Posts filed under ‘Pragati’
Congress Sinking Ship – Shehzada is King of World
I would not dismiss and shrug it off as ‘good riddance’ because the truth of the matter is that while Congress might not get into power in the center, it could still get into power in some states. In fact, I can say for certainity that Congress will win in Amethi inspite of the well documented ‘Amethi Model of Development’ which is honestly a misnomer by Arkalgud Anantaramiya Surya Prakash for there is no “development” to speak of in Amethi since the Nehru family adopted it as its flag-bearing puppet namoona dummy stronghold. What does this remind me of?Ah yes, a virus. it is almost like Congress is a virus and as we all know, a virus never really dies and cannot be truly eradicated – it just stays dormant for a while and when the conditions are again right, it raises its ugly head, infects and goes on its merry way to spread disease, worms, filth and all that ensues in its wake. Be as it may, even if Congress sinks without a trace in this and forthcoming governments, the dynasty with its shehzada will live long and prosper like kings on the loot and plunder amassed and by brandishing and exploiting the pirated Gandhi name for generations to come and go, forever for eternity. Tsk, it takes all kinds to make this world.
Veering Away from Politics, Try – Word Play
But I suppose that boat has sailed (hey, another nautical metaphor – my mom is right, I am special and so are my teachers – I am a smart cookie after all) and so, while my boat is crashing into the rocks and am coaxed by the sweeper to MLA/MP/ZP campaigning in a beemer to vote, let me just say that am voting for change and hopefully, progress. It could be any party or candidate. I shudder to advise especially to bonafide idiots who have by and large voted time and again for a dynasty and monarchy to rule for 60+ years directly or indirectly or by proxy of this hopelessly wretched country but while I do not really care if any of you vote or not, but if you do like am going to even if its only because it is fashionable, here is a plea to vote for change and hopefully, progress and while at it, try to veer away from politics whose operative word is ‘tics’ which even animals would attest are blood sucking, disease spreading, scalp itching, skin irritating, ear infecting, greedy bloated parasites. Put any political symbolism like khadi and ticks become politicians. Ipso facto. QED.Ashok Inner-AAM: Rise Against Corrupt Lawyers
Soon after graduating in 2009, I went to Mysore for participating in the Flight Officer selections at the Air Force Selection Board (AFSB). I met candidates from all over the nation who were entirely different from me but at the same time shared the same passion that I had in our country. I got selected but didn’t join (a whole different story). Noticed that several of the potential Flight Officers were unaware of basic things that a citizen of India is supposed to know such as the Preamble to the Constitution of India, our National Pledge, etc. After returning from my medicals, I started asking my friends, relatives and colleagues if they knew these things and researching on why most of them didn’t even have a nominal idea about such important stuff regarding India. Found out it’s the lack of easily available information. Realized that change always begins from a single step and decided to take it.
Sorry to interrupt but the message here is that Ashok brought out his Inner-AAM and in the classic tradition of the Nataraja thandava, is giving abhayam to seekers of justice and trampling corrupt lawyers. A salute by this nacheez i.e. yours truly –
I immediately started working on an Android App (Note: I had no prior programming experience or knowledge of Law) and launched the very first basic "Constitution of India" android app on the Android Market (Android Play Store now). People really liked it, found it useful and started interacting with me on a daily basis through the feedback system built within the app. Most of the users were either law students, professional lawyers or judges in courts. I started getting suggestions, improvement ideas and the app eventually turned into the final version that is available in the market now. The morphing process was gradual. I started getting more and more requests for law applications as the data for the bare acts is really hard to find and harder still to categorize and understand. Based on the framework that I built for Constitution of India, I started gathering data from various government websites and through RTI. Each act took about a month to develop and publish. Began publishing apps act-wise as it’s easier for people to download, view and search through the apps. Each of these apps has the facility to search the central act library via web. Published about 20 apps and a lot more in queue.
Laws affect us all. And increasingly, bare acts are being searched for, read and used by a broad range of people. Bare acts are no longer confined to professional libraries but are considered intricate and intimidating. The apps empower people to directly access, search for and discuss the law of the land in the most simple way possible – using the smart phone. Given that my apps realize their full potential in the hands of people studying and practicing law, their aim is to provide the common man, the power and resources to look into the rules that define and build India. The main purpose of the law apps is to uncomplicate law, open it up for everyday discussion via the social features in the apps and make the information easily available offline.
