Friends,
Pl read this fascinating interview with futurist, Ray Kurzweil, which appeared in the latest TIME magazine.
·
Is it a mistake to use the events of the recent past as a method of predicting the future?
Our intuition about the future is linear. But the reality of information technology is exponential, and that makes a profound difference. If I take 30 steps linearly, I get to 30. If I take 30 steps exponentially, I get to a billion.
You predict we'll reach a point with artificial intelligence that you call the singularity. How will that affect us?
By the time we get to the 2040s, we'll be able to multiply human intelligence a billionfold. That will be a profound change that's singular in nature. Computers are going to keep getting smaller and smaller. Ultimately, they will go inside our bodies and brains and make us healthier, make us smarter. We'll be online all the time. Search engines won't wait to be asked.
Will this make it more difficult for us to focus?
We've always been responsible for the triage of our time. I actually think these technologies enable us to focus better. My father was a musician, and he had to hire an orchestra and raise money just to hear his compositions. Now a kid in her dorm room can do that with her synthesizer and computer.
How exactly will technology make us healthier?
We will reprogram our biology. My cell phone's probably updating itself as we speak, but I'm walking around with 1,000-year-old software that was for a different era. One gene, the fat insulin receptor gene, says, "Hold on to every calorie, because the next hunting season may not work out so well." I'd like to be able to tell my fat insulin receptor gene, "You don't need to do that. I'm confident I'll have food tomorrow."
Will we be eating differently?
We'll grow in vitro cloned meats in factories that are computerized and run by artificial intelligence. You can just grow the part of the animal that you're eating. Some people say, "Oh, that sounds yucky." I say, "Well, why don't you go visit a factory-farming installation? You'll find that getting meat from living animals is yucky." But we'll need a marketing genius to sell the idea.
Speaking of marketing, what idea about the future do you have the hardest time selling?
People are most resistant to the idea of dramatic extensions to life expectancy, because it affects every decision they make. They have this cycle of life in mind. People sort of wax philosophical--"Oh, I don't want to live past 100." I'd like to see them say that when they're 100.
Do you think we'll find intelligent life elsewhere in the universe?
The consensus in the field is that there's somewhere between a thousand and a million technologically advanced civilizations just in our own galaxy. But once you get to a point where we are, within a few centuries at most, these civilizations would be doing galaxy-wide engineering. It's impossible we wouldn't be noticing that. So my conclusion is that we may be the first.
What are the dangers of technological innovation?
Technology is a double-edged sword. New technologies can be used for destructive purposes. The answer is to develop rapid-response systems for new dangers like a bioterrorist creating a new biological virus. We don't have to just sit back and wait.
How will science affect the religious and ethnic differences in the world?
I think we are evolving rapidly into one world culture. It's certainly one world economy. With billions of people online, I think we'll appreciate the wisdom in many different traditions as we learn more about them. People were very isolated and didn't know anything about other religions 100 years ago.
How will our technological progress make us feel about God?
I believe our civilization is going to be vastly more intelligent and more spiritual in the decades ahead. You can argue how we got here, but we are the species that goes beyond our limitations. We didn't stay on the ground. We didn't stay on the planet. Our species always transcends.
Friends,
This fascinating story is a must read. Ray Kurzweil marries the brilliance of spirituality with hard core science.
The message is that reality is never LINEAR. It may be EXPONENTIAL.Well, the growth of technology of the last hundred years has already proved that.30 steps may lead us not necessarily to thirty, exponentially it may lead us to a billion.
Therefore, it makes sense to be terribly hopeful about our futures. And,to usher that Promised Earth, we may need to alter the hardwiring of our genes which is stuck with linearity, with a hysterical paranoia to accumulate,which makes the elites behave so stupidly to the devastation of the vast majority.
Our spiritual giants have shown us how to alter the hardwiring of our genes.Just one thought is enough.Just five minutes of fervent focus before we sleep and immediately on waking up.Burn intensely with the desire for well being of ALL.Live the passion of LOVE,harmony and Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam.
If we do this the Promised Earth will be a reality NOW.
Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com/
Monday, December 6, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Can A Revolution be Tweeted
Friends,
A recent issue of The New Yorker,as per 104.8 FM in Chennai, wondered whether a revolution can ever be tweeted.This set me thinking,and I'm convinced it can be.
With the advent of the Internet the status quo has got a severe jolt.It has empowered the majority,and I look forward to the day when internet access is completely free.With the recent WikiLeaks and Radia tapes disclosures, neither diplomacy nor business will be the same again.I'm not suggesting that scams which pass off for governance in most parts of the world will disappear overnight.But, certainly, the practisoners of realpolitik and crony capitalism(some sceptics think capitalism is nothing but crony capitalism)will have a run for their money.
The real challenge before the denizens of this cyber(as well as real) world is to roll back the powers and size of the govt bureaucracies. Let power and decision making be decentralized to the lowest levels.Let a million village republics bloom.Because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Also in this age of the Internet and globalization, narrow national identities will fast become an anachronism.What do the common people in India, China and Pakistan have to fight about.Their only enemies are inefficient and corrupt govts which has failed to provide them with a decent life.In the name of development,it develops only a minority while continuing to pulverize the environment. It was only to be expected, as is evident in the stash of 386 lac crore in just one of the tax havens, viz Switzerland.Contrast this with less than a dollar earned by 78% of our people.
So,if we think these govts can be trusted to usher in a revolution,just forget it. We have to introspect deep and hard and learn to use our own resources.Let a million synergies bloom.Let us learn to love and work together.And in this we have the greatest friend.The Internet.Let's mail and tweet our way to the Promised Earth.Let the torch of hope burn brighter and brighter.And, for God's sake, don't smirk and crib about the invasion of privacy.It isn't serious anymore. When millions starve the world over,our privacy isn't worth a dime.
Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com/
A recent issue of The New Yorker,as per 104.8 FM in Chennai, wondered whether a revolution can ever be tweeted.This set me thinking,and I'm convinced it can be.
