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Tuesday, June 23, 2015

This is How You Get to Know More About the Latest Developments in Deep Space Missions!

Love of adventure, curiosity, and dread of monotony—these traits inherent in evolving human nature—were not put there just to aggravate and annoy you during your short sojourn on earth, but rather to suggest to you that death is only the beginning of an endless career of adventure, an everlasting life of anticipation, an eternal voyage of discovery.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States of America (USA) has been in the forefront in sharing much information about modern space technology and space discoveries with the public worldwide.

Sun- Our Blazing Orb [Picture Source-NASA]

6,000,000,000 years ago marks the end of the terminal breakup and the birth of your sun, the fifty-sixth from the last of the Andronover second solar family. This final eruption of the nebular nucleus gave birth to 136,702 suns, most of them solitary orbs. The total number of suns and sun systems having origin in the Andronover nebula was 1,013,628. The number of the solar system sun is 1,013,572. [FER Paper 57:4.8]


Very recently they have come out with some free Apps that enable smartphone users to have a virtual three dimensional (3D) feel of  deep space explorations right on their smartphone screens.


Incidentally NASA has many  iPad and Android Apps which provide educational entertainment for all those who are interested to know more about modern scientific explorations and discoveries.

One can download these Apps from the official NASA page (click here!)

NASA also shares many e-books with the public (click here!)

NASA Blogs provide interesting and informative reading experience.

Their image gallaries provide not only some wonderful experience, but also make us realize the vastness of our universes.

There are much more for those curious to know.

Team NASA is doing a wonderful job.

Kudos to all those scientists, engineers, astronauts and administrators of human kind who keep doing all these for the rest of us!

I believe that their scientific curiosity for discovering the mysteries of the deep space would one day result in the elevation of human knowledge in material sciences to transform to a quest for deeper understanding of the spiritual realms of the universes!

Monday, June 22, 2015

Sharing Some Supernal Statements for Some Simple Superior Souls!*

Spiritual growth is mutually stimulated by intimate association with other religionists. 

Love supplies the soil for religious growth.

While religion produces growth of meanings and enhancement of values, evil always results when purely personal evaluations are elevated to the levels of absolutes.

Some persons are too busy to grow and are therefore in grave danger of spiritual fixation.

The chief inhibitors of growth are prejudice and ignorance.

Year-by-year progress through an established educational regime does not necessarily mean intellectual progress.

Enlargement of vocabulary does not signify development of character. 

Live loyally today — grow — and tomorrow will attend to itself.

The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole.

Religion cannot be bestowed, received, loaned, learned, or lost. It is a personal experience which grows proportionally to the growing quest for final values.

The evidence of true spiritual development consists in the exhibition of a human personality motivated by love, activated by unselfish service, and dominated by the wholehearted worship of the perfection ideals of divinity. And this entire experience constitutes the reality of religion as contrasted with mere theological beliefs.

Spirituality enhances the ability to discover beauty in things, recognize truth in meanings, and discover goodness in values.

The goal of human self-realization should be spiritual, not material.

Religion is not a technique for attaining a static and blissful peace of mind; it is an impulse for organizing the soul for dynamic service.

Human likes and dislikes do not determine good and evil; moral values do not grow out of wish fulfillment or emotional frustration.

Values can never be static; reality signifies change, growth. Change without growth, expansion of meaning and exaltation of value, is valueless — is potential evil. Values are always both actual and potential — not what was, but what is and is to be.

The supreme value of human life consists in growth of values, progress in meanings, and realization of the cosmic interrelatedness of both of these experiences. And such an experience is the equivalent of God-consciousness. Such a human, while not supernatural, is truly becoming superhuman; an immortal soul is evolving.

Man cannot cause growth, but he can supply favorable conditions. Growth is always unconscious, be it physical, intellectual, or spiritual.

Love thus grows; it cannot be created, manufactured, or purchased; it must grow. 

Evolution is a cosmic technique of growth. 

Social growth cannot be secured by legislation, and moral growth can not be  by improved administration. 

Man may manufacture a machine, but its real value must be derived from human culture and personal appreciation.

Religious living is devoted living, and devoted living is creative living, original and spontaneous. 
]
New religious insights arise out of conflicts which initiate the choosing of new and better reaction habits in the place of older and inferior reaction patterns.