Imagine a lawyer in a court being able to present his case without carrying any books and without wasting time to pin point the chapter number and section number. Imagine a judge being able to verify the arguments almost instantaneously by searching for specific content in all the laws of India, saving valuable time and speeding up the decision process. Imagine a client going to the lawyer and being able to discuss his specific issues by completely understanding the sections his issues are related to. Imagine a law student going to college/court with just his smartphone and work on it entirely. Imagine a teenage kid being able to read/watch a civil dispute in the news and cross reference the discussion. Imagine a normal person caught speeding on the road and finding out the exact fine amount when a corrupt police official demands a hefty fine. My apps give Aam-Aadmi the power to access all the information or laws that are related to him and that affect him.
Words to live by, or rather, draw by in this case. Please head over to CWorks for a visual depiction of how Ashok Inner-AAM is helping people rise against the reign of corrupt lawyers. As the old adage goes, information/knowledge is power. Indeed.
Mathematics of War – 3 – Reality, Why and Other
The cartoon (inspired by a classic stock trading madness one by Kal of Economist which also reflects the allusion of financial markets simile) tries to address 2 things at a high level. The ‘why’ and ‘other’ side of the coin. Allow me to elaborate –
1) For a paper that flaunts to be the mathematics or ecology of war (strike-1: make up your mind), the core question of ‘why’ remains unanswered other than the broad strokes of generalizing it to violent primal animalistic human behaviour in a conflict scenario viz. ganging up and acting out of reptilian-minded self-preservation and just silly attention-seeking, message-sending, authority-opposing, loathing-fired, territory-protecting, family-first, religion-tampered, son-of-gun, honour-killing, blood-thirsty, cult-following, brain-washed, nepotism-led, arms-dealing corporate interest driven, virgin-seeking, nation-gaurding, eye-for-an-eye revenge. Out of the 6 wise questions of who, when, where, what, why and how of anything, it is the ‘why’ that is always most important and difficult one to answer. Unsurprisingly, it is not always forthcoming and so is the case with the current research/paper/letter/talk/hype/site in question. My answer to ‘why’ is not my answer because it has been addressed before. In any conflict, the main reason for all the tomfoolery is primarily a result of ye-olde mis-communication and bad decision-making. People act irrationally (or whatever it is the paper insinuates) because for all the wisdom of the world, groups only serve the purpose of amplifying stupidity and at discrete time-steps under pressure with only incomplete information and shrouded judgment as a way of life and we don’t have to observe a conflict to come to that conclusion. It is kinda obvious from shopping to ordering pizza. Patterns. Patterns. Everywhere
2) The paper does not address the most important element to any conflict which is the ‘other’ side. It paints the terrorists (putting on my linguist hat ala Chomsky, this is a wrong word in itself because if it is used, it automatically implies the branded-as-such people as bad which is just one point-of-view) as villains from the word go and does not give due weight to the acts of the ‘other’ side, say the state police or occupying USA troops in Afghanistan. If you ask me, the patterns of behaviour of the ‘other’ side are just as irrational and fueled by internal politics (no matter how hierarchical they are organized) and media sound-bytes as the insurgents (again, a bad and violent word that should not have been used in interests of neutrality). We all know it takes two to tango or two hands to make a clap or no smoke without fire or every action has an opposite reaction or what goes round comes around and such idioms. Not considering/mentioning, let alone understanding the role of the ‘other’ side and how they influence/provoke behaviour of freedom-fighters (terrorists by other name), is like saying – well, I cannot think of a suitable analogy because there are so many of them that apply here – the insurgents are evil by birth and all that the paper is trying to do, in a fly-on-wall (when it really should be cat-on-wall) manner is quantify their evil-doings somewhat like an overbearing God who at the same time turns a blind eye at the misdemeanours of his chosen people. It’s just plain wrong. Besides, there are too many Gods already responsible for much mess that has/going/will in the world but discussing religion is slightly off-topic, no?