With the advent of the Internet the status quo has got a severe jolt.It has empowered the majority,and I look forward to the day when internet access is completely free.With the recent WikiLeaks and Radia tapes disclosures, neither diplomacy nor business will be the same again.I'm not suggesting that scams which pass off for governance in most parts of the world will disappear overnight.But, certainly, the practisoners of realpolitik and crony capitalism(some sceptics think capitalism is nothing but crony capitalism)will have a run for their money.
The real challenge before the denizens of this cyber(as well as real) world is to roll back the powers and size of the govt bureaucracies. Let power and decision making be decentralized to the lowest levels.Let a million village republics bloom.Because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Also in this age of the Internet and globalization, narrow national identities will fast become an anachronism.What do the common people in India, China and Pakistan have to fight about.Their only enemies are inefficient and corrupt govts which has failed to provide them with a decent life.In the name of development,it develops only a minority while continuing to pulverize the environment. It was only to be expected, as is evident in the stash of 386 lac crore in just one of the tax havens, viz Switzerland.Contrast this with less than a dollar earned by 78% of our people.
So,if we think these govts can be trusted to usher in a revolution,just forget it. We have to introspect deep and hard and learn to use our own resources.Let a million synergies bloom.Let us learn to love and work together.And in this we have the greatest friend.The Internet.Let's mail and tweet our way to the Promised Earth.Let the torch of hope burn brighter and brighter.And, for God's sake, don't smirk and crib about the invasion of privacy.It isn't serious anymore. When millions starve the world over,our privacy isn't worth a dime.
Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Going Beyond All Limitations
I want to share this essence of Hinduism,if I may add,indeed, of all religions, before it's most ardent advocates tear it to shreds. It is brief, but impeccably to the point.
The world is such an unhappy place,with scams galore,WikiLeaks,Radia Gate, 2G et all, precisely because humankind has yet to realize its highest potentials. That was our mandate,the raison'd'etre for our beings. But our inheritance lies in tatters,with unimaginable misery for the human race.
But we ought to understand that we never run out of options. Everything is in our hands, because it is us that has created everything, including God, whom we foolishly chase all over except in the depths of our own souls.
With that power unleashed, in all of us,the well being for all will not look as distant as it does now.
Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev
One fundamental thing that must be cleared up about the Hindu way of life is that with the term Hindu there is no “ism”. Today the word Hindu has taken a different meaning because of the so-called Hindutva and other such organisations, but the word Hindu essentially comes from the word Sindhu. Anybody who is born in the land of Indus is a Hindu — it is a cultural and geographic identity. It is like saying “I am an Indian”, though it is a more ancient identity than being an Indian. “Indian” is only about 60 years old. Hindu, on the other hand, is an identity that we have always lived with — we call this country Hindustan and whatever we did in this culture was Hindu.
Being a Hindu does not mean having a particular belief system; there is no particular God or ideology which one can call as the Hindu way of life. You can be a Hindu irrespective of whether you worship a man-God or a woman-God, whether you worship a cow or a tree. If you don’t worship anything you can still be a Hindu. So you are a Hindu irrespective of what you believe or don’t believe in. At the same time, there was a common line running through all these — in this culture, the only goal of human life is liberation or mukti; liberation from the very process of life, from everything that you know as limitations and to go beyond that. God is seen as one of the stepping stones; God is not held as the ultimate thing. This is the only culture on the planet which is a godless culture in the sense that there is no concretised idea of God in this culture. You can worship a rock, a cow, your mother — you can worship whatever you feel like because this is a culture where we have always known that God is our making.
Everywhere else people believe that God created us. Here we know that we created God so we take total freedom to create the kind of God we can relate to. If you like the tree in your garden you can worship it and nobody thinks it is absurd. You can worship a stone on the golf course and nobody thinks it’s absurd. If you can relate to that, that’s what you worship because what you are reverential towards is not important; being reverential is what is important.
There is so much misunderstanding about these things because there is a certain dialectical ethos to the culture where we want to express everything in a story or in a song; but in a way, it is a science of how to take a human being to his ultimate potential.
— Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, a yogi, is a visionary, humanitarian and a prominent spiritual leader. An author, poet, and internationally-renowned speaker, Sadhguru’s wit and piercing logic provoke and widen our perception of life. He can be contacted at www.ishafoundation.org
The world is such an unhappy place,with scams galore,WikiLeaks,Radia Gate, 2G et all, precisely because humankind has yet to realize its highest potentials. That was our mandate,the raison'd'etre for our beings. But our inheritance lies in tatters,with unimaginable misery for the human race.
But we ought to understand that we never run out of options. Everything is in our hands, because it is us that has created everything, including God, whom we foolishly chase all over except in the depths of our own souls.
With that power unleashed, in all of us,the well being for all will not look as distant as it does now.
Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev
One fundamental thing that must be cleared up about the Hindu way of life is that with the term Hindu there is no “ism”. Today the word Hindu has taken a different meaning because of the so-called Hindutva and other such organisations, but the word Hindu essentially comes from the word Sindhu. Anybody who is born in the land of Indus is a Hindu — it is a cultural and geographic identity. It is like saying “I am an Indian”, though it is a more ancient identity than being an Indian. “Indian” is only about 60 years old. Hindu, on the other hand, is an identity that we have always lived with — we call this country Hindustan and whatever we did in this culture was Hindu.
Being a Hindu does not mean having a particular belief system; there is no particular God or ideology which one can call as the Hindu way of life. You can be a Hindu irrespective of whether you worship a man-God or a woman-God, whether you worship a cow or a tree. If you don’t worship anything you can still be a Hindu. So you are a Hindu irrespective of what you believe or don’t believe in. At the same time, there was a common line running through all these — in this culture, the only goal of human life is liberation or mukti; liberation from the very process of life, from everything that you know as limitations and to go beyond that. God is seen as one of the stepping stones; God is not held as the ultimate thing. This is the only culture on the planet which is a godless culture in the sense that there is no concretised idea of God in this culture. You can worship a rock, a cow, your mother — you can worship whatever you feel like because this is a culture where we have always known that God is our making.
