Casteism: Does it really happen in Colleges in India?
With the sad demise of a PhD scholar coming in from Hyderabad, a debate has been raging if the monster of casteism is still alive in the temples of education? That it used to be rampant in the past is a documented fact which no one denies. But since the days of Mandal, have things changed or are they the same.
I can tell from my college experience that I didn’t notice any such incident. And mind you, I was very vocal on such issues and Editor of College Newspaper. But then my campus was not at the center of politics. It was a laid back campus just concerned about studies. That I was one of the most political guy in the campus won’t be an smug statement.
I am not overtly qualified in passing judgements for other colleges. But based on what I have observed, I am not too positive that it takes place in other colleges too. But again the dead students’ family and friends will be the best people to comment on this particular case. It might have happened or it might not have.
What I don’t like is the politicization of college campuses. It’s fine during times of uprising and revolutions; It really hurts during peace time. I have been an advocate of ending student body elections and political groups. It hampers academics. I know there are arguments for it also, but cons are too glaring. Students will be able to contribute more if they stick to studies.
If students need to do politics, it should out of the campus. Same goes for ministers and college administration. Keep your politics out of it. Hence my open dislike for recently organized talk on Temple formation in a college in Delhi. Also my open dislike for the students/faculties of that very college for they are the ones who have relegated their campus to political playground for a long time now.
Until politics is taken out of college campuses, our nation will continue to lose the sons of the soil.
Then I woke up
After quite a while, I had a bad dream last night. Funnily enough, I remember quite a few details of it. With those details in mind, I try to understand the reason behind the dream.
I have not been in a great spirits last few weeks with a lot of things bothering me, and I guess this dream might be connected to it.
The setting was in a neighborhood that I have lived in long back. But it was O! So drastically changing. It was not completely changed, mind you. But huge infrastructural change was going on in front of me. I was there discussing with an unknown young fellow about landmarks which were no longer there.
Then there was a murder case which that guy told me about. A murder that took place in the same neighborhood recently, but in a house that was not there during my time. It was a two story house overlooking a lake. But there was no lake when I lived there. A guy killed a girl and then shot himself. They were both students who lived on rent there. Then there was a tale of the ‘girl that lived’. Apparently this guy open fired, one girl died on the stop and the other girl remain unscathed.
I found myself talking to that dead girl. Séance of some kind. She was telling me how that guy entered her room, told her he has already killed two others and shot her dead. She didn’t know anything else. There was no reference of two others killed anywhere in my dream.
I found myself crying for some reason with all the sadness around. Then I woke up.
Plea to Chief Justice of Supreme Court: Clean the rotten eggs of Judiciary
I know the first defense for judicial custody of Palak (Kiku Sharda) in Baba Ram Rahim case would be, will such comedians dare play Prophet? How would they piss their pants thinking of backlash from minority fringe! Agreed. But why to fall to their standards. We are better than that.
I know moving courts is a civilized reaction when compared to Malda riots, and I appreciate Baba’s followers didn’t go the Malda route. I have nothing against Baba’s hardcore supporters going court. It’s their democratic right. But I have issue with the Magistrate who remanded Palak to judicial custody.
The only pillar of Democracy with some ethics left, is too withering away with such decisions. Such frivolous cases need to be thrown out of the window at the onset. I hope top Judges are watching this, pull up the people below and devise guidelines for lower rungs to adhere to.
But when the ‘stands exposed’ Finance Minister himself is clogging up judicial system to fight his politics, how can we expect anything else.
सो पाऊँ
थोड़ी असमंजस में हूँ यारों,
किस राह चलूँ ये बूझूँ मैं,
या खटिया डाल के सो जाऊं?
कुछ करने को करे न मन,
बांधूं औ हो जाऊं कण-२,
या चादर ओढ़ के सो जाऊं?
खा के डाकारूं, डकार के खाऊं,
कभी हफ्ते-२ नहीं नहाऊँ,
या तकिया लगा के सो जाऊं?
आधे अधूरे ख्वाब हैं आते,
पूरा कैसे उनको कर पाऊँ?