When seen with that lens of favouritism, it is of course obvious that patterns can be identified in the reactions (yes, not actions) of insurgents. Suffice to say that what we are seeing here is simply a human collective not showing the other cheek when slapped and that maybe, just maybe, we should perhaps be more concerned why did the slap happen and importantly, whose hand is it that was raised leading to harakiri? Again, there will be patterns to series of events that led to this situation. So, my question is this: Can we identify “that” pattern of circumstances that triggers insurgency? I believe we can (if one looks closely and long enough goes without saying). If so, that will be the right path to understand misunderstandings. To the best of my knowledge from private communication, Sean Gourley is already at work along these lines and I hope whatever comes out of that is not half as bad as the paper we are discussing, er, opiniating. Lest I forget, as for the errors in data and analysis, I informally tried applying their methods to Kashmir situation and I was disappointed and felt cheated. The first thing that came into my mind was that maybe my data was not clean or my interpretations of the paper and formulae. It takes a great and beautiful mind to accept mistakes. Mine is certainly not. So there.
PS: If you are wondering what happened to part-2 of series, well, keep wondering. I did not think it was worth my typing and am famously lazy. You are however free to think of it as a forced workshop on imagining or maybe, Quentin Tarantino stylism
Binding Emissions Cut – USA to India Shake Hand
If that is not unfair, I dont know what is. Given that per-capita income is inexplicably linked to per-capita emissions (higher income, higher pollution, duh?), it means that rich countries will get richer (but slower) and the poor countries will get poorer (and faster) if this policy or protocol or poo-poo is implemented. It seems to be more like arm-twisting to me. The irony is not the 25% or whatever arbitrary number but the gal to demand the world to forget the damage that has already been done and brandishing an air of superiority that it is the poor countries who have to take the initiative to save themselves. There is no fine being slapped because no one is asking. No technology transfer because no one is giving. No pledge to remedy the mistakes because no one is apologising. I will tell you what is binding. Rice. Ha ha.
COP15 Rain – Capitalist Pig – Subservient Countries
Simply put, what is going to happen on and after the summit is that things will be the same and only get worse. Thank universe for entropy. The rich nations (I make it a point not to call them by misnomers of ‘developed’ or ‘civilized’ or ‘industrialized’ for many reasons least of all, decadence, immorality/brutality, laziness) who are the ones mostly responsible for the mess and 80% of the emissions even today with their meagre 20% rudderless population, are depicted as well, greedy capitalistic pigs. All this talk and noise of “climate change” even if it is made out to be a hoax thunderstorm with striking lightning, will be like raindrops on thick skinned pigs. Ergo, no effect at all. These pigs will be munching the worlds poor without a care in the world. After all, pigs apparently are the best beasts to dispose of with human bodies as this character in “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrells” confirms –
You’re always gonna have problems disposing of human bodies. They are heavy and smelly. Apparently the best thing to do is cut up a corpse into six pieces and pile it all together. And when you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them, because it’s no good leaving it in the deep freeze for your mum to discover, now is it? Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs. You got to starve the pigs for a few days, then the sight of a chopped-up body will look like curry to a pisshead. You gotta shave the heads of your victims, and pull the teeth out for the sake of the piggies’ digestion. You could do this afterwards, of course, but you don’t want to go sieving through pig shit, now do you? They will go through bone like butter. You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm. They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes. That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, ‘greedy as pigs’ (and ‘capitalist pigs’).
If a pig is fed, it will feed. It is free food on a platter. What does it gotta lose? What concerns me is to see about the hand that is feeding the pig. Sadly unsurprisngly enough, it is the subservient poor countries who will have no qualms nor presence of the mind nor common sense of the future nor the grey matter of what this slavery is doing to their own nations. They will feed the pig everything, the earth, the forests, the minerals, the blood – and will do so collaboratively with one country supplying the fuel, another the timber, another to puff at the fire – without even knowing that they are but feeding, nay, disposing their fellow live humans for short-term foriegn currency reserves which at any point can lose in value. It is wrong at so many levels.
Think about it, today, if someone in the USA buys a bloody sneaker, the chain of the production is completely outsourced. Everything except the design is produced in some poor country by some underpaid malnourished chimp sweaty ugly hopeless illiterate sick bastard. The shoe might be priced at say, 100$, earning a profit of 90$ to the shoe company based in Europe which has an operating expense of 5$ tops for chaining the natives but what the poor country gets is far less than what it loses in the bargain in both monetary and resource terms. The actual cost of the shoe is not 5$ because the cost of the raw materials is heavily subsidized by nature (or externalities as economists would say) and in some cases, the government. In the end, the poor country might be getting 5$ but it is actually losing a lot more in the bargain because of depletion of resources, pollution caused, toxic waste generated and indisposed of, loss of freedom/opportunity and gross violation of human rights. By manufacturing and selling the shoe, the poor country is actually losing – a lot. It can be called a lose-lose situation if there ever was one. So, the idiots who run poor countries (democratic or communist or monarchial or theocracy or dictatorship or terrorist or military) who show so-called strides in development with skyscrapers, roads, statues, fly-overs, cars, middle-class et al. combinedly are fattening the pig with illusions of grandeur. No wonder the pig is drunk with power and has absolute disregard of an ailing planet. What fools, we humans can be. How did we get to this fucking world order? Oh wait, it was with invention of dynamite. And who pioneered that? Alfred Nobel no less. Kinda makes the peace prize hara-kiri to war mongering US presidents (can you believe there are oddly 4?) fathomable. It is a wow moment.