The highest happiness is indissolubly linked with spiritual progress. Spiritual growth yields lasting joy, peace which passes all understanding.

You can best discover values in your associates by discovering their motivation. If someone irritates you, causes feelings of resentment, you should sympathetically seek to discern his viewpoint, his reasons for such objectionable conduct. If once you understand your neighbor, you will become tolerant, and this tolerance will grow into friendship and ripen into love.

You cannot truly love your fellows by a mere act of the will. Love is only born of thoroughgoing understanding of your neighbor’s motives and sentiments.

Genuine religion takes nothing away from human existence, but it does add new meanings to all of life; it generates new types of enthusiasm, zeal, and courage.


Friday, June 19, 2015

Some Useful Financial Information and Calculators For Planning Your Loans and Pensions in India!

The following gives some useful links that may help people from Indian who are reasonably tech savvy to quickly ascertain their financial standings and to take informed decisions on availing home loans, personal loans, car loans, insurance and also make informed decisions to invest their money safely as per the services offered by various Indian banks and financial institutions. 

Whether it is saving money in bank deposits or availing loans from the banks, individual financial management needs to be done with due diligence. In other words, careless financial planning could bring great miseries!

Some time ago, I had written about the online banking service integrator portal, the bankbazaar.com which is an emerging IT company in India which helps people to take well informed decisions with regard to their banking needs. This blog is in continuation to that and may contain some redundant information.

Click on the following images to reach to the relevant pages of the best on line banking comparison and information site, bankbazaar.com:




Are you looking for some bank loans in India? But before you do that check your eligibility and resources by taking help from the financial calculators given in this page. For more financial online calculators visit this site!

For various purposes like registering some one for online money transfer etc, one occassionally needs to know the Indian Financial System Code (IFSC) of the bank branches in India. You can get it from this page

The bankbazaar portal also facilitates one to get appropriate life, health or car insurance from the various insurance companies in India.



Incidentally the bankbazaar company is in the expansion mode and they are in the look out for more people. Interested people with the right aptitude can lookout for their career options here!

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Water Purifiers for Home and Offices:Are They Really Needed? How to Get the Best?

Some of my readers might have read one of my earlier blog article wherein I had discussed some pertinent issues pertaining to drinking water safety in my own country India. [ If you haven't read it, click here to read that blog!]

While drinking water safety is a major concern for my nation, India, it cannot be presumed that it is very good and very safe in the developed nations of our world today. For various reasons, drinking water quality deterioration is a worldwide phenomena and it is directly linked to multifarious human developmental activities. The more the pupulation and the economic activities, the more likely the water of that region becoming potentially hazardous to drink.

I remember drinking water directly from the open well of my village home in Kerala state during my childhood days without any kind of water treatment. Underground water filtered out by the layers of soil had been considered pure and safe in those days! But as the population increased and the number of dwelling units per unit area increased, it is no more safe to presume the quality of any underground well water.

For that matter, no water as naturally available in populated regions can be considered of having reasonably good quality for consuming directly without proper treatment.

Why it is so? Water is a universal solvent and cleaning agent. We use it for drinking, cooking, washing utensils and cloths, cleaning our homes and automobiles, horticulture, piscicultrue, leisure and several kinds of industrial uses. In all those processes, an equivalent quantity of wastewater is generated which we discharge to the natural drainages with or without some kind of waste water treatment.

Normally we do not bother to do any elaborate waste water treatment unless the statutory authorities compel us to do so. In most part of the world, waste water treatment methods for individual homes and small communities either do not exist or are not mandatorily enforced. Even for the industries, water pollution control methods are not strictly followed for several reasons including high costs, ignorance, lack of adequate technology and indifference.

Normally, a good majority of polluting substances mixed in waste waters, such as human excreta, pathogenic microorganisms and many other polluting substances picked up by water when it is used, get naturally bio-degraded provided the waste water gets sufficient time for the bio-degradation process to complete. However, with higher water usage on account of population growth and modern human needs, these natural processes do not get completed before the water is again drawn for further use.

Besides, there are many substances that usually get into water from various sources that do not get bio-degraded or removed completely by natural processes. These include various kinds of fertilizers, chemicals used for pest control, medicines used for disease control, chemicals used for washing and cleaning, hormones used for plant and animal productivity enhancements, radioactive waste effluents from thermal and nuclear power plants, hydrocarbon chemicals from autofuels and chemical plants, waste leaches from solid wastes and inferior plastics, etc.

