As the saying goes :

Only two things are infinite: the Universe and human stupidity, and I am not so sure about the former - Albert Einstein

Women like Kavitha Krishnan should leave India!

No I didn't make this statement...

We, a group of 2 men and 2 women,  were having a rather loud discussion in our office cafeteria on women, women in India, women making decisions in family... 

The topic suddenly took a sharp turn to the recent tweet by Kavitha Krishnan on the #selfiewithdaughter campaign... and this was a statement made y my colleague - it seems women like her (sic) are the reason why NGOs/ peoples movements are viewed with distrust in India now... 

Medha Patkar, Teesta Setalvad, Kavitha Krishnan  ... the virulence against women creating awareness, working on civil liberties and social issues ... in particular, the virulence and hatred against women who have created strong identities for themselves sans' Industry/ government backing, is so strong that I am actually taken aback.

Whereas women to be emulated or who receive appaluse are Sudha Murthy (of Infosys Foundation fame), Nita Ambani (reliance Foundation fame) etc...

The former are abused as commies (and that is the mildest abuse), "nautanki", bitch etc... The others are championed as ideal women leaders. 

A woman's dissent should be such that she is heard in the sweetest of voices, appear in softest/ fariest light and ofcourse be complimentary of men in general, men in her life... :) 

Oil Prices

The International crude oil was $ 110/ barrel in June 2014. It is $ 63 / barrel in June 2015.

In Chennai the petrol price was Rs 75/ litre in June 2014. It is Rs 70/ lit in June 2015.

Hmmm...

Majoritarianism - The solution to Democracy!

From an article by Gopalkrishna Gandhi:

"The question takes us back to Nicholas I and Indira Gandhi. Like those two historical figures, Prime Minister Modi has a sense of ‘order’. He backs that up with an attentiveness to his own fitness, punctuality, ‘turnout’. By personally leading, like an adept instructor, the phalanx gathered on the Rajpath lawns, he has choreographed yoga into an opera of mass power. But not just of power as in wholesome personal strength. Rather, power as in a collective mission, a mass drill that goes beyond personal well-being into a national nostrum, a national mission that bears an unmistakable family resemblance to the drills by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. And what is the mission’s message?

Quite simply, this: ‘We have been a weak nation, a nation of do-gooders and pacifists, of men who are afraid of the noise of crackers, the smell of smoke. Men of withered wills and sunken chests. It is time we built up our sinews, physical and mental, time we toned up our tissues, tightened our tendons. We must retrieve Bharat from the shambles that our so-called liberal leaders of the last six decades have left us…They were not leaders but mis-leaders who tell us that being muscled-up is mean, being belligerent is bullying. In fact such peacemakers and liberals are dangerous anarchists. Let us march, not saunter, stand and sit in neat rows, not haphazardly, observe mauna rather than chatter away and if we have to speak, let us speak on the glory of Bharat Mata…’

Forty years ago, the Emergency spoke the same script. There were no Yoga Day type drills organised at the time but ‘spontaneous’ rallies were called to hail the proclamation, hail the Emancipator. Even as mass leaders were jailed, sections of the middle class welcomed a sudden improvement in the punctuality of train movements, attendance in government offices, the check on profiteering that followed. ‘Honesty’ at shopfloors and workplaces became visible. But all ‘for the present’, because it was imposed by fiat, monitored by fiat, by fear, by bhayayoga.

A person who has recovered from a stroke values the faculties of motor ability, mental comprehension and speech more than one who never lost it.

The Constitution as amended in 1978 has made a proclamation of the 1975 type National Emergency impossible. What we have to be wary of is something as bad — the robotisation of our minds into a ‘yogic’ acceptance of one drill — majoritarianism — and its masterful drill-master.

Cutting the Food Act to the bone - The Hindu

Simple definition - Food Security means having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.



Why are we backing away from implementing National Food Secuity Act? Is it that in order to maintain a docile workforce for the Industry - you need a hungry society?



Revolution happens when people demand change - when your workforce remains hungry the worry is about the next square meal and not about rights - like equality, freedom of thought etc. 



Cutting the Food Act to the bone - The Hindu 

Yes, there’s sexism in science

Sexism in work area,
disrimination based on gender has been talked about since - EVER!

Since 1901 more than 500 men have won a Nobel Prize in the
sciences. Only 15 of them—about 3 percent—have been women. 

A Nobel
Prize-winning scientist Tim Hunt is supposed to have said
this “Three things happen when they are in the lab.... You fall in
love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them, they
cry."  He won the 2001 Nobel Prize in medicine for his work
on cell division and was talking about women. (Ref: Article in Washington Post)

A
study conducted by Yale University highlighted the unconscious gender
biases in hiring processes for women in science academia. When they
controlled for all other variables, the researchers found out what was holding
these fake women back from their dream jobs: All other things being equal, the
academic hiring squads were rating the women as less competent than the men.

Now the discussion turns to the tech icons of the last 2 decades - we have heard of Steve Jobs, Zuckerberg etc.... Today's tech icons are all men - the nerd is pictured as a white man...



Well a link to Indian scientists into the repository of all knowledge under the Sun online 



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_scientists lists about 140 scientists  - 139 Men and 1 woman (social scientist)! kindly note this list has names of Aryabhatta, Mahāvīra, Varāhamihira

I read this article in The Hindu ... wanted to share it 

Yes, there’s sexism in science - The Hindu

Rape accused granted bail by Madras High Court to 'mediate' with victim - Seriously!

This is one of the most ridiculous judgement - I have read! In what cuckoo land is the judge living??

Picked this from  CNN-IBN - I don't know how authentic the news is - need to read about before I conclude that the news is true... 

In an unusual development, the Madras High Court has granted bail to a rape accused so that he could participate in a mediation process with the victim in the case.

According to a report in The Indian Express, the victim was a minor when the incident happened, and has now lost her parents. The victim also gave birth to a child after the rape.

The decision by the Madras High Court to release the accused on bail came after the alleged culprit filed an appeal and a bail petition.

The judge who granted bail to the accused claimed that he had referred a similar case for mediation and the result of it was...

Now to an unusual judgment in a rape case "happy conclusion" as the accused had agreed to marry the victim.