Food Price Inflation – WPI at 15.58% – Subsidy PDS
Food prices kept their upward trend hitting the common man hard. Food inflation rose to 15.58% for the second week of November with potato prices rising by 111% As compared to last year the prices of pulses were up by 35.60%, wheat by 12.53%, cereals by 13.04% and rice by 11.89%. Also prices of vegetables moved up by 11.96%, onions by 27.33%, fruits by 10.97% and milk by 11.36%. On a weekly basis, products which saw a rise in their prices are urad and poultry chicken (15% each), eggs (8%), moong (6%), arhar (5%), fruits and vegetables (3%) and milk and wheat (1% each). However, the prices of barley (2%) declined. The increase in food prices is due to shortages caused partly by a weak monsoon and partly by floods in some parts of the country. Said Mr Trehan and Mrs Mathur respectively –
In a country where even a simple vegetable like potato has become so expensive, how can one expect to have three meals a day. Survival has become really tough. How frugal can one become?
One has to think twice even for grocery shopping. Everything has become out of reach. Be it milk, vegetables or pulses. And worst, public transport has also gone so expensive. How can we honestly manage?
Inflation for all commodities more than doubled to 1.34% for the month of October from 0.50% in September due to costlier minerals and fuels, as per data released earlier. The finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee, said on Thursday that government is very deeply concerned about rising prices and will take all fiscal and monetary measures to contain it. Arjun Sengupta in his “Fair Food Deal for All” in DC on 30-November-2009 comments that it is high time that the government initiates a universal public distribution system (PDS) covering at least the essential commodities because the bulk of the population, about 70%, remains poor with their dire struggle for minimal livelihood –
About 350-million people remain below poverty line (BPL). The prices of essential commodities have been rising at an unprecedented rate. Not only foodgrains but vegetables like onions and potatoes are becoming costlier day by day. These affect all Indians but for the poor they are devastating as all their meagre incomes get exhausted, not meeting even a portion of the necessities. Prices of these products are no doubt largely due to shortfall in production but there are clear signs of market cornering, hoarding and price fixing. It is, however, very difficult to control speculatory tendencies by physical measures because the players are too many in the country and not just big traders and producers, even the common rehriwalla is hoarding. Unless those expectations are dampened they cannot bring down the speculation. The only way to do that is to increase supplies, if not through temporary production increase measures, then through additional imports.
To mitigate this problem, the universal PDS would be the first important step beginning with the BPL population by supplying them with the essential commodities at cheap and affordable prices. If PDS is targeted to a limited BPL population it may also be possible to increase their supplies through market purchase of these products and sell them at subsidised prices. This would push up the open market prices somewhat further. But targeted PDS can be sustained if the government is willing to subsidise the difference between market price and issue price of commodities. Hopefully increased prices, supported by planned increase in production incentives, will raise output in a short period reducing the supplies bottleneck. But in the immediate future, the government has to be ready to bear the cost of maintaining the PDS. However, the most important requirement is organisation of the system. That cannot be achieved by market incentives or subsidies. The government has to build up a huge and efficient structure of distribution throughout the country. It has to procure, purchase or import products and reach them to different destinations of the PDS. This can be done only with the help of state governments, first to identify the BPL beneficiaries and then to have fair-price shops supply the products efficiently. National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Limited (NACMFoI) or similar organisations can be created for vegetable and other such products. They should build up storages and have contract farming both at home and abroad. The time has now come for all kinds of out-of-the-box thinking to meet a serious problem of economic management in the country. Indian development, if it has to follow an inclusive path, must reinvent itself so that the poor develop an equal stake in our growth process.