Even water that looks apparently clean and hygienic, cannot be determined as fully safe, in such a scenario unless it is elaborately tested and certified.

However, high level water testing and certification is not practical. 

When water that we drink contains certain impurities in small quantities, it is sometimes difficult for us to know about it. When the color, turbidity, odor and taste are not upto our liking, we may reject it if we have other better options. But as water is becoming scarce in many parts of the world, we do not necessarily enjoy such a privilege of selecting water of our choice!

Then, how do we safely transform the water that we have to something really safe and pleasurely drinkable?

Large water treatment facilities are indeed expensive and only large industries can afford it. And the industries treat water in large treatment plants when they find it essential for their industrial operations.

For homes and offices, one may resort to getting piped muncipal water or getting bottled mineral water as marketted by the treated water suppliers. There are also several kinds of domestic water treatment gadgets available in the markets all of which claim to convert your available pipe water supply to safe drinking water.

Such domestic water purifier systems are numerous. Some of them use simple catridge filters while some others have a complex series of treatment modules that perform coarse filtration, fine filtration, odor removal, dissolved solid removal by reverse osmosis and finally doing disinfection by ultraviolet radiation or some other methods.

While such domestic water purifier units may do some good, they cannot be considered as a universal solution to all kinds of water purification purposes. That is because of the varying levels of impurities in the source water that may be available from place to place.

I have been examining the various kinds of water treatment products that are available in the world market today. While some companies make reasonably good products, all cannot be considered in the same way. All products have merits as well as demerits. It is difficult for the common user to differentiate between such products.

Recently I have come across a US water treatment specialist company which produce and market domestic water purification equipment in the tradename PureEffectFilters.

Their website provides much information and their water purifier units use high quality microfiltration catridges of appropriate designs to remove all kinds of unwanted impurities from almost all kinds of water while retaining all the essential water salts and minerals in the water.

They call their water purifier units as the water re-vitalizers because these ultra filtration systems only remove unwanted impurities from water while enhancing some of the potable qualities of water by improving its taste and freshness. 

The company's water purifiers are available not only in the United States of America (USA), but also marketted worldwide and can be ordered online.

Those interested in knowing more about water and the differences between various water purifier systems and units should explore their website. 

It is time that we start giving importance to the water we use. Let us not unknowingly cause our body systems to degenerate and cause unidentified sicknesses by consuming water containing unidentifiable impurities. 

Spending some money for getting the best kind of water purifier at home or office, just as the airconditioner or the refrigerator, should not be considered as a wasteful expenditure. I would say, it is an essential thing now.

I would suggest my readers to share this blog with their friends. I would also suggest some of them to be an associate or affiliate of PureEffectFilters in helping them to reach out to more and more people who might think of using a proper water purifier essential for good living!

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Why Does This Melancholy Deep Inside Me?

Outwardly perhaps people who know me from a distance might regard me as a never smiling, never talking or non-interesting character. But that is not very true for those who know me from closer quarters. For them, I am a jolly go-getter, and they simply like to be in my company. So do I.

There are reasons for those majority around me for whom I am like a moron. Many things where they get overtly excited do not excite me.

To cite a few examples, I am not interested in shopping or more precisely, window shopping, that many people seem to be very much interested. For me, purchasing some thing for fulfilling our needs is okay. Nevertheless, I am not prepared to spend much time for such an activity. That is because of a simple logical realization. There are innumerable products and materials produced and marketted in this world under various qualities, specifications and prices and no individual, however she or he tries, could not reach out to all those at any time. Besides, no one ever needs to check all those for deciding what is to be procured, provided he or she has a stable and rational mind.

It is also not required for me to do an extensive market survey of the products for saving some money or getting the best product becasue, the money I save or the quality I get has much less significance in actual life. That is because, the real necessities of life are very less while we may, in modern times, have several artificially induced needs and necessities!

I truly believe what Jesus taught long ago: man does not live by bread alone! 

Very regrettably, even he could not make his contemporaries appreciate what it actually meant. Would it be any surprise then, if I fail to make my contemporaries understand its meaning? Ofcourse, no one in this so called modern world would agree!

