Western double standards

Sri Lankan president had to cancel his UK trip since he may face arrest in UK as under the principle of universal jurisdiction, war crimes and crimes against humanity can be prosecuted in UK even if they were not committed in the country. The foreign minister of Sri Lanka has been advised by their British counter part that the current Sri Lankan government must demonstrate its unconditional commitment to democracy. I do not understand what right they have to judge other countries for their commitment to democracy. I wonder if the British will offer a similar treatment to a visiting current or former US president for war crimes committed in places like Iraq or Afghanistan.

Rights vs. Entitlements

Freedom of speech is a right. Freedom of choosing one's religion is a right. Information is a right. Freedom to pursue happiness is a right. Freedom to own property is a right. Food is an entitlement. Education is an entitlement. Work is an entitlement.

So what is the difference? Rights are freedoms from oppression by the state or by the society. Rights are based on the premise that all humans are born equal and the society and government cannot restrict the freedom of a person or discriminate between them based on race, gender, or religion. Entitlements are welfare measures entailing government handouts and are naturally constrained by budget. Rights are universal, entitlements are not.

Rights don't cost government a penny in principle. But government is responsible for protecting the rights of a citizen if any one else or any part of government machinery is infringing on it. This is part of the policing function of government. All citizens have same rights.

Entitlements however cost money. Government has to plan for welfare within its budgetary constraints. Welfare is mostly targeted towards the poor of the country. A rich person doesn't need government support for food or the education of his children. Its the poor of the people who cannot afford such things on their own who need government support for the same. Nevertheless food, education, work and infrastructure are important basic requirements for well being and successful living of the citizens of a state. Hence they are also called secondary rights. Still they should be planned very carefully. Too much of it can make people become complacent as well as lead to the bankruptcy of state. Communist states gave priority to entitlement over rights. This was a road to the servitude to the state and led to massive unrest in the society. Today very few of the communist states are left in the world. Democratic countries like Greece which prided too much on socialist entitlement to its people; are finding it very difficult to take care of their public debt now.

We should appreciate the difference between fundamental rights and secondary rights or entitlements. This will help us plan much better for the future of our country.

Reference:

Swaminomics, Times of India, August 29, 2010, Lets not confuse entitlements with rights

I disown CWG 2010

Sheila Dikshit says that if the rain doesn't stop then she will pray and she will ask the whole country to pray. I want to be clear that I am not going to pray for the gigantic mismanagement and the loot carried out by CWG 2010. I disown CWG 2010. I will not watch it either in TV or in person. I will not read about it in news papers. And I will not care if its failure leads to a so called severe blow to the pride of India. It is probably the biggest organized loot ever in India since its independence. It has destroyed CP and created a havoc all around Delhi. Nobody cares about actually meeting deadlines. It has put enormous tax burden on citizens of the country. I do not wish to have a sense of guilt for the failure of a set of people who have no sense of responsibility and who only care about filling their personal coffers.

Stockholm syndrome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stockholm syndrome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Raavan movie is a depiction of Stockholm syndrome.

Corporal Punishment in Schools

The article on Wikipedia describes the current situation on application of corporal punishments in schools (caning or striking a student a given number of times) across the world.

Interestingly Russia and China banned it for decades since it is against the communist philosophy. Several studies have shown that corporal punishment is not as effective as other positive means of managing student behavior. At the moment a number of countries across the world have banned it.

Much of it was originated by the British in 19th and 20th century. They have themselves abolished corporal punishment in schools now; but a lot of developing countries in the English speaking world including our very own India are still stuck in a time warp. When a Soviet school principal visited a British school in 1960's, he was shocked to see the instances of caning. He said, caning is degrading to the student and even more to the staff administering it to the student.

I would say that caning is pretty much a form of violence. And I would quote Isaac Asimov here "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

I can now correlate why there is never a caning instance in all the Harry Potter novels. At most you see students being called for detention which is much more effective technique though it consumes extra time from both the student and the teacher. I am ignoring the methods used by Dolores Umbrige who was more of a vamp anyway.

On Pandavas and Kauravas

I wonder why there were 5 Pandavas. 2 of them were pretty useless and added pretty much no value to the story! As a matter of fact, out of the 99 brothers Duryodhana had, only 2 or 3 had any real contribution to the story. For the rest of them I guess the whole purpose of existence was to be slayed in the Mahabharata war by Bheema. Oh yeah, the other purpose was to demonstrate that Maharshi Ved Vyasa knew of so powerful test-tube baby generation techniques which are not even possible in our current times.

How astrology helps

The parents of a friend of mine recently discovered that there is Shani in his Kundali and will stay around so for another year. They had been worried about his marriage all along, and now they have understood the real reason why its not happening. They are both relieved as well as worried.

Astrology was really successful in providing them with a false sense of relief as to why the marriage hasn't happened so far. The subject is especially good in finding out reasons where none exist.

I don't mean that astrology is all crap. I do have a deep respect for it. But astrology is not something which can provide real explanation to each and every problem in your life. Its an enormous guidance system which was designed based extensive studies of lives of a whole lot of people over centuries. The system consists of a huge set of rules which when applied after thorough study can at best describe general trends in one's life. It helps you in identifying risk areas and potential directions of success in your life. And it requires years of deep study to become proficient in the art of astrology. But in the end, its a rule based deterministic system and man's will is powerful enough to change anything in the world if he so wishes. Man is as bound by the rules of nature as he allows himself to be and as free of the rules as he wants to be.

Moreover a system like astrology is a heuristics oriented system based on studies of real life experiences. Hence it needs a constant re-invention and updates based on new observations as they keep happening all around in the world. This is something we have forgotten in this age and time and have ended up having a system which is pretty much stale and lifeless.

At the moment my friend is worried since his parents have started taking astrology too seriously.

How our navratna companies assist in marriages

Our young man was from a well-to-do agricultural family. There was not much emphasis on education in his family. More-over since there was not much issue related to money, hence nobody would pressure him to work hard for a good job too.

In general he was quite confused about what to do in his life. He was intelligent but not focused. He would try different kinds of businesses though not being much successful in any of these.

One day, the question of his marriage arose. In our part of the world, a good job helps a lot in getting good marriage proposals. Time was to find one. Naturally one of our Navratna PSUs was ready to help. After spending some money, he obtained the job smoothly. He didn't even have to attend office on daily basis and his salary would come on regular basis without any issues. Marriage proposals flowed in quickly and he was a settled man very soon.

The core objective of being on board in the PSU being completed, it was time to get back the initial money he invested in getting the job in first place. It turned out that this was not difficult either. He had some fight at his office, resigned from his job, and after working through his contacts, got part of his original investment back.

At the moment, he is happily married with a kid and has opened a school in his village. And the PSU is a long forgotten dream.