India after Gandhi: A mesmerizing account of Post Independent India

How often do you stumble across post independent India’s history in your curriculum? The answer might be straight forward for most of you, rarely. Barring the ‘History Lovers’, you would think why the hell in this world should I know about History. I would like to keep this short and simple, if you are like me, who is hungry for knowledge no matter what category it fits into, until and unless it makes sense and you would perhaps gain it out of interest. For this you would probably require a rather interactive piece of facts in your hand.

The book that fits quite a well in this niche is ‘India After Gandhi’- by Ramachandra Guha. Lately I have been reading this book and man! this book tells and teaches History like never before. Why don’t schools have such History books out there? Perhaps, this is the question you would, like me, ask yourself after having read this book.

This book picks up the story where our school books’ history finishes, 15th August 1947 India signs a tryst with destiny. R. Guha has beautifully compiled almost 60 years of Republic of India in five parts, which deals with different aspects this country went through. From Vallabhbhai Patel’s efforts of unification of the country to The Emergency and Kargil war. Every thing that you as a citizen of the India ought to know can be found in the book. The style of the author would not let you lose your interest till the end.

I would not be going inot much more details of the content of the book as it might spoil your reading experience. All in all this is a book which is meant for all, disregard to whether you are an avid reader or a beginner. This book can prove to be great to start your reading adventure with.

Get yours today!

Flipkart: India After Gandhi(Paperback)

Amazon India: India After Gandhi(Kindle and Paperback)

Should elected representatives of people be at least a graduate?

Democracy- dem, people; cracy, rule. 

Democracy is rule by the people, by citizens of a nation. It could be either direct, as in Switzerland, or it may be indirect, by elected representatives of the citizens, as in India and the US, the latter being most prevalent form.

When it comes to indirect democracy, we see plethora of political parties differing in the ideology they follow, individuals claiming to be citizen’s servant and promising them a better future. The people, in a country like India where majority of the population lives in rural areas and even far off villages, often get swayed away by these, often hollow, claims made by our politicians.

Allow me to deviate from the topic of concern for the time being. Ours is a country where one needs to be a graduate for anything and everything. A person needs to be a graduate if he or she wishes to get a job, even if it is as petty as a one pertaining to maintaining a company’s record book. Even for marriages! Which father would let her girl marry a boy who is not a graduate and vice versa. If graduation is so important in life then why our minds go numb when the same human being runs for a post of MP, MLA, and panchayat? Why we don’t think of these post as we think of clerk, or an eligible groom? Why an illiterate or a person with a criminal history is allowed to run our nation? Shouldn’t there be an eligibility criteria for such posts too? Well yes there has to be a criteria for it, but sadly we don’t have any. 

Education enables a man to think rationally and polishes decision making ability. These two characteristics are a must for a nation to progress. Fortunately, we have many skilled and educated leaders, who are not only graduates but even post graduates and doctorates. Alas! these leaders are just needle in a haystack. 

Let’s take an example to ponder over, the US, world’s oldest democracy, has political leaders who are on the alumni portal of Harvard, MIT, and what not. On the contrary, our political leaders can have n number of IPC sections after their name, 300, 301, 350 to name a few. 

Unless this scenario does not change we have no right to expect India to be a super power. How can it be, unless these corrupt and self centered individuals continue to preside over legislature and law making. 

The change, however, has to come from the citizens, after all we are the ones who choose our leader and make such individuals apolitical leader. We should think rationally and not emotionally. Sympathizing can only bring short term happiness but rationalizing can offer the same in the long term. The common man has to understand the power of his or her vote and should not sell this precious right for a petty sum of money. If and when the common man of India realises this, the nation would see a change. 

Demonetization: a Political suicide or a Master stroke

November 8th, 2016, the day when the world was jolted as two of the democracies of the world, one oldest and the other largest, steered in a new direction. The oldest went on to choose a president that none of us expected. The largest too chose a policy that no one could have thought of. 

Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi in an address to the nation declared currency notes of INR 500 and 1000 worthless and from midnight these would just become another piece of paper. The move led to a joke floating over social media which goes like, ‘the media prepared for Trump, while Modi came out of syllabus’. Pretty much apt, no? Who in the world could have guessed or even expected that the government would or could bring 86% of currency to mere bits of coloured paper. 

After the news went viral people went crazy, everyone wanted to deposit their cash into their accounts. No one was ready to hear or think rationally to what the nation’s leader had to say. 

The succeeding days saw serpentine queues outside every bank, people waiting to deposit money into their account, or waiting in hope to get hands on new currency notes that were supposed to replace the old one. 

The motive, as per government, behind this move was to fulfill three pests which continued to plague our nation:

• Curb black money/illicit money/ unaccounted money. 
• Remove counterfeit currency from the economy. 
• The last, cripple funding of cross border terrorism. 

Let us analyze the three and se if the move actually helped or it proved to be a placebo.