The majority around me are overtly interested in noisy debates over various contemporary areas of their likes and dislikes that include media celebrities, branded gadgets, the game of cricket, the game of politics, political honchos, professional work, money making, sensational news and the like. I have to make a conscious effort to be a hypocrite for getting an acceptance among this kind of a humanity around me. If I don't, there are all chances that I am kicked out from the community of modern day humans. So, to remain my position safe as a modern human, I have to make compromises to my own likes, dislikes and feelings. 

And that causes internal stress even while I make conscious efforts not to have those conflicts affect my peace. To a greater extent, over the years, I have learnt the technique of mastering such stress. But, now that stress has paved way to a kind of thoughtful sadness. Something arising out of empathy towards the blissful ignorance of supernal realizations of my fellow beings! I dare not have expressed that lest they brand me a lunatic straight coming from moon! It is indeed difficult to exist alone among a group of differently oriented fraternity of humans! And that difficulty makes me sad and I keep covering that sadness in my own manner invariably always enhancing it instead of subduing it.

But to tell you the truth, experience of decades, has trained me to contain my deep rooted melancholy to feeble levels rather than to substantial levels!

I read that some parts of this world are better developed than the part where I live.When I explore to find the reasons, I learn that in those places, humans are more trustworthy. They trust each other more than their cousins in my part of the world.

For example, the Danish people are reportedly the happiest in the world now-a-days. I also learn that the Danish people are happier because they do not give too much importance to money. Rather they consider social fellowship more important than any thing else.  

In my region, some how, distrust is the key element of life and true social fellowship without selfish interests are becoming a rarity as the time passes. The growing distrust, selfishness and greed for money among my fellow beings in my part of the world sadden me.

The so called democracy has opened up the avenues for more and more people to become kings without crowns in my nation. Kings of the past had all gone below the ground to get mixed to the soils, but that has not opened the faculty of wisdom in the brains of my country men and women. They kept desiring to become like kings and queens. Not for serving their fellow beings, but with the immense desire to control their fellow beings by becoming the so called political honchos.

The reports say that a mere 928 house holds in India own and control one fifth of the nation's wealth now.

While my fellow being are not so perturbed with this, I truly am. Not because, these households manage to control this huge wealth and money, but because they fail to discharge their responsibilities as custodians of wealth, judiciously. And that makes me sad, really sad. 

I watch the dare devil acts of the teens whose fathers and mothers leave no stones unturned for making their young ones becoming bullies or accomplished master geniuses capable of showing off their superior existence at any cost. Truly they want to be in a rat race even if it means an end like rats! They want to make their foot prints every where! I am saddened seeing them ignorantly trying hard to make their superior human existence degraded to that of rats with their competitive race for material gains alone! They pull and bite each others legs lest no one else should succeed in going ahead in the group than them! In the process of competition, extreme selfishness rules the roost! 

Watching them, I think about their ultimate fates about which they seem mostly unconcerned. It pains me.

It pains me when I see those privileged elders and leaders among my fellow men consistently fail to become role models of wisdom, arising from life's valuable knowledge and experience, to their younger generations. Watching their comic acts makes me sad rather than laugh out loudly over their joker like stupidities! But it is their indifference to reject and condemn the evils of the society that pinches me more! 

It makes me sad when my counter parts behave like walking dead bodies! It makes no difference to them when the deep felt lamentations silently come out of me. My own contemporaries appear as dead already with no worthwhile responses to the various inputs that they receive from their surroundings! 

And so I care much not to let out my lamentations heard out loudly!

When the sexagenerians, septagenarians and the octagenerians among my lot fight each other for money and power with least botheration to their imminent bodily cessation of life, I feel amused. My heartfelt symapthies to those ignorant lots turn out to become a kind of subtle melancholy.

When my blogs about transcendental knowledge get the least reading, it puzzles me and my puzzle turns out to add to my sadness. Should I have written more about those things that my fellows want to hear rather than what I wanted to tell them? Had I gone in that way, perhaps they would have liked my blogs and shared those among their lots. 

But unlike them, my consciousness keep preventing me doing that. My sadness remains as there is none to hear me in this world now.

Being good in an evil dominated locality is indeed a painful endeavour. All the more difficult and painful is when all evils are branded as good by almost all.

Will my lamentations be heard by any one?

How long would I have to live showing off a pseudo-face of artificially made up face of joy? 

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Now Its Time That You Should Know More About Lead, MSG and Other Substances in Your Foods!