Well, I agree in moral principle to Dr Sengupta (a Member of Parliament and former Economic Adviser to assassinated-good-riddance Prime Minister Indira Gandhi) but does this universal PDS not sound too communist? Why should the poor be further subsidized when already farmer markets, ration shops and pink/white cards etc. exist? Are not the high prices a result of supply-demand and greed (read, free-market capitalism) and therefore, market-based solutions are needed? Let missionaries, NGOs, social enterprises and fortune-at-BoP marketing gurus deal with solving something tangible like hunger for a change other than human rights, empowerment or whatever cause. Oh wait, they tried. And failed. And chickened out.
Muslim Women in Hijab/Burqa – Where is Choice?
While the media has no dearth of stories of women suffering under the Islamic tyranny, there is not much hue and cry over France, Germany, Netherlands, Canada trying to ban any form of head covering in public institutions for years. But this is only for Muslim women because Christian nuns and orthodox Church masses (which again force women to cover their hair) are excluded. What hypocrisy and double standards. No? When one says this is a heated discussion in Europe, where is the buzz/kill? The best reasons they can give is people having a sense of discomfort on seeing a vieled woman and revoking memories of 9/11 which is a load of bull-shit. How many burqa-clad women were involved in that relatively trivial incident? It is plain Islamophobia and religious stereotyping at play here and not a clash between religion and progressive secular culture as it is made out to be because if it is about feminism then, no one should be dictating what (not) to wear. At the heart of all of this should be the the right of women to wear what they want. Plain and simple. Maybe it just needs some PR spin. Wear the burqa to be protected from sun and stay fair thereby empowering women because beauty triumphs all. How about an environmental spin saying that wearing hair-covering gear makes men less excitable leading to less sex, less rapes/population. Or perhaps, an economics spin based on less lewd thoughts… Well, you get the drift.
Where is 3rd World Holocaust Museum?
The Hindu Holocaust Museum is a project pioneered by Francois Gautier who has written about it on several occasions since the last six years. However, “secular” Vijay Prashad wakes up only now. Given his ideological propensities, Vijay Prashad naturally feels:
* No Hindu Holocaust. Largescale massacre of Hindus is exaggerated
* Islam didn’t spread in India through violence
* Hindus (Kings) were equally if not more violent than Muslim conquerors
* Hindus and Muslims regarded each other as brothers
Pretty much what we can expect from his ilk. One thing to state misleading assertions in casual conversation and another to actually present it as truth.
In other parts of Asia and Europe, the conquered nations quickly opted for conversion to Islam rather than death. But in India, because of the staunch resistance of the 4000 year old Hindu faith, the Muslim conquests were for the Hindus a pure struggle between life and death. Entire cities were burnt down and their populations massacred. Each successive campaign brought hundreds of thousands of victims and similar numbers were deported as slaves. Every new invader made often literally his hill of Hindu skulls. Thus the conquest of Afghanistan in the year 1000, was followed by the annihilation of the entire Hindu population there; indeed, the region is still called Hindu Kush, ‘Hindu Slaughter’. The Bahmani sultans in central India, made it a rule to kill 100.000 Hindus a year. In 1399, Teimur killed 100.000 Hindus IN A SINGLE DAY, and many more on other occasions. Koenraad Elst quotes Professor K.S. Lal’s “Growth of Muslim population in India”, who writes that according to his calculations, the Hindu population decreased by EIGHTY MILLION between the year 1000 and 1525. Probably the BIGGEST HOLOCAUST IN ENTIRE WORLD HISTORY. Recorded or otherwise.