Everywhere else people believe that God created us. Here we know that we created God so we take total freedom to create the kind of God we can relate to. If you like the tree in your garden you can worship it and nobody thinks it is absurd. You can worship a stone on the golf course and nobody thinks it’s absurd. If you can relate to that, that’s what you worship because what you are reverential towards is not important; being reverential is what is important.
There is so much misunderstanding about these things because there is a certain dialectical ethos to the culture where we want to express everything in a story or in a song; but in a way, it is a science of how to take a human being to his ultimate potential.
— Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, a yogi, is a visionary, humanitarian and a prominent spiritual leader. An author, poet, and internationally-renowned speaker, Sadhguru’s wit and piercing logic provoke and widen our perception of life. He can be contacted at www.ishafoundation.org
Monday, November 29, 2010
Ruling Establishments-Rotting Cadavers?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Friends,
You may perhaps like to read this lead article in The Hindu of 29th Nov by Siddharth Vardarajan.He points to the deep nexus existing between the ruling establishments,the corporates and the popular media whose bytes and words we hang on to so seriously.
India may be a poor country where almost 78% people have a daily income of less than a dollar. But, as evidenced by the Swiss Bank report, the stash of 280 lac crore only in Swiss Banks, not to speak of other tax havens,a section of this unholy trio will put even Bill Gates and Warren Bufet look poor by comparison.
This report should also be juxtaposed with the WikiLeaks disclosures which will show how venal,bloodthirsty and shortsighted are the ruling establishments not only of the US, but the world over.
The governance of this world has hit rock bottom and I don't think it can go lower than this.In situations as these, all of us need to introspect deeply. After all each and every one of us is paying some price for the rottonness of our ruling establishments the world over.
As squeamish schoolchildren know only too well, dissection is a messy business. Some instinctively turn away, others become nauseous or scared. Not everyone can stomach first hand the inner workings of an organic system. Ten days ago, a scalpel — in the form of a set of 104 intercepted telephone conversations — cut through the tiniest cross-section of a rotting cadaver known as the Indian Establishment. What got exposed is so unpleasant that several major newspapers and television channels that normally scramble to bring “breaking” and “exclusive” stories have chosen to look the other way. Their silence, though understandable, is unfortunate. Even unforgivable.
After all, the tape recordings of Niira Radia's phone conversations have come to light against the backdrop of the recent Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report on the allocation of 2G spectrum, which demonstrated how the rules were arbitrarily bent by the then Telecom Minister, A. Raja, in order to favour a handful of private companies at government expense. Among the beneficiaries of Mr. Raja's raj were Anil Ambani. And also Ratan Tata. In one of the tapes, an unidentified interlocutor asks Ms Radia, whose clients include both Mr. Tata and Mukesh Ambani, why “you people [i.e. the Mukesh Ambani group] are supporting [Raja] like anything ... when the younger brother [Anil Ambani] is the biggest beneficiary of the so called spectrum allocation”. “Issue bahut complex hai,” Ms Radia replies. “Mere client Tatas bhi beneficiary rahein hain (my client, the Tatas, have also been a beneficiary).”
Apart from telecom, the tapes also provide valuable insight into the gas dispute between the two Ambani brothers. This was a dispute in which Mukesh Ambani made skillful use of the “gas is a national resource” argument with a pliant media even as he used his influence with individual MPs to try and orchestrate a massive tax concession for his company from the same national resource, Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin natural gas.
In an interview to NDTV and the Indian Express on Saturday — two media houses that have so far avoided covering the tapes — Ratan Tata has called the recordings a “smokescreen” designed to hide the real truth. He is wrong. Utterly wrong. No doubt we know very little about who leaked the recordings and why these were cherry-picked from a wider set of 5,000 recordings the Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax authorities made as part of their surveillance of Ms Radia. But even if the story they tell is partial and designed to expose only a fraction of the corporate lobbying which has been going on, we would be naive to ignore the contents of the tapes or be dismissive about their significance.
In the science fiction film, “The Matrix”, Morpheus tells Neo, “You're here because you know there's something wrong with the world.” The Matrix, he says, is the world that has been pulled over everyone's eyes to blind them from the truth that they are slaves. He offers Neo the choice of a blue or red pill. “You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill ... and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”
The Niira Radia audio archive loaded on to the Internet by Open and Outlook magazines last week is the red pill of our time. It reveals the source codes, networks, routers, viruses and malware that make up the matrix of the Indian State. The transmission of information, also known as “news”, between different nodes is vital for the system to work efficiently. The news is also the medium for reconciling conflicts between different sectors of the establishment. If you hear the recordings, you begin to understand the truth about the Wonderland that is India. No wonder there are many amongst us who would rather swallow the blue pill. For once you go in, the only way out is to keep digging. And yes, the rabbit-hole runs deep.
So deep, for example, that we hear a Member of Parliament, N.K. Singh, who is meant to represent the people and the state who voted for him, brazenly batting for a single-man corporate constituency, Mukesh Ambani.
In one recording, Mr. Singh tells Ms Radia of the firefighting he is doing on behalf of Mr. Ambani to ensure a tax concession the finance minister had announced in the 2009 budget for gas production is made applicable retrospectively. Ms Radia says she has killed news stories about the Rs.81,000 crore super profit Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) would make were that to happen but Mr. Singh is more concerned about what happens in Parliament during the debate on the Finance Bill. His fear is that if Opposition MPs make a noise about a largesse being given to one company, the finance minister would be on the defensive and the prospect of extending the concession retrospectively would not even arise. Mr. Singh accuses BJP leader Arun Shourie of being on Anil Ambani's side and reveals how he has managed to get Mr. Shourie replaced as the BJP's lead speaker by Venkaiah Naidu. How well does Mukesh know Venkaiah, asks Mr. Singh, who is a Rajya Sabha MP from Bihar on a Janata Dal (United) – JD(U) ticket. Ms Radia replies that a senior RIL executive, P.M.S. Prasad, knows Mr. Naidu well. “Then I am going to get him flown in today to talk to Venkaiah,” Mr. Singh says, “because if he is the first speaker, and he already takes a party line, then it will be very difficult for Shourie in his second intervention, to take a different line. Then we have to orchestrate who will speak, you know, this is the immediate problem right now. Because, frankly, if this doesn't go through, this tax thing, then it's a major initiative taken that then fails to materialise.”