Being a chemical engineer, I do not necessarily agree with all those who try to induce fear about materials and processes that we encounter in our day to day lives now.

Basically I believe that all materials and substances as available in this world as created by the divine creators are useful and has some purpose.

In essence, that assumes the notion that everything is good.

What is bad in this good is the way and manner in which we use and manage these good things around us. When we mismanage materials and substances, they can turn to become bad for us.

That is why the saints of the old has warned us this way: In excess, even amrit is poison! [In Hindu mythology, amrit is the potion drink of the gods that give them immortality!]

So, if you relish eating and drinking something, there need not be too much worry so long as you do it wisely. In fact, your worries could do more harm to you than what you eat and drink!

But the key here is your wisdom. While you use substances and materials for eating, drinking or for any other purpose, your actions have to be done wisely. You and your fellows will face problems when you do things stupidly or foolishly! You should not do stupid things like destroying or burning your home just for evicting a rat that had gone inside it!

Why I have written this much is because I find constant efforts by some people to induce fear and anxieties among people, in the guise of creating awareness. Making the common people fearful and anxious is a trick used by some people for gaining some advantage for themselves! 

If you go to a non professional doctor who doesnot give any importance to professional ethics, there is all likelihood that the doctor may give such medical descriptions about your health conditions that you become perpetually worried about it. Eventually you may become a perpetual visitor to the doctors and the hospitals divesting a good part of your incomes! 

The media men and women too might bombard you with lots of inconclusive information and opinions that could make you totally confused, scared and anxious. Not all people have the capacity to isolate and process facts from falsehoods or digest falsehoods and misinformation with a pinch of salt!

Having said that, I cannot not however, agree to the superiority of some humans who assert their right of domination over others whom they view as lesser mortals. Efforts of democratically elected governmental representatives to force their food habits and beliefs on others is one such thing which I consider as not commensurate with modern civilization. The savages of the past believed might is right. But modern human civilization does not endorse that. Hence, acts and thoughts similar to that of savages emerging in a civilized society, however negligible it might be, cannot be considered as palatable to any civilized mind.

I believe in the democratic right of all governments to make rules and regulations and administer them for the good of the people at large. But such rules and regulations when done whimsically and arbitrarily without the application of mind cannot be acceptable as coming from a civilized government. 

Democratic governments and the elected representatives of people have the responsibility to give convincing answers to the citizens about their acts. But when they show arbitrariness of dictatorship, civilized citizens need to worry about their society's future!

In my country, one state in the south, all of a sudden banned a section of the hotels from serving alcoholic bewerages. The arbitrariness of their decision was too obviously reflecting the vested interests behind such a governmental action. The elected representatives could not explain the logic of their acts. Now those vested interest representatives are facing the heat of public anger and investigations.

In a similar manner, some other public representatives are forcing their own beliefs on the vast majority of people with respect to food habits. Some do not like beef and meat, some do not like eggs and they want others to follow suit. Will their acts sustain?

Now it is this processed food made by a multinational food company called Nestle in the name of Maggi. The controversy started a couple of days ago and the political strategy of bans followed without proper explanations or clarifications from the governmental authorities. Interestingly, the actions of the governments are obviously reflecting their political interests. 

But what is this controversy all about? The media while bombarding the news about the bad luck of the Swiss company Nestle, is not honest enough to disclose the truths. They too do not follow any professional ethics in this country. And that should be a point of worry for the thinking people.

But information is not anybody's monopoly in this age of the internet. You can know much and make your own conclusions.

The controversy is about the concentration of two substances in the Maggi noodles which is essentially a dried and easily cookable thread like food material made of wheat flour. Together with the pouch of the cookable noodle, it has a mix of tastemaker in another pouch which contains salt, chilli and other substances for making the noodles tasty to eat.

Now about the controversial ingrediants. One is called the glutamate or more precisely, Mono Sodium Glutamate or MSG. It is an organic salt which is found in many natural food items like tomatoes, cheese, mushrooms, etc. It is also manufactured by chemical processes. 

Interestingly it is entirely produced from vegetable raw materials such as starch. (I suggest the readers to find more about the production and uses of MSG as given in the website of the International Starch Institute of Denmark (the least corrupt country in the world!)  

