Political Views: None

When we see the profile of many people we find this familiar line "Political Views: None". People tend to shy away from political issues, views, political agenda and stuff. What I have been feeling for past few months is that our carelessness towards political issues is the primary reason behind all the problems we face and will continue to face.

Regarding my political stance; I have a liberal view on major issues with a little bit of conservative corner. I generally have an opinion regarding every issue that affects global harmony, global equality, and environment. I do not have a die hard strong opinion about any issue. Being Hindu believer, I can sustain and discuss long arguments for and against Hinduism. Being Indian, I can sustain long arguments for and against Indian policies, history and as such I am not going to get involved in fight if I don't agree with you, and I would respect that every person in the world has a right to have his/her own opinion about several issues and if don't then they should have an opinion about it.

When I say everybody should have an opinion about the things affecting them, I mean that if we do not have an opinion about things surrounding us, we give the power to other people (say politicians, religious leaders) to decide what is good and bad for us. The irony is that it is always the normal citizens who has to suffer the political decisions the most, and the rich and powerful people are not affected by it. Still it is the rich and powerful who decide everything for us. Its been same for ages. Earlier, kings used to do that, now politicians.

In many cases, its same with religion(s), ages long opinions and thoughts are put on us and those who follow them are atheist, and good, while others are bad. Anyways, I will discuss it some other time.

So lets see how politics affect us in our day to day life. I read an article in rediff and below is a good summary of these kind of political decisions.

"Whenever the Indian leadership has hurriedly entered into an agreement with another state, without involving its policy-making processes in the decision, it has proved to be a blunder. The nuclear deal is a historic blunder in the making. If it takes effect, it will prevent India from ever emerging as a full-fledged nuclear-weapons state, and thus rank as serious a blunder as Jawaharlal Nehru's decision to take the Kashmir issue to the UN and accept a ceasefire, the return of Haji Pir to Pakistan under the Tashkent Declaration, and the repeat surrender of battlefield gains at Simla in 1972 without securing a Kashmir settlement."

If you have read the details, the old Mandal commission report was implemented by V.P. Singh in an overnight decision without proper consultation with parliament. Arjun Singh suddenly got up from his bed and proposed to implement Mandal in remaining educational institutions and private sector. We, "especially who think we are elite educational class" do not bother to ask Government, what is the logic behind this policy? where are the statistics? where is the study on which the HRD minister even thought of implementing it?

It is our carelessness that Arjun Singh had courage to make a stupid announcement without backing it up, without discussing with parliament. We do not ask Government proper questions.

• We do not ask government, what they are doing with population issue?
• We do not ask, where they are in regard to promoting alternative energy issue?
• We do not ask government, what they are doing with restoring water quantity and quality for next 50 years?
• We do not ask!
• We do not ask!
• We do nothing!

What we forget is this; India's poor response to Energy issue brought India to such a point where we have to make a nuclear deal as soon as possible else the increasing energy crisis in India will lead up to internal unrest, possibly riots, and halt all the economic growth in India, which will lead to major problems (this could be in less than five years). If it was a secret for you, then this is actually the impetus behind Nuclear Deal.

India's poor response to water resources today will bring India to a point where India will have to get involved in a deal where we may have to buy water from other countries. It appears rubbish now, but it may become a reality in future, which means ten or less than ten years. These are not "just" speculations, these are probable realities. We do not ask our government what they are doing about it.

Its a duty of every citizen of every country to spend some time of the day in reading and understanding (that's most important, before expressing yourself) and commenting thoughtfully through newspaper article, comments, online discussions, blogs, peer discussions, writing letters to news channel about discussing this issues and lot more.

Real democracy will only come, if the individuals express themselves.
All in all, express yourself. We can bring a change.

Cheers
Anurag

Category: Political

How much power are we gonna eat for our stupid conveniences?

Saw this interesting article on BBC. Basically, the article talks about how much energy inefficient we are.

The article looks at very simple thing, "electronics on stand by". Well, we never thought about it, right? We just keep our computer, VCR, DVD, TV on standby so that we can switch them on using remote in an "instant". But how much power do we consume doing that? Just to give you a perspective from the data in the article.