We don't know if Mr. Prasad flew down and met Mr. Naidu as N.K. Singh wanted him to do. But the BJP leader's speech in Parliament two days later has this telltale suggestion: “The Bay of Bengal has become the new North Sea of India. Government departments should not be seen quarrelling whether mineral oil is a natural gas or not. Whatever concessions [are] needed for infrastructure, exploration ... are connected with the energy security of the country.” This was a veiled reference to the Petroleum Ministry's letter to the Finance Ministry asking for natural gas to be given the same tax concessions available to oil retrospectively and not just from the New Exploration Licensing Round (NELP) VIII round which would exclude RIL's KG basin output. A request the revenue secretary had turned down.
In other recordings, we see journalists and editors, who are meant to report and analyse what is going on objectively, offering to become couriers and stenographers and foot soldiers in the war one set of corporate fat cats is waging against another. We also see a political fixer, Ranjan Bhattacharya, whose USP once was his familial proximity to the Bharatiya Janata Party, seamlessly open a line to the Congress and go about his business as if election results don't matter. He boasts about his proximity to Ghulam Nabi Azad and his ability to send a message to “SG, boss”, a reference to the Congress president. He then quotes Mukesh Ambani telling him the Congress party is now “apni dukan”. Mr. Bhattacharya may have been lying about his influence but then the formidable Ms Radia is anything but a dupe.
We also hear in the tapes an iconic businessman, Ratan Tata, who today makes sanctimonious statements about crony capitalism and the danger of India becoming a banana republic, lobbying through his PR agent, Ms Radia, for A. Raja to be given the Telecom portfolio.
If the allocation of spectrum by the Manmohan Singh government in 2008 and 2009 is one of the biggest scams in independent India, then the involvement of businessmen like Ratan Tata, Sunil Mittal and Mukesh Ambani in lobbying for their choice of telecom minister when the UPA government returned to power in May 2009 is surely a very important part of the back-story. But it is a story none of the journalists who liaised with Ms Radia during this time chose to report. More than the squabble within the Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) or between the DMK and the Congress, the involvement of India's biggest companies in the process of cabinet formation was the story that should have been headlined. Ms Radia talks of Sunil Mittal and AT&T using Times Now to push out stories about Dayanidhi Maran being the frontrunner for telecom and Mr. Raja being in disfavour. Her own strategy appears to have been to use her relationship with Barkha Dutt and Shankar Aiyar to get the opposite message out onto news channels like NDTV and Headlines Today.
Instead of using Ms Radia as a “source” for covering the DMK, her role, and the role of her principal clients, in trying to push for a minister who was seen even then as tainted ought to have been exposed. But then Delhi is a hothouse of power, and proximity to power deadens one's reflexes and weakens one's nerves. What Indian journalism needs more than anything else today is distance. From both politicians and industrialists. It is never too late to swallow that red pill.
Dear Friends,
You may perhaps like to read this lead article in The Hindu of 29th Nov by Siddharth Vardarajan.He points to the deep nexus existing between the ruling establishments,the corporates and the popular media whose bytes and words we hang on to so seriously.
India may be a poor country where almost 78% people have a daily income of less than a dollar. But, as evidenced by the Swiss Bank report, the stash of 280 lac crore only in Swiss Banks, not to speak of other tax havens,a section of this unholy trio will put even Bill Gates and Warren Bufet look poor by comparison.
This report should also be juxtaposed with the WikiLeaks disclosures which will show how venal,bloodthirsty and shortsighted are the ruling establishments not only of the US, but the world over.
The governance of this world has hit rock bottom and I don't think it can go lower than this.In situations as these, all of us need to introspect deeply. After all each and every one of us is paying some price for the rottonness of our ruling establishments the world over.
As squeamish schoolchildren know only too well, dissection is a messy business. Some instinctively turn away, others become nauseous or scared. Not everyone can stomach first hand the inner workings of an organic system. Ten days ago, a scalpel — in the form of a set of 104 intercepted telephone conversations — cut through the tiniest cross-section of a rotting cadaver known as the Indian Establishment. What got exposed is so unpleasant that several major newspapers and television channels that normally scramble to bring “breaking” and “exclusive” stories have chosen to look the other way. Their silence, though understandable, is unfortunate. Even unforgivable.
After all, the tape recordings of Niira Radia's phone conversations have come to light against the backdrop of the recent Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report on the allocation of 2G spectrum, which demonstrated how the rules were arbitrarily bent by the then Telecom Minister, A. Raja, in order to favour a handful of private companies at government expense. Among the beneficiaries of Mr. Raja's raj were Anil Ambani. And also Ratan Tata. In one of the tapes, an unidentified interlocutor asks Ms Radia, whose clients include both Mr. Tata and Mukesh Ambani, why “you people [i.e. the Mukesh Ambani group] are supporting [Raja] like anything ... when the younger brother [Anil Ambani] is the biggest beneficiary of the so called spectrum allocation”. “Issue bahut complex hai,” Ms Radia replies. “Mere client Tatas bhi beneficiary rahein hain (my client, the Tatas, have also been a beneficiary).”
Apart from telecom, the tapes also provide valuable insight into the gas dispute between the two Ambani brothers. This was a dispute in which Mukesh Ambani made skillful use of the “gas is a national resource” argument with a pliant media even as he used his influence with individual MPs to try and orchestrate a massive tax concession for his company from the same national resource, Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin natural gas.
