Ignorant Literacy!

"Aahara nidraa bhaya maidhunam cha
Samanameth pasubhir naranam
Jnanam naranamadhiko visesho
Jnanena heena pasubhissamana" - Devi Maahatmyam

Food, Sleep, Fear and Sex are common to Men and Animals. What distinguishes Men from Animals is his 'Jnanam' (Knowledge). A man without knowledge can be equated with an animal.

Hence the emphasis on Knowledge and need for developing a knowledge economy. Mere accumulation of Degrees and Diplomas are insufficient. One has to have in depth knowledge about his area of core competency. A person with Certificates but without possessing the knowledge that go with it, is equal to an illeterate. But our education system and the student focuses less on knowledge, and more on Degrees leading to the creation of a paradox named 'Ignorant Literate Generation'

Birds of a feather.................................

Rahul Gandhi's personal choice of two candidates for contesting in Lok Sabha polls from Punjab has put Congress workers in a fix.

"Bittu and Danny, the two young Lok Sabha candidates handpicked by AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi to contest the forthcoming elections, have become an embarrassment to the party in Punjab. Twenty-nine-year-old Ravneet Singh Bittu, grandson of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh and the party's candidate in the Anandpur Sahib Lok Sabha constituency, has never been to college. Bittu is facing the Akali Dal's Diljeet Singh Cheema, who has an MBBS degree and has been a practising doctor for more than 10 years. A political novice, Bittu's only qualification is his proximity to Rahul Gandhi, and this does not seem to be helping him. Though his candidature was preferred over many senior Congress leaders, he has become an embarrassment to the party as the Akalis, as part of their election ploy, have decided to "start a literacy movement in the constituency". Cheema said the movement, called 'Jago Bittu school chalo', would target school dropouts. He said his party proposed to make his Congress rival a model for the movement, adding that it was surprising that Rahul Gandhi had picked a school dropout as the new youth icon in the constituency. He said he would appeal to his voters to tell Bittu to first "complete his school and college education, instead of going to Parliament". The second Congress candidate handpicked by Rahul is Sukhvinder Singh Danny, who is contesting from the Faridkot Lok Sabha seat. The son of a former Punjab cabinet minister Sardool Singh, Danny is making things awkward for party workers after his selection on compassionate grounds as a police inspector was cancelled for producing the "wrong certificate". Danny faces Akali Dal nominee Paramjit Kaur Gulshan, who earlier represented the Bathinda Lok Sabha seat. In her campaign, she has often highlighted how her rival earlier "chose to join the police through fraudulent means". She said it was surprising that the Congress was trying to send "such elements to Parliament"." - www.dnaindia.com

Now, now. This is not surprising at all. Everyone knows that Sonia Gandhi has not even graduated but claimed in official bio-data submitted to the Parliament, Election Commission that She was an Oxford Graduate, but had actually done an English language course in one of the Private Institutes in the city of Oxford. Ditto for son Rahul Gandhi. He claims that he is doing M Phil, whereas no records of his enrolment is available anywhere in the world.

"Birds of a feather................................................................"

Funds for increasing educational outlay 330 times is lying in Swiss Banks

The Total Budget allocated for Expenditure in the 2008-2009 Indian Budget was Rs 7,50,884 Crores.

The black money stashed in Swiss Accounts by tax evading Indians amount to approximately 10 times of the Expenditure of the country in one year.

Which in effect means, we have ready cash available to fund Indian Governments expenditure for the next 10 years at current levels without collecting Re.1 as tax in any form.

Considering that the outlay for Education in the Budget is a measly 3% (even that is not spent), recovering the money from the Swiss Accounts will increase the level of Educational infrastructure in the country 330 times.

Imagine the difference it will make to our life!

But who will bell the cat? Who will lift even a small finger to get Re 1 out of this amount from Swiss Banks.

No one.

Therein lies the tragedy

Great Nations are built brick by brick

It is said that the person who thinks about today is a Manager, one who thinks about tomorrow is a Leader and the one who thinks about the next generation is a Statesman.

Ditto for countries.

Most of the Countries concentrate all their efforts on managing today's problems, and in a lot of cases, they manage yesterdays problems. They do not have the time or the inclination to look into the future and give the proper strategic thrust so needed to build a great nation.