Staggering numbers and arguments these. But, it is important to stop a moment and have a look at other historical crimes against humanity which have been committed and continue to be committed. In modern history, the massacre by the Turks of 1.5 millions Armenians, the several millions of Russians by Stalin, or the 1 million Tibetans by the Chinese communists, or the thousands killed and millions displaced in the so called “war on terror” and “spreading democracy” stints by the UN, er, USA, UK and their European slaves. These are historical facts which have all been denied by their perpetrators… But deny is not the exact word. They have been NEGATED in a thousand ways: gross, clever, outrageous, subtle, so that in the end, the minds of people are so confused and muddled, that nobody knows anymore where the truth is. As evidence, people feel that Chernobyl was a bigger disaster than the dropping of the atomic bomb by the allied forces in Japanese civilian territories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is hard to understand if the spin doctors are really clever or if the people are really stupid. It boggles the mind. Sometimes, it is the numbers that are negated or passed under silence: the Spanish conquest of South America has been one of the bloodiest and most ruthless episodes in history. Elst estimates that out of the population of native Continental South America of 1492, which stood at 90 million, only 32 million survived; terrible figures indeed but who talks about them today? Ditto with the conquest of North America and the wiping out of the native Red Americans who now live like refugees under a reservation system as the native Aboriginals in Australia and native Zulus of South Africa. A reader of Chomsky will immediately find several instances of grotesque crimes in Haiti, Vietnam, Bangladesh and so on. And I have not even started on the British Raj of India and that of imperial European powers like Netherlands, Belgium, France etc. who have combinedly created horrors like slave trade, apartheid, blood diamonds, ethnic cleansing etc. and now protect themselves with advanced military technologies and iron-clad immigration rules. Germany was a softie by these standards. Irrespectively, the 3rd world comprises of those countries which have been raped and wasted by imperialism. Why does not anybody talk about the source of wealth of rich countries which was achieved by bloodbath? Is repatriation being discussed at all?
I am sure there must be literature but the answer asked by Koenraad (a Belgian), Francois (a French) and Sandeep (a looney) of “Where is the Hindu Holocaust Museum?”, is quite simple. It is the wrong question. We, and not they, should be asking, “Where is the 3rd World Holocaust Museum?”. A moment of silence.
That said, before you go about seeking revenge or getting apologetic, I should say is that it is too easy for peoples to be playing the victim card. We need to look more deeply into the causes behind the demise of civilizations and countries and cultures. What was it about their civilization that made them vulnerable to outsider conquests? The reasons can no longer be solely attributed to an external cause but have to be looked within as well. I cannot comment on other cultures, but I sure can try to answer the India/Hindu question. One important reason for the fall of the Hindu civilization is the complete Hindu ignorance of Abrahamic faiths, most notably, the “religion of messiah” (Jewism), the “religion of love” (Christianity) and “religion of peace” (Islam). Hindus tend to look at another belief systems through an Indic lens, and attribute to it with the same spiritual value and goodness as their own. This attitude is touted as a virtue by some; in matter of fact it is stupidity. Islam and Christianity are not Sikhism and Jainism. Theologically, their absolutist truth claims are unappeasable except by unquestioning acceptance. Politically, they are exclusivist, expansionist faiths that feign a willingness to coexist only when in adversity. Their real aim is world domination and destruction of other faiths. Hindus never understood this, and still do not understand it. In fact, much of the 3rd world is nice and we all know the adage on how the race ends, dont we? I think I can speak for every 3rd world country here that the happiest people in this matter must be the first world countries and the missionaries of religion. They must be thinking, what fools these 3rd worlders are, they must be telling themselves: We killed them by the millions, we wrested whole nations out of them, we engineer riots and financial crises against them, and they still defend us and put us on the pedestal. If you can’t see the continuing folly of your ways, you are what is called a 3rd world country.
Encashing Gandhi – Ruhe, Melancholia and Fetishes
Even Gandhians have been parasitic on the earnings from Gandhi as property. For all these years, Gandhi’s writings were copyrighted material, but as the copyright expires, it is up to us to be bold and Gandhian and declare Gandhi as a commons. It is time to invite the world to the celebration of Gandhi and stop treating the expiry of copyright as the great deficit. Once Gandhi becomes part of the world commons, we can start reinventing him again. I think the best words in this context were said by Fidel Castro. The youthful Castro once said, who would dream of a copyright of Quixote or Shakespeare. Who could dare think of patenting jazz? Unfortunately, such an obscenity is becoming an everyday event. World legacies are being transformed into property to be sold through the tourist trade or they become part of kitsch in the world of brands and souvenirs. Yet Gandhians keep silent as Ruhe appropriates their pictures. Is it “melancholia” or a frozen sadness, where a group is unable to mourn, but is caught in the immobility of a memory that neither redeems, liberates or invents. It is a lazy fetishism that reprimands others but refuses to do anything new. Memory is not just recollection. It is remembrance. It is a reinvention of an event and community and involves both individual biography and collective consciousness. One reinvents the social through acts of retelling. Gandhi is legacy, monument, history, memory. The sadness begins when he is treated as property. What gives Peter Ruhe the right to own and charge for photographs of Gandhi? My Answer: He is parasitic. He is foreigner. He is clever.
Talibanization of Pakistan – Editorial in Pragati
Thoughtcrafts Sriks6711 
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