In an interview to NDTV and the Indian Express on Saturday — two media houses that have so far avoided covering the tapes — Ratan Tata has called the recordings a “smokescreen” designed to hide the real truth. He is wrong. Utterly wrong. No doubt we know very little about who leaked the recordings and why these were cherry-picked from a wider set of 5,000 recordings the Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax authorities made as part of their surveillance of Ms Radia. But even if the story they tell is partial and designed to expose only a fraction of the corporate lobbying which has been going on, we would be naive to ignore the contents of the tapes or be dismissive about their significance.
In the science fiction film, “The Matrix”, Morpheus tells Neo, “You're here because you know there's something wrong with the world.” The Matrix, he says, is the world that has been pulled over everyone's eyes to blind them from the truth that they are slaves. He offers Neo the choice of a blue or red pill. “You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill ... and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”
The Niira Radia audio archive loaded on to the Internet by Open and Outlook magazines last week is the red pill of our time. It reveals the source codes, networks, routers, viruses and malware that make up the matrix of the Indian State. The transmission of information, also known as “news”, between different nodes is vital for the system to work efficiently. The news is also the medium for reconciling conflicts between different sectors of the establishment. If you hear the recordings, you begin to understand the truth about the Wonderland that is India. No wonder there are many amongst us who would rather swallow the blue pill. For once you go in, the only way out is to keep digging. And yes, the rabbit-hole runs deep.
So deep, for example, that we hear a Member of Parliament, N.K. Singh, who is meant to represent the people and the state who voted for him, brazenly batting for a single-man corporate constituency, Mukesh Ambani.
In one recording, Mr. Singh tells Ms Radia of the firefighting he is doing on behalf of Mr. Ambani to ensure a tax concession the finance minister had announced in the 2009 budget for gas production is made applicable retrospectively. Ms Radia says she has killed news stories about the Rs.81,000 crore super profit Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) would make were that to happen but Mr. Singh is more concerned about what happens in Parliament during the debate on the Finance Bill. His fear is that if Opposition MPs make a noise about a largesse being given to one company, the finance minister would be on the defensive and the prospect of extending the concession retrospectively would not even arise. Mr. Singh accuses BJP leader Arun Shourie of being on Anil Ambani's side and reveals how he has managed to get Mr. Shourie replaced as the BJP's lead speaker by Venkaiah Naidu. How well does Mukesh know Venkaiah, asks Mr. Singh, who is a Rajya Sabha MP from Bihar on a Janata Dal (United) – JD(U) ticket. Ms Radia replies that a senior RIL executive, P.M.S. Prasad, knows Mr. Naidu well. “Then I am going to get him flown in today to talk to Venkaiah,” Mr. Singh says, “because if he is the first speaker, and he already takes a party line, then it will be very difficult for Shourie in his second intervention, to take a different line. Then we have to orchestrate who will speak, you know, this is the immediate problem right now. Because, frankly, if this doesn't go through, this tax thing, then it's a major initiative taken that then fails to materialise.”
We don't know if Mr. Prasad flew down and met Mr. Naidu as N.K. Singh wanted him to do. But the BJP leader's speech in Parliament two days later has this telltale suggestion: “The Bay of Bengal has become the new North Sea of India. Government departments should not be seen quarrelling whether mineral oil is a natural gas or not. Whatever concessions [are] needed for infrastructure, exploration ... are connected with the energy security of the country.” This was a veiled reference to the Petroleum Ministry's letter to the Finance Ministry asking for natural gas to be given the same tax concessions available to oil retrospectively and not just from the New Exploration Licensing Round (NELP) VIII round which would exclude RIL's KG basin output. A request the revenue secretary had turned down.
In other recordings, we see journalists and editors, who are meant to report and analyse what is going on objectively, offering to become couriers and stenographers and foot soldiers in the war one set of corporate fat cats is waging against another. We also see a political fixer, Ranjan Bhattacharya, whose USP once was his familial proximity to the Bharatiya Janata Party, seamlessly open a line to the Congress and go about his business as if election results don't matter. He boasts about his proximity to Ghulam Nabi Azad and his ability to send a message to “SG, boss”, a reference to the Congress president. He then quotes Mukesh Ambani telling him the Congress party is now “apni dukan”. Mr. Bhattacharya may have been lying about his influence but then the formidable Ms Radia is anything but a dupe.
We also hear in the tapes an iconic businessman, Ratan Tata, who today makes sanctimonious statements about crony capitalism and the danger of India becoming a banana republic, lobbying through his PR agent, Ms Radia, for A. Raja to be given the Telecom portfolio.
If the allocation of spectrum by the Manmohan Singh government in 2008 and 2009 is one of the biggest scams in independent India, then the involvement of businessmen like Ratan Tata, Sunil Mittal and Mukesh Ambani in lobbying for their choice of telecom minister when the UPA government returned to power in May 2009 is surely a very important part of the back-story. But it is a story none of the journalists who liaised with Ms Radia during this time chose to report. More than the squabble within the Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) or between the DMK and the Congress, the involvement of India's biggest companies in the process of cabinet formation was the story that should have been headlined. Ms Radia talks of Sunil Mittal and AT&T using Times Now to push out stories about Dayanidhi Maran being the frontrunner for telecom and Mr. Raja being in disfavour. Her own strategy appears to have been to use her relationship with Barkha Dutt and Shankar Aiyar to get the opposite message out onto news channels like NDTV and Headlines Today.
Instead of using Ms Radia as a “source” for covering the DMK, her role, and the role of her principal clients, in trying to push for a minister who was seen even then as tainted ought to have been exposed. But then Delhi is a hothouse of power, and proximity to power deadens one's reflexes and weakens one's nerves. What Indian journalism needs more than anything else today is distance. From both politicians and industrialists. It is never too late to swallow that red pill.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
The PRINCIPLE of EMPTINESS
F
clear clutter.pps (2502KB)
Sent: Mon, November 15, 2010 12:21:45 PM
Subject: THE PRINCIPLE OF EMPTINESS
Friends,
Paradoxical as it may sound,uncluttering,rather than accumulation,is the road to prosperity.These slides are powerful and explain the concept beautifully.I have heard people glorify planning as an end in itself. But if we give our 100% to the job at hand, with love for all, we have really "planned" for an eternity.