या बत्ती बुझा के सो जाऊं?
दिल धक-२ कर धड़क उठे,
लगे के जैसे मैं उड़ जाऊं?
या ख्वाब संजो के सो जाऊं?
कुछ राह मिले, तो चाह मिले,
सुकून आये, जब साँझ ढले,
अब उठूँ, ताकि कल सो पाऊँ॥
Kejriwal: Just another Neta?
Communal riots in Malda has been in news for around a week now. Mamta Banerjee and her ilk, has reacted as expected. Deafening silence in the name of appeasement. BJP has been high on vocals and justifiably so, after long they are on the right. Among this there are two politicians I want to concentrate. Modi and Kejriwal on Dadri and Malda.
Modi has been silent on both and let his Govt. speak. Kejriwal has been vocal on Dadri but ‘finger on your lips’ on Malda. And this saddens me. We expected better.
You take on Jaitley, people support you. You do odd/even, people support you. You go to Dadri, people support you. You set up commission on 1984, people support you. But if you now be selective like Award Waapsi Brigade, how do you expect people to support you?
You took a stand on Dadri. You need to take a stand on Malda. I am not saying you speak on anything and everything but you should have some parity. When reporters ask you on Malda, you rush away. That’s purely disgraceful. People of Delhi might be with you for your good governance. But you are losing a lot of your supporters by such hypocrisy.
It is expected of Mamta, Nitish, Lalu, Gandhi, the whole AwardWaapsi gang, but it’s not expected of you. There is still time. Course correct and don’t become another run of mill the minority appeasing majority leader. Call a spade a spade.
Aamir Khan Issue: Let’s look it from Brand Point of View
So Aamir Khan is no longer a face of Incredible India Brand Building Campaign. Media debates and public discourse followed. Diverse views of vendetta and course correction were put forward. Let’s look at this decision from the brand point of view.
Aamir is promoting India as a tourist friendly country to get more and more people to visit India. And when he discusses how his wife wanted to leave India due to intolerance and he too feels despondency in the air, what it does to the brand India? Tourists would be like, “Dude the brand ambassador of India himself does not feel safe in India, to hell with going there. Let’s party in Ibiza”.
Won’t a responsible CEO pull up the ads and replace the brand ambassador to save the brand? This is what exactly Indian Govt. has done. When Aamir did the movie PK, and if he went on air and said, “I felt I should not have done PK. is the most pathetic movie ever made. Waste of time, don’t watch it”, wouldn’t it had affected the movie? Of course it would have. Wouldn’t the producer pull away Aamir from movie promotions?
What if Aamir had said, Coco Cola is a pesticide disguised as a soft drink, wouldn’t he have been replaced and contract scrapped. He might also have been sued by the company. If tomorrow I publicly badmouth the firm I work at, would I not be pulled up and subjected to disciplinary action. Does it really infringe my freedom of speech? Those who sympathize with Aamir and berate the Govt, try badmouthing your employer. Scared? You should be.
Aamir Khan is doing Incredible India for free. And here lies the problem. When you do something for free, you don’t have anything to lose. Had it been a 10cr/year contract, he would have thought 10 times before damaging the brand. He would fear losing the contract. I don’t blame him, we all are like that.
I would suggest Govt whoever they choose as the brand ambassador, either pay him/she well or if they refuse to be paid, ask them to sign a contract which mentions that their actions in any way should not demean the brand India.
Delhi Management Quota Abolished: Is it really happening?
All of us berate the management quota in schools/colleges. We know how seats are openly sold under management quota. What do we do? Nothing! Make provision for money so that we can buy seat for our child. Actually we common people can do nothing else.
But now things are changing at least in Delhi. Management Quota has been abolished by Delhi Govt. And what a feel of fresh air it is. I sometimes wonder who let such blatant corruption tool function in the first place. And it is not even a clandestine thing. It happens openly in all schools and colleges by private players.