 First, curbing black money. Unaccounted money is one of the biggest deterrent to our economy. Although as per some leading economists black money is not in the form of cash but in the form of foreign reserves, gold, silver, and real estate.Only 5-6% is stored as cash. As per CBI, Indians hold approximately $500 billion of illicit money, doing simple math you can estimate that even if the cash form is only 5% it still has a value of $25 billion, a amount which if recovered could be put to nation’s progress.

Second, counterfeit currency is another problem which effects Indian economy to a great extent. By removing old notes and taking anti counterfeit measures in printing new notes, the government has put a hold to these activities for next few years. 

Third, putting a hold on state funded terrorism. Terrorism as we all know is a major issue in our country,  thanks to insurgents groups within and outside the nation,who just know the language of destruction and bloodshed. But wo rarely realise that these insurgents too need money to survive. Where do they get this money? Obviously they dont have an account to withdraw from. They are funded by this illicit cash floating around. Demonetization has hit hard this funding and the effect of which is visible in Kashmir Valley, which was burning,  when our army gunned down a terrorist, in the name of freedom. But what happened, where did all those brave freedom fighters and stone pelters go after 8th of November? Scrapping of currency should have stopped them, should it? 

Having said that what I would like to bring to light here is that although the general public has and is facing hardship everyday since 8th, partly due to high dependence on cash and partly due to inefficient implementation of the policies, they are happy to bear the short term pain for a long term gain. A gain which would help India overcome the malaise of corruption and black market. 

The faith of people in the government shows in the fact that the ruling party was able to sweep 90% of seats in the Chandigarh municipal elections. 

As of today, I see the move as a one with good intention but lacking efficient implementation and planning. The coming days or being more specific the coming fiscal year would rise the curtain and would let the citizens know it was a master stroke or a political suicide. 

Should Housewives be paid for their work?

Homemaker/ Housewife/ Houselady, etc. These are some of the few terms we tend to associate a married woman with. Semantically, what we may infer is these terms refer to a woman who manages a house and makes it a home.

Not dwelling further into linguistics, the burning question is should a housewife be paid for her work?

Before answering, I would like to assess the work housewives do, as it’s an inherent human behaviour – we tend to associate a prize to every job in the world, don’t we? So let’s analyse. A housewife manages her home, looks after cleanliness of the house, prepares food, takes care of children and elders of the house. Long story short they act as a manager everyday 24/7. Even on Sundays!

So ideally, yes they should be paid. Why? Because every manager does get a paycheck, be it private sector or public sector, small company or a conglomerate. Then why not a housewife. She is also entitled for a paycheck or she should also rejoice and jump and dance when her phone beeps with the bank’s credit SMS.

Having said that, the next question arises is- by whom should a housewife get paid?

1. By the ones she serves day in and day out? Clearly children cannot pay their mother for all the hardship she faces. Husband, directly- indirectly, is providing monetary support to his wife and to support the house he lives in.
2. By the government? After all our politicians are quite prompt in providing subsidies and compensations. Before you go bonkers reading above line, pause and think if the government ever decides to compensate every housewife of the country, the cost would go off the roof and clearly would exceed billions and trillions of dollars. So this is also not possible.

So, who should pay compensation to these hardworking ladies who help the country progress?

The answer lies in the fact that we, Homo sapiens, should not associate every work with a piece of paper printed with various colours. We should realise that some jobs in the world are quintessential and we pollute such a job by associating it with cold hard cash.

House-making is one such quintessential job in this world which we should and we ought to respect.Expressing respect, gratitude, love to our mothers and wives is the highest emolument a mother, a wife, a daughter can receive for her sacrifice and hard work. Instead of taking her for granted she should be respected and loved, because its her choice to be a housewife not her husband’s or her parent’s. She desired to be so, to pursue a career which is noblest of all.

At last i would like to close by saying that if she would not have been working in the kitchen during the mornings, you wouldn’t be having that lip smacking food which you call “home made” in your offices and schools.

 

Does universe fascinates you? Yes? Then this is the book for you.

On a pleasant evening, sipping your latte, you look up towards the sky where the stars twinkle spread all over your head, have you ever contemplated why are we here? How our universe came into existence? If you are able to connect with me and are intrigued with the questions, read on!

Decorated astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has answered all such questions in his book ‘A Brief History of Time’. A book where he has tried to explain, in a very layman jargon, the origin of universe, the stars, and the planets.

The book starts with the fundamental of the universe and everything within it, the atoms. How they were discovered, what they actually are. You get to know all of it. He then move on to the formation of universe, the big bang, its cooling down, and why it is expanding even after 13 billion years!

He has also explained the existence of black holes and has also talked of many unknown yet interesting facts about it.

The book ends on a argument of time travel and wormholes, which has been a hot topic in the sci-fi movies.

All in all this book is worth a read. Its not a long book and an avid reader would comfortable finish it in a sitting or two.

If the article helped do give a feedback, it helps.

Before leaving, I’m dropping links for the book in case you wish to buy a copy for yourself.