Existence takes care of everything. We just have to be in harmony with it.Pl take time to see the attachment. It is overwhelming and enriching.If practised with love, not scepticism,it'll open windows to an opulence we may have never imagined.
Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com/
----- Forwarded Message ----
From: sai kumar
Sent: Sun, November 14, 2010 5:17:45 AM
Subject: GOOD MORNING-SUNDAY SPECIAL--THE PRINCIPLE OF EMPTINESS
PLEASE OPEN ATTACHMENTS
Thanks & Regards,
A. V. SAIKUMAR REDDY
Personal Secretary to BRAHMARSHI PATRIJI
Chief Executive SPIRITUAL INDIA
Contact : +91 98490 96111
eMail: saikumar_pyramid@yahoo.com, saikumar.pyramid@gmail.com
Website: www.pssmovement.org
YOU CREATE YOUR OWN REALITY!!!
clear clutter.pps (2502KB)
Sent: Mon, November 15, 2010 12:21:45 PM
Subject: THE PRINCIPLE OF EMPTINESS
Friends,
Paradoxical as it may sound,uncluttering,rather than accumulation,is the road to prosperity.These slides are powerful and explain the concept beautifully.I have heard people glorify planning as an end in itself. But if we give our 100% to the job at hand, with love for all, we have really "planned" for an eternity.
Existence takes care of everything. We just have to be in harmony with it.Pl take time to see the attachment. It is overwhelming and enriching.If practised with love, not scepticism,it'll open windows to an opulence we may have never imagined.
Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com/
----- Forwarded Message ----
From: sai kumar
Sent: Sun, November 14, 2010 5:17:45 AM
Subject: GOOD MORNING-SUNDAY SPECIAL--THE PRINCIPLE OF EMPTINESS
PLEASE OPEN ATTACHMENTS
Thanks & Regards,
A. V. SAIKUMAR REDDY
Personal Secretary to BRAHMARSHI PATRIJI
Chief Executive SPIRITUAL INDIA
Contact : +91 98490 96111
eMail: saikumar_pyramid@yahoo.com, saikumar.pyramid@gmail.com
Website: www.pssmovement.org
YOU CREATE YOUR OWN REALITY!!!
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Mushaira in Bahrain
Dear Sushil,
I must congratulate you for this ethereal experience.Your narrative is immaculate and compelling.I thank you for sharing this with us. But I'll "doubly" thank you if you could get this DVD for me.
I,too, have experienced the etherealness of such a kavi sammelan in Chennai and Mumbai. So I can relate to what you say.Yes, it is sad that neither the SBI nor the Indian Embassy was represented there.And, mind you, the top brass in both these hallowed institutions is supposed to be among the best and the brightest of this superpower in the making . Urdu poetry is integral to our culture and it ought to be promoted.I'm also convinced that the ordinary Muslims and Hindus are one and the same.But there is a deliberate propoganda to keep them as "the other". While he was in India, Mr Obama lamented the forces of extremism in Islam. I would like to ask him who is abetting these forces for the last hundred years, especially in the last twenty after the demise of the "godless"communism in the erstwhile USSR.
But, my friend, we have to keep the torch of hope burning in its fullest splendour. Let us not be overwhelmed by the forces of ignorance and darkness which dispels simply by lighting a candle.We have to be doubly alert, active and clever to outlive and outsmart the unscientific way of life.
Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com/
From: Sushil Prasad
To: prasad.sushil@gmail.com
Sent: Thu, November 25, 2010 5:00:52 PM
Subject: Mushaira - A Preview of my next blog - for comments please.
Mushaira – An Evening of Poetry
One of my major regrets is that I discovered poetry very late in life. When I was younger , I used to associate poetry only with rhythm and metre. That was the way poetry was introduced and taught in school. It was only much later that I discovered the power of poetry in disentangling troubled emotions and as a means for exploring the depths of human feelings and psyche. A poem by Harivansh Rai Bachchan (Kavi) beautifully illustrates the role of poet in society where he elaborates that the poet’s solitary pursuit of finding means to disentangle emotions help others at large. Poetry is also described as the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected in tranquility.
These thoughts come to my mind as I think about the lovely Mushaira – a poetry reading / reciting session - that I was extrmeley fortunate to having recently attended. The Mushaira was organized by AMUAAB (Aligarh Muslim University Alumni Association of Bahrain) at the Cultural Hall located on Al Fateh Corniche , Bahrain .
The Mushaira was billed to start from 8 pm . I managed to reach the venue by about 8 pm , with the hope that I was not late. But I was surprised to see that there were hardly a handful of people in the auditorium. I initially put the low attendance to lack of people who would appreciate Urdu poetry in Bahrain . As the evening progressed with little development to show as to by when the programme would start, doubts started building up in my mind on whether it was worth while spending more time here. Since, I had already cancelled my other engagements for the evening I decided to stick around and at least experience some portion of the session before passing any judgment on the programme. It turned out that I was doubly lucky. First time lucky in having decided to come for the session and second time lucky on having stayed around.
The programme finally started a little after 9.15 pm , with the first half hour being spent on introductory speeches followed by reading from the Koran. And then the Mushaira took off and continued for nearly 5 hours to nearly 3 am the next morning. Five hours of exhilarating , exquisite poetry. Poetry sung , recited , clarified , reiterated , made up extempore to suit the occasion or exemplify or elaborate a particular thought process. What sublime thoughts. What oneness of spirit and bonhomie between the audience and the poets. Poetry was used as a collective experience to enable each individual to examine, reorder, and cleanse his or her personal emotions.
