An amazing TED talk by Manal-al-Sharif, an activist fighting for the right to drive for women in Saudi Arabia. She asks a very pertinent question, "Who do you think is harder to fight, oppressive governments or oppressive societies?"
http://www.gotstared.at/blog/personal/saudi-woman-decided-to-drive/
Jun 28, 2013
Jun 25, 2013
Jun 22, 2013
Here's an excerpt from a beloved fairytale, "How a woodpecker chopped a Spruce-tree". This is from the book, Tales of the Amber sea: Fairy Tales Of The Peoples Of Estonia, Latvia And Lithuania by Irina Zheleznova and Anatoly Belyukin.
"A woodpecker once flew up to a spruce-tree, lighted on its very top, and, rocking back and forth, sang:
"I will chop this spruce-tree down,
Make a cudgel of its crown,
Wave it once and at a blow
Every beast I see lay low! ""
The lines above are the opening lines of the story. The animals of the jungle who hear the woodpecker's threat are frightened and run helter-skelter spreading the news far and wide and calling a counsel to prevent the spruce tree from falling. Soon, it is decided that the animals will hold on to the tree at the sides and thus prevent it from falling. They collect around the tree and start pushing and pulling which makes the tree shake and finally snap in two. The animals are in awe of the woodpecker's strength as he claims his victory in having chopped down the spruce tree.
So relevant in real life too, isn't it?
http://www.fairy-tales.parnas.info/en/lithunian/woodpecker.html
"A woodpecker once flew up to a spruce-tree, lighted on its very top, and, rocking back and forth, sang:
"I will chop this spruce-tree down,
Make a cudgel of its crown,
Wave it once and at a blow
Every beast I see lay low! ""
The lines above are the opening lines of the story. The animals of the jungle who hear the woodpecker's threat are frightened and run helter-skelter spreading the news far and wide and calling a counsel to prevent the spruce tree from falling. Soon, it is decided that the animals will hold on to the tree at the sides and thus prevent it from falling. They collect around the tree and start pushing and pulling which makes the tree shake and finally snap in two. The animals are in awe of the woodpecker's strength as he claims his victory in having chopped down the spruce tree.
So relevant in real life too, isn't it?
http://www.fairy-tales.parnas.info/en/lithunian/woodpecker.html
The just-joker
What is a fail-safe way to get away with making sexist, racist gibes at someone?
End your sentences with 'just joking' in conversation or with one of these in written communication " :p, :), :D, ;) ". Everything will be forgiven and if it isn't, you can just pin the blame on your victim by cracking another 'joke' on their inability to take your witticisms sportingly. You will come out smelling of roses (stinking, dead, plastic ones, I hope) after this.
End your sentences with 'just joking' in conversation or with one of these in written communication " :p, :), :D, ;) ". Everything will be forgiven and if it isn't, you can just pin the blame on your victim by cracking another 'joke' on their inability to take your witticisms sportingly. You will come out smelling of roses (stinking, dead, plastic ones, I hope) after this.
Jun 17, 2013
Jun 15, 2013
Why CMS is an 'issue'.
If you were on M.G. road last Sunday like me hoping to join the meeting about India's CMS, which I also wrote about in my last post, you were probably as disappointed as I was. The protests had been called off cause the group that started it did not find a good enough response in the days leading up to the event.
However, there's a call for the protest again, this time to be held in a few months time which leaves us a lot of time to gather together and spread the word better. I hope to do my part in talking about it.
A lot of people around me seem to think that this issue isn't important enough when there are so many other bigger issues that need our attention. I had a talk along these lines with a friend last evening.
There's a very common saying 'Information is power'.
If you agree with that, who would you trust with that power today?
I don't see how this issue isn't relevant when it is in these last few years than at any other time in our country's history, that we've been besieged with news about how power has been blatantly misused for personal gains in various creative ways by the few who wield it. Call me paranoid, if you like but this clamour for even more invasive monitoring of everyone's private communications and also the wider internet makes me imagine a world where there will soon be huge markets to buy and sell private information on an even more dangerous level than before, it's because I simply don't expect the information that will be gathered under CMS to not be disseminated among all the wrong people if it suits the people controlling it. There's still no known cure for greed.