A brief History of Time- Amazon India

A Brief History of Time- Amazon USA

Apple’s never ending love for adapters!

The world had not yet overcome the nostalgia of the headphone jack on the new iphone 7, and here we have the new Macbook pro with nothing but a couple of USB-C type ports and yes a headphone jack too.

A couple of years back technology was evolving towards a direction the consumers loved, minimal adapters. Smartphones featured USB on the go(or as we like to say OTG), but as I recall it was such a pain to carry an adapter in order to use the feature. Fortunately, manufacturers addressed the issue and we had hybrid pen drives, which eliminated the use of adapters. Then came USB type C, okay not a problem let technology advance, we can use adapters for sometime until type C became mainstream. But for Apple they seem to be fascinated with type C ports so much that they contemplated over it and see the port that could replace every other port, which one needs on his/her notebook. No USB A type, no SD card, not even HDMI. It all boils down to the fact, if you own a Macbook be prepared to go on an adapter shopping spree, you would need a dozen of them. Want to connect a pen drive?, adapter, want to connect a SD card?, adapter, want to project the screen?, adapter!

Apple, one of the few companies, which has always been ahead of its time, be it Mac, ipod, iphone. But should this advancement come at the cost of the consumers spending exorbitant sum of money on adapters?

P.S. I’m neither against innovation nor I condemn it. But what I feel is that innovation should be followed by ease of access and usage.

Reliance Jio- What’s the fuss all about??

So, finally after months of speculation, the much talked about  Reliance Jio had its commercial roll-out, or did it?

The new product, from a veteran player of telecom industry, has managed to shake the likes of Airtel and Vodafone India, both have slashed their internet packages’ pricing by upto 60%.

What sets Jio apart from other telecos

Jio sim uses voLTE( voice over LTE), a grey area which was not explored until Jio stepped in. Other telecos, and even mobile manufacturers, although having 4G bands for internet, use 2G(GSM) and 3G(UTMS) bands for making calls. Jio is on a mission to revolutionize the way we make phone calls by setting the bar high with voLTE , which uses 4G bands(LTE) for calls. This technology ensures that your device do not fall back to inferior bands, not even for few seconds, and you get a seamless hi-speed mobile experience.

The fidelity of the same needs to be tested rigorously overtime, a reason for delay in its mass rollout. Secondly, although being on 4G bands, not all mobile devices have voLTE enabled. By enabled we mean that the mobile has the hardware for voLTE but not the software(which can be resolved with an update).

How do I get my hands on Jio sim?

Jio sims are available at Reliance Digital and Xpress stores pan India with Jio FI, wi-fi hotspot device, Lyf handset, and select Samsung and LG handsets. Here’s the link where you can see if your Samsung/ LG device is supported or not.

Now, here comes the miserable and complicated part, yesterday there was news floating over the internet about the Jio preview offer being open to all 4G devices. Some sources stated that Reliance Digital took to twitter to announce the same, on the contrary, when twitteratis tweeted out to Reliance Digital they deny the statement, while sticking to the offer we have mentioned in the preceding para. Moreover, every Reliance Digital store seem to have launched new offers according to their will and discretion. To clear some dust we decided to contact some stores in the city and the reply we got were

Store 1: Offer only on Samsung, LG and Lyf handsets.

Store 2: Offer on any handset bought from Reliance store(like what, seriously!)

Store 3: No such information has been conveyed to us.

Reportedly, some stores are also asking for cash in exchange for the sim, which is supposed to be free.

What we would suggest you is wait for a couple of days until all the speculations around the matter is cleared out. We would update once this confusion is sought out.

UPDATE As of 24-Aug-2016, Jio has opened its doors for Asus, Panasonic, Micromax, Yu, and many more mobile users too. Users may check eligibility in the aforementioned link.

Thanks for reading!

Love biographies? This is a must read!

Steve Jobs, as we all know, the person who changed the way people interacted with tech. The Apple co-founder had been, until his demise, revolutionizing the industry, be it PCs, MP3 players, or mobiles.

Wouldn’t it be intriguing to get insight about him, his life, how he started the world’s most valuable company. Enters Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, who has also penned down biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein.

The book starts from the scratch, with Jobs’ biological parents, his birth, and ultimately landing in the Jobs family. The book goes through his life very well and of course covers all the phases of Jobs’ life, his journey to India, working at HP and Atari corp, and finally the inception of Apple with Wozniak in his father’s garage.

The book is well versed and compiled, and would never let you leave until you have finished reading it to the end. This book is definitely a must read for bibliophiles and especially those who admire Jobs’ skills, be it his oratory skills or his marketing strategies. Oh, yes and how can we forget about his famous and inspirational speech- Connecting the dots, at Stanford University.

To sum it up, we would just say that this book not only gives you an insight of a person’s life, but it also inspires your inner self, its not always education that makes you successful. At the end of the day it would be your passion, determination, and your love for the work you do which would not let the hard work fade away.

Meanwhile you may pick your copy at-

Amazon.in

Amazon.com