By about 10 pm the auditorium was overflowing with people who I assume were largely Indian Muslims. Though I expect there were a fair sprinkling of people from Pakistan and some also from Bangladesh . As the mushaira progressed, the audience and the poets merged into one organic whole with its own life, breath, thoughts, and mood. There were about 14 odd shaiyars (poets) on the stage with one leading poet introducing and commenting on the shaiyars and also compeering the show. There was quite some variation in age, social background, thought processes and styles of the shaiyars. Of the assembled poets, 3 were women and about 10 men. The language used extended from very formal, highly Persianised / Arabicised, difficult to understand or appreciate Urdu to common, easy to listen and understand Hindustani.
There were some light, side moments too, to the evening. As I was entering the venue, a young man accompanied with two young women (or was it the other way round – two young women accompanied with a young man) also reached the Cultural Hall. Their immediate query to the person there was if there was provision for separate seating for women in the auditorium. They seemed to be quite surprised if not also crestfallen to be advised in the negative. Another thing that I noticed was that while nearly all the women in the audience (I assume Indian and Pakistani women living in Bahrain ) were heavily Hijabed, the three women poets on the dias were not Hijabed, though one of them was constantly though unsuccessfully trying to drape her head with her dupatta (scarf?).
The most important realization or understanding that I carried back from the evening has nothing to do with poetry. We as a society, not just in India but also the popular world media have a tendency to look at our Muslim brothers and sisters as backward , semi literate, religious bigots , rooted in medieval irrational thought processes etc. But here was a group made up of nearly 100% Muslims from the middle and lower strata of society getting together to sit and appreciate poetry which was without exception completely secular in thought and content!
During the nearly 5 hours of poetry, there was not a single instance where the content of the outpourings was remotely religious in nature. Yes, there was plenty of romance, a lot of irony, some very deep angst. But of religion in terms of identity or means of support – there was no mention. What one saw was something which was against all stereotypes. Nearly 5 hours of poetry where the topics were strictly secular. I have not attended any other mushairas , but I suppose this would be the general atmosphere of mushairas and not specific to the one I had attended.
It is sad that there was such limited involvement in such a festive, joyous, and enriching experience. It was sadder to note that this event was not attended by anybody from the Indian Embassy (at least officially). Moreover , there was no representation from State Bank of India , one of the main sponsors of the programme.
A couple of weeks later, while I was still feeling the after glow of the experience, I came to know that the entire programme had been videographed and was available as DVDs. I immediately got myself a copy and spent the next 3 evenings reliving the experience at my own pace. This makes me third time lucky.
I consider myself really blessed that I got a chance to discover poetry in this lifetime.
Sushil Prasad
Designated Credit Officer
Credit Management
BBK
P.O. Box: 597
Manama
Kingdom of Bahrain
Tel: +973 17 207271
Fax: +973 17 212120
I must congratulate you for this ethereal experience.Your narrative is immaculate and compelling.I thank you for sharing this with us. But I'll "doubly" thank you if you could get this DVD for me.
I,too, have experienced the etherealness of such a kavi sammelan in Chennai and Mumbai. So I can relate to what you say.Yes, it is sad that neither the SBI nor the Indian Embassy was represented there.And, mind you, the top brass in both these hallowed institutions is supposed to be among the best and the brightest of this superpower in the making . Urdu poetry is integral to our culture and it ought to be promoted.I'm also convinced that the ordinary Muslims and Hindus are one and the same.But there is a deliberate propoganda to keep them as "the other". While he was in India, Mr Obama lamented the forces of extremism in Islam. I would like to ask him who is abetting these forces for the last hundred years, especially in the last twenty after the demise of the "godless"communism in the erstwhile USSR.
But, my friend, we have to keep the torch of hope burning in its fullest splendour. Let us not be overwhelmed by the forces of ignorance and darkness which dispels simply by lighting a candle.We have to be doubly alert, active and clever to outlive and outsmart the unscientific way of life.
Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com/
From: Sushil Prasad
To: prasad.sushil@gmail.com
Sent: Thu, November 25, 2010 5:00:52 PM
Subject: Mushaira - A Preview of my next blog - for comments please.
Mushaira – An Evening of Poetry
One of my major regrets is that I discovered poetry very late in life. When I was younger , I used to associate poetry only with rhythm and metre. That was the way poetry was introduced and taught in school. It was only much later that I discovered the power of poetry in disentangling troubled emotions and as a means for exploring the depths of human feelings and psyche. A poem by Harivansh Rai Bachchan (Kavi) beautifully illustrates the role of poet in society where he elaborates that the poet’s solitary pursuit of finding means to disentangle emotions help others at large. Poetry is also described as the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected in tranquility.
These thoughts come to my mind as I think about the lovely Mushaira – a poetry reading / reciting session - that I was extrmeley fortunate to having recently attended. The Mushaira was organized by AMUAAB (Aligarh Muslim University Alumni Association of Bahrain) at the Cultural Hall located on Al Fateh Corniche , Bahrain .
The Mushaira was billed to start from 8 pm . I managed to reach the venue by about 8 pm , with the hope that I was not late. But I was surprised to see that there were hardly a handful of people in the auditorium. I initially put the low attendance to lack of people who would appreciate Urdu poetry in Bahrain . As the evening progressed with little development to show as to by when the programme would start, doubts started building up in my mind on whether it was worth while spending more time here. Since, I had already cancelled my other engagements for the evening I decided to stick around and at least experience some portion of the session before passing any judgment on the programme. It turned out that I was doubly lucky. First time lucky in having decided to come for the session and second time lucky on having stayed around.
The programme finally started a little after 9.15 pm , with the first half hour being spent on introductory speeches followed by reading from the Koran. And then the Mushaira took off and continued for nearly 5 hours to nearly 3 am the next morning. Five hours of exhilarating , exquisite poetry. Poetry sung , recited , clarified , reiterated , made up extempore to suit the occasion or exemplify or elaborate a particular thought process. What sublime thoughts. What oneness of spirit and bonhomie between the audience and the poets. Poetry was used as a collective experience to enable each individual to examine, reorder, and cleanse his or her personal emotions.