Most importantly, I worry for the whistleblowers and the activists, these are people who I think do very valuable work and frequently at great personal risk. In our country, this kind of surveillance will only diminish our freedom of expression further because our politicians only seem to use it quash any negative opinions and control what us little people think of them.
There's a rather old story that I want to end with, it won't immediately connect with the monitoring issue at hand but still gives us something to think about how information when entrusted with people can be misused. About ten years ago, a man was murdered in Gaya, Bihar. His name was Satyendra Dubey. During the course of the investigation that followed, it was revealed that this project director at the National Highways authority India (NHAI) had written a letter directly to the PM, critical of the financial irregularities in the Golden Quadrilateral project. This letter was subsequently circulated inside the government and leaked despite the whistleblower's request to keep his identity a secret. It was quite clear to most people that the sensitive information in the letter was allowed to fall into the wrong hands and which soon led to the murder of a very brave, honest man.
Do you still feel this issue isn't relevant enough to you?
However, there's a call for the protest again, this time to be held in a few months time which leaves us a lot of time to gather together and spread the word better. I hope to do my part in talking about it.
A lot of people around me seem to think that this issue isn't important enough when there are so many other bigger issues that need our attention. I had a talk along these lines with a friend last evening.
There's a very common saying 'Information is power'.
If you agree with that, who would you trust with that power today?
I don't see how this issue isn't relevant when it is in these last few years than at any other time in our country's history, that we've been besieged with news about how power has been blatantly misused for personal gains in various creative ways by the few who wield it. Call me paranoid, if you like but this clamour for even more invasive monitoring of everyone's private communications and also the wider internet makes me imagine a world where there will soon be huge markets to buy and sell private information on an even more dangerous level than before, it's because I simply don't expect the information that will be gathered under CMS to not be disseminated among all the wrong people if it suits the people controlling it. There's still no known cure for greed.
Most importantly, I worry for the whistleblowers and the activists, these are people who I think do very valuable work and frequently at great personal risk. In our country, this kind of surveillance will only diminish our freedom of expression further because our politicians only seem to use it quash any negative opinions and control what us little people think of them.
There's a rather old story that I want to end with, it won't immediately connect with the monitoring issue at hand but still gives us something to think about how information when entrusted with people can be misused. About ten years ago, a man was murdered in Gaya, Bihar. His name was Satyendra Dubey. During the course of the investigation that followed, it was revealed that this project director at the National Highways authority India (NHAI) had written a letter directly to the PM, critical of the financial irregularities in the Golden Quadrilateral project. This letter was subsequently circulated inside the government and leaked despite the whistleblower's request to keep his identity a secret. It was quite clear to most people that the sensitive information in the letter was allowed to fall into the wrong hands and which soon led to the murder of a very brave, honest man.
Do you still feel this issue isn't relevant enough to you?
Jun 9, 2013
Old gold
This is one of my favorite hindi poems. It is by Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar'. It talks about being brave in the face of adversity.
सच है, विपत्ति जब आती है,
कायर को ही दहलाती है,
सूरमा नही विचलित होते,
क्षण एक नहीं धीरज खोते,
विघ्नों को गले लगाते हैं,
काँटों में राह बनाते हैं
मुँह से न कभी उफ़ कहते हैं,
संकट का चरण न गहते हैं,
जो आ पड़ता सब सहते हैं,
उद्योग-निरत नित रहते हैं,
शूलों का मूल नसाते हैं,
बढ़ खुद विपत्ति पर छाते हैं।
है कौन विघ्न ऐसा जग में,
टिक सके आदमी के मग में?
