for making bombs and ,as anyone would guess, its more fun making bombs then energy on slow reactors.
Today we signed a "historic" treaty with the US, again the most important clause is the one which allows us to import nuclear fuel for "perpetuity" till we keep out 14 civilian nuclear reactors under safeguards.But, we haven't signed the NPT so where will the safeguards come from..?
In the NPT there are the nuclear powers and theres everyone else, and now, thanks to Mr Bush, India will form a 3rd category for which the safeguards haven't been worked out, so well there goes the NPT.I understand the concern of the Left/SP etc about the foreign policies of the US, but more than logical its political, the Left have to oppose the US, the SP , which doesn't have any respect of its own has to borrow some from their beloved Left.They argue about the safeguards of not being in our national interest, and of course Mr Singh is the "weakest" PM ever, as per Mr Advani so he usually bends all ways.The point that they have forgotten is that India doesn't have to put its defence reactors under the IAEA scanner, yes by virtue of not being a nuclear nation under the NPT we won't be allowed to shift our reactors from one category to another, but that doesn't take anything away, our defence reactors are covered and we can import fuel to continue our research and make more bombs.The weakest PM ever has just managed to pull out possibly the strongest deal ever.
Lets think that the US Congress doesn't pass the bill, will it be a complete failure, No.This deal is an indication that America wants a stronger India, for whatever purposes that might be.We gatecrashed the Colonialism party and now we are doing the same to proliferation.Forget the sports allocation in the Union Budget 05-06, lets smile, we'r Indian.
India received sanctions after the 1998 blasts inspite of not being a signatory of the NPT, in one stroke we had made the treaty look meaningless.The biggest hit we took after that was the ban on importing nuclear fuel, we do have nuclear resources but they are enough only for civilian purposes not for making bombs and ,as anyone would guess, its more fun making bombs then energy on slow reactors.
Today we signed a "historic" treaty with the US, again the most important clause is the one which allows us to import nuclear fuel for "perpetuity" till we keep out 14 civilian nuclear reactors under safeguards.But, we haven't signed the NPT so where will the safeguards come from..?
In the NPT there are the nuclear powers and theres everyone else, and now, thanks to Mr Bush, India will form a 3rd category for which the safeguards haven't been worked out, so well there goes the NPT.I understand the concern of the Left/SP etc about the foreign policies of the US, but more than logical its political, the Left have to oppose the US, the SP , which doesn't have any respect of its own has to borrow some from their beloved Left.They argue about the safeguards of not being in our national interest, and of course Mr Singh is the "weakest" PM ever, as per Mr Advani so he usually bends all ways.The point that they have forgotten is that India doesn't have to put its defence reactors under the IAEA scanner, yes by virtue of not being a nuclear nation under the NPT we won't be allowed to shift our reactors from one category to another, but that doesn't take anything away, our defence reactors are covered and we can import fuel to continue our research and make more bombs.The weakest PM ever has just managed to pull out possibly the strongest deal ever.
Lets think that the US Congress doesn't pass the bill, will it be a complete failure, No.This deal is an indication that America wants a stronger India, for whatever purposes that might be.We gatecrashed the Colonialism party and now we are doing the same to proliferation.Forget the sports allocation in the Union Budget 05-06, lets smile, we'r Indian.
Shame, Shame, National Shame
Capt Gopinath calls the condition of our airports a "national shame and an issue of national emergency", Praful Patel agrees to that. I am not against privatization but the neo - jingoistic vibes that these two idiots emanate is a case of "mental shame and mental emergency".
Its estimated that India's total air passenger traffic is around 80 million a year. More people travel by trains, buses and roads everyday. Around 4 years back when the government thought about modernizing the Mumbai and Delhi airports, the estimated cost was 2,400 crores/2,800 crores (both in rupees) and it also decided that it didn't have that kind of money, so it was a case of rationality that they started looking for private investment. Yes, i agree that we are a poor country and of all entities the government shouldn't spend that much money to benefit less than 5 % of our people.
Maybe it was a tad too late for India, most countries had de-regulated the civil aviation sector in the 1980s and some even had gone ahead and privatized the national carriers and airports. In India , besides Mumbai and Delhi, the operation and management of the airports at Chennai and Kolkatta were going to be privatised. Hyderabad and Bangalore were going to get new International airports.
During the entire bidding process, which was brimmed with opacity , no one actively opposed the move, infact it had been so long in coming that even the media interest waned. Lull before the storm, maybe. After the first round of evaluation done by independent regulators (ABN -AMRO Bank) only 2 bidders got 80 % and above saw their bids being evaluated further, then the bids were sent to another committee headed by E.Sreedharan it disqualified one of the bids and sent the report to the EGOM. No fingers were pointed at ABN AMRO or the two other committees and an inter - ministerial group that had verified the bids. We all know what happened next, and who won, and who went on strike et al.