By about 10 pm the auditorium was overflowing with people who I assume were largely Indian Muslims. Though I expect there were a fair sprinkling of people from Pakistan and some also from Bangladesh . As the mushaira progressed, the audience and the poets merged into one organic whole with its own life, breath, thoughts, and mood. There were about 14 odd shaiyars (poets) on the stage with one leading poet introducing and commenting on the shaiyars and also compeering the show. There was quite some variation in age, social background, thought processes and styles of the shaiyars. Of the assembled poets, 3 were women and about 10 men. The language used extended from very formal, highly Persianised / Arabicised, difficult to understand or appreciate Urdu to common, easy to listen and understand Hindustani.
There were some light, side moments too, to the evening. As I was entering the venue, a young man accompanied with two young women (or was it the other way round – two young women accompanied with a young man) also reached the Cultural Hall. Their immediate query to the person there was if there was provision for separate seating for women in the auditorium. They seemed to be quite surprised if not also crestfallen to be advised in the negative. Another thing that I noticed was that while nearly all the women in the audience (I assume Indian and Pakistani women living in Bahrain ) were heavily Hijabed, the three women poets on the dias were not Hijabed, though one of them was constantly though unsuccessfully trying to drape her head with her dupatta (scarf?).
The most important realization or understanding that I carried back from the evening has nothing to do with poetry. We as a society, not just in India but also the popular world media have a tendency to look at our Muslim brothers and sisters as backward , semi literate, religious bigots , rooted in medieval irrational thought processes etc. But here was a group made up of nearly 100% Muslims from the middle and lower strata of society getting together to sit and appreciate poetry which was without exception completely secular in thought and content!
During the nearly 5 hours of poetry, there was not a single instance where the content of the outpourings was remotely religious in nature. Yes, there was plenty of romance, a lot of irony, some very deep angst. But of religion in terms of identity or means of support – there was no mention. What one saw was something which was against all stereotypes. Nearly 5 hours of poetry where the topics were strictly secular. I have not attended any other mushairas , but I suppose this would be the general atmosphere of mushairas and not specific to the one I had attended.
It is sad that there was such limited involvement in such a festive, joyous, and enriching experience. It was sadder to note that this event was not attended by anybody from the Indian Embassy (at least officially). Moreover , there was no representation from State Bank of India , one of the main sponsors of the programme.
A couple of weeks later, while I was still feeling the after glow of the experience, I came to know that the entire programme had been videographed and was available as DVDs. I immediately got myself a copy and spent the next 3 evenings reliving the experience at my own pace. This makes me third time lucky.
I consider myself really blessed that I got a chance to discover poetry in this lifetime.
Sushil Prasad
Designated Credit Officer
Credit Management
BBK
P.O. Box: 597
Manama
Kingdom of Bahrain
Tel: +973 17 207271
Fax: +973 17 212120
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Keeping the Rabble Away from Decision Making
Dear Friends,
You may check out this interview of Noam Chomsky published in the Outlook magazine of 1st Nov.Prof Chomsky,a sprightly 82 year old Professor of Linguistics at MIT is, in my view, the greatest public intellectual after Karl Marx.In this article he exposes how the elites use the mass media to MANUFACTURE CONSENT and thereby keep the RABBLE(read gullible public such as us)away from the decision making processes.
It's time we understood that the public at large is never safe in the hands of big governments and big corporations. These assiduously feed the megalomania of the elites in being a superpower either past(Britain), present(USA) or in waiting(China, India).Big govts will always be the perfect vehicle for the insecure power elites- military and the corporations.And we need to beware of their militaristic and superpowery numbo-jumbo. Any kind of dispute is grist to their mill and the right thinking people in both India and China need to guard against repeating the cold war of the 20th century.
If we wake up and organize ourselves in smaller city states(like in the ancient times) or like the Scandivanian countries of today, we can have more participative and responsive polity.In the interregnum we have to be vigilant, active and learn to cooperate with each other for the common good.
Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com/
----- Forwarded Message ----
From: "avinashk.sahay@gmail.com"
To: asahays@yahoo.com
Sent: Sat, November 13, 2010 8:27:10 PM
Subject: www.outlookindia.com | “Media Subdues The Public. It’s So In India, Certainly”
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?267553
---
This message was sent by avinashk.sahay@gmail.com via http://addthis.com. Please note that AddThis does not verify email addresses.
Make sharing easier with the AddThis Toolbar: http://www.addthis.com/go/toolbar-em
You may check out this interview of Noam Chomsky published in the Outlook magazine of 1st Nov.Prof Chomsky,a sprightly 82 year old Professor of Linguistics at MIT is, in my view, the greatest public intellectual after Karl Marx.In this article he exposes how the elites use the mass media to MANUFACTURE CONSENT and thereby keep the RABBLE(read gullible public such as us)away from the decision making processes.
It's time we understood that the public at large is never safe in the hands of big governments and big corporations. These assiduously feed the megalomania of the elites in being a superpower either past(Britain), present(USA) or in waiting(China, India).Big govts will always be the perfect vehicle for the insecure power elites- military and the corporations.And we need to beware of their militaristic and superpowery numbo-jumbo. Any kind of dispute is grist to their mill and the right thinking people in both India and China need to guard against repeating the cold war of the 20th century.
If we wake up and organize ourselves in smaller city states(like in the ancient times) or like the Scandivanian countries of today, we can have more participative and responsive polity.In the interregnum we have to be vigilant, active and learn to cooperate with each other for the common good.
Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com/
----- Forwarded Message ----
From: "avinashk.sahay@gmail.com"
To: asahays@yahoo.com
Sent: Sat, November 13, 2010 8:27:10 PM
Subject: www.outlookindia.com | “Media Subdues The Public. It’s So In India, Certainly”
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?267553
---
This message was sent by avinashk.sahay@gmail.com via http://addthis.com. Please note that AddThis does not verify email addresses.
Make sharing easier with the AddThis Toolbar: http://www.addthis.com/go/toolbar-em
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