I am not a great admirer of China. There is far too wrong with the Country and its ruling elite. A Country that is built on suppressing the peoples natural desires, comes low on my prefered choice of countries.

Whatever else one can accuse China of, one needs to understand and accept their long range planning. They want to become a real economic superpower that is based on their manufacturing ability. Towards this, they need Energy, Raw Materials and Labour. The last they have in plenty indigenously, but they are short on the first two.

During the past decade, China has been pursuing a path of aggessive strategy to tie up long term deals on the energy front. They have invested heavily in the African subcontinent for both Energy and for mineral ore. They have even gone as far as remote South America to meet their raw material requirements. Chinese have signed long term agreements with the Government of Chile for the right to mine Copper ore and transport them back to their country. Likewise if one were to travel across African and South America, both mineral rich, one can see heavy Chinese presence.

All these while, we Indians have been sleeping. We are sitting on top of unutilized $ 250 billion of Foreign Exchange and have virtually neglected our long term needs.

Great Nations dont sprout up, they are constructed brick by brick.

Do we deserve our political parties?

First it was the Left front led by CPI(M) who cried foul with Congress and UPA over the nuclear deal and quit the UPA. This was about 8 months ago.

Then it was Mulayam and Samajvadi Party, followed by Lalu and Paswan. They conveniently distanced themselves from Congress just when the elections are announced. Now they have formed a joint front. That Lalu and Paswan continues to be ministers is another matter.

Then it was the turn of the PMK who today joined the AIADMK front in Tamil Nadu and its ministers made the 'Sacrifice' of quitting ministerial posts with elections less than a month away.

At the outset it will appear that UPA has been weakened considerably. Nothing like that. These are mere posturings. It suits all these parties to scream against Congress in the election meetings and claim that all the misdeeds of this Government were not the responsibility of these parties who ruled with Congress for 5 years and were more often than not mischief makers in the Cabinet. Anbumoni Ramadoss did everything he can to destroy the health sector in India. Lalu, despite his claims to the contrary, has not done Railways a great favour. Though his tenure has seen profitability grow in the short term, this is at the expense of long term rolling stock develpment and passenger safety. Less said about Paswan , the veto excercised by SP and CPM on issues small and big, the better.

Congress do not have any presence in any of the States where these parties hold sway. It is virtually defunct in UP and Bihar, and is a non entity in West Bengal. Kerala, anyway, it is in the opposite Camp to CPM. Only in Tamil Nadu it has a presence and there its major partner is DMK. It can live without PMK and they in turn can live with Congress.

Post election, all these parties who have fought on opposing camps will join hands together again to cobble up a makeshift coalition.

Let them and the NDA remember the old adage, 'You can fool some people all the time, all the people some time, but not all the people all the time'

We the fools will have to wait for a few more elections to get the parties that we really deserve.

The more things change..............................

I would like to answer Subramanyams comments in yesterdays post as a blog entry.


Even if US prints the money, ulitmately it is reflected in its budget as a liability which means it is tax payers money. Tax payers will have to pay by way of higher taxes, higher interest rates, higher inflation in the long run. Thus it definitely affects the tax payer and comes out of his pocket one way or other.



No I do not think any structural changes will be done in the US Economy. They are far too arrogant, and lacks humility to admit they goofed up. The same US, and its cronies World Bank and IMF used to give unsolicited advice as to how to cut subsidy, reduce deficit, open up economy etc to third world countries faced with similar problems not long ago. Now there is no peep from IMF or WB or US. The vested interests in this system have deep roots and they wont allow any changes barring cosmetic ones.

The more things change, the more they remain the same

Where have the ethics gone in Corporate Life?

A Company posts a $ 61.5 billion loss in an year. They rush to the Government for a $ 170 billion bail out package, which is essentially tax payers money. Then they promptly pay their top executives $ 165 million as 'Performance Bonus' - No, we are not living in a Tughlak Raj. This is US of A and the Company is AIG. Fortunately there is huge public outcry against those ethic less top executives who had the gall to accept the bonus after they have brought the whole world on the brink of an economic disaster. AIG top bosses have agreed to pay back $ 50 million which they have received as bonus, but that still leaves another $ 115 million that is lying in the banks of these non performers. This one incident more than anything symbolizes the rotten side of Capitalism, lack of morality, ethics, principles and value system amongst Corporate honchos. And we thought our salvation lies in them and their ilk!