"Figures from the Energy Saving Trust on standby power use in the UK home are astonishing:

• Stereos on standby cost £290m and produce 1.6 million tonnes of CO2
• VCRs and DVD cost £263m and produce 1.06 million tonnes of CO2
• TVs on standby cost £88m and produce 480,000 tonnes of CO2"

This number clearly shows how much we are harming our environment for our stupid conveniences. Conveniences are good, that makes life easier, but at this cost??

In my apartment, there is no switch for the plug points i.e. I have to pull the power plug to diconnet the device. I think that is becoming pretty much the standard. However, we should have a switch to disconnet the devices. Here is an article on similar lines, which say that Britons waste the equivament of around two power stantions worth of electricity by leaving TV sets and other gadgets on standby.

What I am really concerned about is that the article talk about a very normal and small issue which has big impacts, and we are gonna forget about it as soon as we see another interesting news. My reason for blogging about it is to highlight the issue more, so that a few more people can think about it.

What we should do right now?

1. Never leave your computer with Monitor "ON" or screensavers running.

2. Shut down your computer when you are going to sleep, unless you have some program running or you are waiting for the irritating sound from the instant messenger to wake you up.

3. Connect your devices like TV, VCR, and DVD from a surge protector or extension board with a power switch, so that you can switch these devices off with only one click.

4. In colleges, we cannot switch the computers off (due to whatever reason), make sure to switch off the monitor.

It our duty to contribute our small part, our small effort to make environment better and survivable for future generations., Lets not ruin it for our petty small conveniences.

Cheers,
Anurag

Category: General/Random

Indians are looking for Hi Tech Products

Felt good to read the article. It was still disheartening to see only 5% of Indians have access to the computers.

The article also mentioned about a wonderful keyboard, which can use Pen Gesture to be used for data entry. It may sound like tablet PC, but its definitely a much simpler, cheaper and efficient version. Especially, with so many languages an dilaects in India, this pen thing would actually help a lot of people getting acclamatised to computer.
Other interesting gadget was $100 green computer developed at MIT. It will be in production by 2007. I hope it will serve a long way in making India computer literate.

Cheers
Anurag

Category: General/Random

So, I probably won $25000, or a car worth $30000

I got a call yesterday, where the caller said that I filled a form in NRV Mall (Christiansburg) and it has been selected for a award. There are three awards of which I won one for sure. The first prize is $25000 or a car worth $30000, the second prize is a trip in a multimillion dollar hotel, and third prize is $500 cash.

The caller (Nicole Biery) invited me to "Wilderness Presidential Park" at Spotsylvania, VA to claim that prize. The address to that location is 9220-A Plank Road, Spotsylvania, VA. They gave me a award number and insisted that I go there with my wife.

Well, I have never been so lucky, so I tried to get more information about that park in Google, and I found the following as the first link.

http://www.complaints.com/directory/2004/september/4/2.htm

The interesting thing is that there is no such thing as "Wilderness Presidential Park", but somewhat related to it. Though the address appears to be correct (??).

I am scared to go there, and probably won't be going, but did anybody have any such experience regarding that? I would love to know more about that. Should I complain to police about it?

Anurag :(
(I wish I could win $25000)

Category: General/Random

So, Brazil will be Energy Independent by the end of this year!

Well, does that surprise you? If not think about it a little more.

Brazil will be using ethanol produced from sugar for about half of its energy needs. Sugar is obtained from sugarcane, which can be produced in plenty of amounts in Brazil. In a world of fossil fuels where big wars (Iraq is the latest example) are going over just oil, this is a tremendous achievement. From where I look at it, its an issue of utter shame for all the developed nations, including US, and EU. Or, may be big nations do not care about it.

Anyways, in today's date, every country's major expense is in buying oil and gas, and its exploration. If a nation achieves this independence, just realize how much a nation can become independent with regard to its economy. This holds especially true for India. India is already having hard time in pursuading big nations to provide nuclear fuel to India for its energy needs, and with a nuclear deal with US, I don't see much better future either.

Becoming energy independent, and most of it depends on reducing dependence on fossil fuesl, will pay rich dividends for India and the world in future. Dr. Kalam also mentioned the importance of energy independence in his address to nation on Republic Day. I believe India should do some big investments in this sector, and probably we can be energy independent in less than a decade.

Anurag

For more information about Ethanol as fuel, click here

EDIT:

Indian President's View on Renewable Energy.

I found a nice relevant article on similar topic but different lines.
http://www.drishtikona.com/archives/government_policyadministration/001238.php

Category: General/Random