खम ठोक ठेलता है जब नर,
पर्वत के जाते पाँव उखड़,
मानव जब ज़ोर लगाता है,
पत्थर पानी बन जाता है।
गुण बड़े एक से एक प्रखर,
है छिपे मानवों के भीतर,
मेंहदी में जैसे लाली हो,
वर्तिका-बीच उजियाली हो,
बत्ती जो नही जलाता है,
रोशनी नहीं वह पाता है।
वीर – रामधारी सिंह दिनकर
सच है, विपत्ति जब आती है,
कायर को ही दहलाती है,
सूरमा नही विचलित होते,
क्षण एक नहीं धीरज खोते,
विघ्नों को गले लगाते हैं,
काँटों में राह बनाते हैं
मुँह से न कभी उफ़ कहते हैं,
संकट का चरण न गहते हैं,
जो आ पड़ता सब सहते हैं,
उद्योग-निरत नित रहते हैं,
शूलों का मूल नसाते हैं,
बढ़ खुद विपत्ति पर छाते हैं।
है कौन विघ्न ऐसा जग में,
टिक सके आदमी के मग में?
खम ठोक ठेलता है जब नर,
पर्वत के जाते पाँव उखड़,
मानव जब ज़ोर लगाता है,
पत्थर पानी बन जाता है।
गुण बड़े एक से एक प्रखर,
है छिपे मानवों के भीतर,
मेंहदी में जैसे लाली हो,
वर्तिका-बीच उजियाली हो,
बत्ती जो नही जलाता है,
रोशनी नहीं वह पाता है।
वीर – रामधारी सिंह दिनकर
Jun 7, 2013
What I'm doing this Sunday on M.G. road.
Ever since I finished my exams, I've been in a rage to do all the things I've denied myself for the past year and a half. That's how I find myself looking forward to going to the protest against India's central monitoring system, CMS or ICMS as it is generally known, to be held in Bangalore this Sunday.
As if it wasn't bad enough that I'm still cyber stalked by my ex(s), the Government wants to do it too! Well, to you and to me and everybody else, I think this should be very worrying.
It's quite sneaky how they've slowly been trying to start monitoring our e-mails, texts, calls, and even the holy internet with almost no hint of it being discussed in parliament or even most of the media. I wish this was being discussed as frantically as corruption in IPL, but that's another post.
My reading makes me arrive at the conclusion that there are going to be at least two huge ways in which my life is going to be impacted by this move. Firstly, a very unreliable, corrupt and non-transparent entity is arming itself with a tool that allows it to read through all of my private information with absolutely no accountability and very vague or no ideas about how it is going to regulate it's own folk from misusing this immense information. I am also suspicious cause I've heard so little about this from the government. The stealth with which they've been trying to roll out the system makes me doubtful of their intentions. Second, my dear, holy internet is not going to be the same. Remember what happened to the girls in Mumbai, who put up a very innocuous post on Bal Thackeray's death about the total lock down of the city? I think there's every reason to believe that this censorship is primarily going to be to restrict any criticism of public figures. This old report and many others on the hindu suggest that the government has increasingly requested for removal of content that it did not find convenient to itself. I hate any attempts at restricting what I read, I couldn't choose where to read my history from during school, but I want to retain the unequivocal right to choose what I am exposed to during my adulthood.
Living in India for the powerless, invisible majority, has always felt like living under intense pressure of constricting, contracting and stifling yourself so that the bigger, more powerful people do not notice you enough to want to delete you or choke you altogether for their gains. They simply can't be trusted and this feels like just another way of pushing us further into our dark, desperate corners.
#stopicms
Jun 4, 2013
Test for God
Someone said this to me today and I felt it perfectly summed up a lot of what I think about God.
"Test for God: If it gets insulted, it is not God.
"Test for God: If it gets insulted, it is not God.
Jun 2, 2013
Last night after dinner...
M says: It's a pity that there are always people out to dole free advice when you don't need it and there's no one when you actually need help.
I say: It's a pity we can't run down to the liquor store nearby to get a couple of breezers cause my waistband feels too tight.
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