The most predictable outcome, and the most shameful, was the strike by the AAI employees. I believe its democratic to strike, but that doesn't mean you leave your work and go around making a mess. A strike should be a registered protest and the government should listen to the protest and work to solve the problem, issuing statements that the strike is illegal and that there were be consequences don't befit a democracy and so the government usually gets what it deserves. Getting out a bit, the Bhagwad Gita states that God shall fulfill every desire of man to the limit he deserves, not covets. The govt and gopi are getting what they deserve.
Regardless of the fact that more people travel by other methods of public transport than by air every year, i believe its crucial to modernize the airports, but is it enough reason to go around in media calling it a "national shame" and trying to get a sympathy vote. I was traveling by train from Pune to Bombay on Friday and since i hadn't reserved my ticket in advance i had to get a general one, for some reason the train was really crowded and i had to carry my bag around my neck and i actually ended up spraining my neck, and my back still hurts. There will be a lot more people facing a similar problem everyday than air travelers over a year, so what needs to be fixed first. Gopi is a businessman and i understand his concerns in a already threatening industry with low margins and intense competition and that he wants to buy more planes and wants more place to keep them, when they are not flying. Its easy to remember that when fog had enveloped the capital, air deccan promptly closed its counters and left its passengers stranded, no that's not national shame, its easier to blame the airports for that.
The Airport modernization process is the best example of the governments blind, single minded obsession with privatization, for the Govt privatization means complete abdication of its role and easy revenue to come by. Modernization can also mean changing of internal policies and work ethics to provide more efficiency and transparency at all levels, but we as a democracy don't deserve it. We've never learned from past experiences and we've not learnt from the Gita. We never learn.
Its estimated that India's total air passenger traffic is around 80 million a year. More people travel by trains, buses and roads everyday. Around 4 years back when the government thought about modernizing the Mumbai and Delhi airports, the estimated cost was 2,400 crores/2,800 crores (both in rupees) and it also decided that it didn't have that kind of money, so it was a case of rationality that they started looking for private investment. Yes, i agree that we are a poor country and of all entities the government shouldn't spend that much money to benefit less than 5 % of our people.
Maybe it was a tad too late for India, most countries had de-regulated the civil aviation sector in the 1980s and some even had gone ahead and privatized the national carriers and airports. In India , besides Mumbai and Delhi, the operation and management of the airports at Chennai and Kolkatta were going to be privatised. Hyderabad and Bangalore were going to get new International airports.
During the entire bidding process, which was brimmed with opacity , no one actively opposed the move, infact it had been so long in coming that even the media interest waned. Lull before the storm, maybe. After the first round of evaluation done by independent regulators (ABN -AMRO Bank) only 2 bidders got 80 % and above saw their bids being evaluated further, then the bids were sent to another committee headed by E.Sreedharan it disqualified one of the bids and sent the report to the EGOM. No fingers were pointed at ABN AMRO or the two other committees and an inter - ministerial group that had verified the bids. We all know what happened next, and who won, and who went on strike et al.
The most predictable outcome, and the most shameful, was the strike by the AAI employees. I believe its democratic to strike, but that doesn't mean you leave your work and go around making a mess. A strike should be a registered protest and the government should listen to the protest and work to solve the problem, issuing statements that the strike is illegal and that there were be consequences don't befit a democracy and so the government usually gets what it deserves. Getting out a bit, the Bhagwad Gita states that God shall fulfill every desire of man to the limit he deserves, not covets. The govt and gopi are getting what they deserve.
Regardless of the fact that more people travel by other methods of public transport than by air every year, i believe its crucial to modernize the airports, but is it enough reason to go around in media calling it a "national shame" and trying to get a sympathy vote. I was traveling by train from Pune to Bombay on Friday and since i hadn't reserved my ticket in advance i had to get a general one, for some reason the train was really crowded and i had to carry my bag around my neck and i actually ended up spraining my neck, and my back still hurts. There will be a lot more people facing a similar problem everyday than air travelers over a year, so what needs to be fixed first. Gopi is a businessman and i understand his concerns in a already threatening industry with low margins and intense competition and that he wants to buy more planes and wants more place to keep them, when they are not flying. Its easy to remember that when fog had enveloped the capital, air deccan promptly closed its counters and left its passengers stranded, no that's not national shame, its easier to blame the airports for that.
The Airport modernization process is the best example of the governments blind, single minded obsession with privatization, for the Govt privatization means complete abdication of its role and easy revenue to come by. Modernization can also mean changing of internal policies and work ethics to provide more efficiency and transparency at all levels, but we as a democracy don't deserve it. We've never learned from past experiences and we've not learnt from the Gita. We never learn.
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