It might not be good news for the rich, but it sure is good news for common people of Delhi. Hope we create more schools so that need of such corruption ends entirely. Hope other states emulate this too. Next is strengthening Govt. schools to give us a true RTE.
Siddharth Dhar proves why Terrorist Sympathizers in India should be put behind bars
We have seen a lot of people in India who come across as Terrorist sympathizers. They find reasons to justify jihadi terrorism. They come on TV and deny to condemn Terrorists. They are regarded as intellectuals by their like. Siddharth Dhar aka ‘Jihadi John 2’ was one such British citizen.
He is a classic example of terrorism apologists. Many a times he justified terrorism as revenge attacks by the oppressed. He openly wrote and participated in TV debates. Just like our own shameless media, British media too gave him audience. Many admired him as a balanced intellectual.
Look what happened. This Islam convert has become Jihadi John 2. Given an opportunity all these Terrorism apologists will not blink an eye before killing alongside Terrorists.
I urge people to shame such people openly and strip them off their moral high ground. I urge media to have some shame and not provide such people an audience. I urge Govt to put any such people behind bars. Stemming the spread of propaganda is a potent way to nip terrorism in its bud.
बच्चा पहले ही मर गया था
मेरा बचपन आगरा शहर में बीता है। दिल्ली की कड़ाके की सर्दी क्या होती है, मैंने महसूस करी है। रूह कंपा देती है। जल्द से जल्द घर पहुंचकर रजाई में दुपक जाता था। बेघर लोगो बेचारे ऐसी सर्दी में क्या करते होंगे, बचपन में यह ख़याल कभी नहीं आया। बड़ा होकर पाया की उनमें से काफी लोग, सर्दी में दम तोड़ देते हैं।
जो दिल्ली में हुआ, ऐसा नहीं है की यह पहली बार हुआ है हमारे देश में। ऐसी तोड़फोड़ पहले भी होती रही है जगह खाली कराने के लिए। अतिक्रमण हटाना। मुझे कभी इसका मतलब समझ नहीं आया। यहाँ से भागो, कहीं और जाके मारो। मुझे बस इतना ही समझ आता है।
मुझे दुःख इसलिए ज्यादा है, कि मुझे लगा था की मोदीजी सबसे आगे खड़े होंगे, इन गरीबों को बचाने के लिए। भारत सरकार ने बोला, “बच्चा पहले ही मर गया था”, तोड़फोड़ बाद में हुई। मान लो २ मिनट की बच्चा पहले मर गया था। तो इससे ज्यादा भीषण रूप कुछ और नहीं हो सकता, कि जिसके घर में मौत हुई, उसका घर उजाड़ा गया।
मैं शर्मसार हूँ, ऐसे तंत्र का हिस्सा होने पे। जमीन तो भगवान ने बनायी थी, कबसे रेलवे की जागीर हो गयी। कौनसे वो बेचारे शौक से झुग्गी में रहते थे? विकास के नाम पे सबको रौंदते चलो।
An Open Letter to Judiciary
Dear Judiciary,
A lot has been discussed, said, written, re-discussed, re-said, re-written about powerful people getting scot free for alleged crimes. From wealthy, to notorious, to politicians to film personalities. There are ample examples of people getting let go by police or judiciary over the years. There have been few cases of-late which were able to stem this. But they were a rarity rather than being the norm. Nitish Katara case and Sanjay Dutt case are the only ones that come to mind.
From Lalu to Jayalalita to Salman to Sonia to Rahul to Advani to Modi to Pawar. All are running free. Either freed from jail or out on bail. With a battery of expensive lawyers, they are all out of jails.
And I have no issues with them being out per say. They are rich and influential people and as term suggest they can buy and influence. What I have is the issue with the charade we go through for 15-20 years to finally come to the conclusion to let them free. Poor people meanwhile languish in jails without trail and never even get bail.
I feel we should better devise a formula which takes into account money a person has, what is his/her social/political standing and how popular he/she is. We can have separate courts for that. Based on the result of this formula, if a person fares well, he is acquitted then and there. Else he is put in jail without trail or bail.
It would save everyone a lot of time.
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