Mono Sodium Glutamate has been in use in the world for at least a century now. It is a food additive approved by many nations and is classified in the European classification of food additives (the E-number) . Though there are some isolated research studies which describes some not so serious adverse effects of MSG when consumed exceeding some limits, such reports remain as incoclusive. It is an approved taste enhancer for various kinds of foods in most countries. 

Any food which is added with tomatoes or cheese or mushroom can test positively for MSG. As a precautionary directive, MSG levels as acceptable for common use in foods have been notified by some countries. Essentially, there is no need for any one to get panic about this taste enhancer as it is safer that common salt for normal use. User descretion is always needed when people consume food and bewerages. Any food material in excess may be injurious to health. For that matter, even common salt is injurious when it is added beyond certain limits in food.

The next controversy is about lead (Chemically, Plumbum or Pb). There is no way that Nestle would add any lead salt or substance knowingly to their noodles. Because, lead does not have any role in the manufacturing process for making noodles. But then from where this lead coming from in Maggi noodles? The authorities who have licenced Maggi and Nestle need to explain this.

In reality, lead comes into our water and food from every where. Our air, water and cereals all in India contains lead in small quantities. Nestle or any other manufacturer is not adding any lead for making their products. Because our authorities and public fail to manage air, water and land pollution in a pragmatic manner, water and food as obtained in India has a higher level of lead content as compared to international standards. For example, drinking water and bottled mineral water in India has  lead content in it. Just because the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) publish a detailed wish list of quality standards for foods and drinks that are to be made and sold in India, the quality of food and drinks as available in India is not going to become superior! 

Water in many cities come to home and industry through metallic or plastic pipes. All these pipes and fittings contain some lead and from it the water can have some small quantity in parts per million levels. 

The atmosphere gets lead oxides from the burning of coal in power plants and by humans. 

Substantial quantities of lead comes from many of our paints that we use in our homes.

From all these, lead is absorbed by the plants including wheat. So wheat flour (atta or maida) can have some lead naturally in it.

And there is no chemical process by which this lead from wheat flour or water could be removed. 

In reality, the lead that Maggi contains is naturally occuring from the raw materials that they procure from Indian sources!

When this is the reality, is the knee jerk action of the Indian authorities justifiable? I doubt.

It is time that the authorities explain things properly.

Otherwise, this too should be guaged as a consequence of vested interests playing.

And that is not a good thing for a civilized society! 

When the corruption perception index of India remains at a shameful level, the actions done by the Indian authorities are not likely to be viewed as something logical, reasonable or justifiable unless the authorities show the wisdom to make things more transparent and clear.

If it is not, India is not going to be a favorable destination for business and industry even when the top authorities publicly keep desiring otherwise.

Will You Burn Your Home for Fear of Rats?

In my native language, Malayalam, there is an idiom like this: 'eliye pedichu illom chuttathu pole' [എലിയെ പേടിച്ചു ഇല്ലം ചുട്ടത് പോലെ] . Literally in English it means 'like burning house fearing the rat'!

Only foolish people will burn their home for killing or evicting a rat that went inside their home as they have high aversion to this rodent.

But foolish or stupid people are very common in our society. So, day in and day out we see similar stupid acts done by stupid people around us.

Each passing generation smiles at the foolish superstitions of its 
ancestors while it goes on entertaining those fallacies of thought and worship 
which will give cause for further smiling on the part of enlightened posterity.
 [The Urantia Book Paper 86:6.5]

Many of us might have learnt the story of the stupid son of the wood cutter, during our childhood. The story was included in the text books of children for making them understand the forms of foolishness or stupidity among us. In the story, the wood cutter entrusted his son to keep watch while he took a short nap in the jungle after cutting the woods with his axe for some time. While he slept, the watchful son saw a fly disturbing his father by flying around his father's head and occassionally sitting over his nose. The stupid son took the axe and tried to kill the fly sitting over his father's nose! I need not tell the rest of the story because any one not stupid could easily guess what could have happened!

But such stupidities we see every where even now. Some times we also do such acts of stupidity. That is because, we all have some imperfections in our mind capacities that we call as our wisdom. Mind you, wisdom is different from intelligence, though wisdom needs intelligence.

I had an IITian colleague who was extremely good with his mathematical intelligence and problem solving skills. He would solve mathematical problems just like a computer which many of us could not. He also had a sharp memory and could recite or quote several literary works quite easily which too were difficult for many. But if you ask him simple questions about day to day activities he would stumble and most often I had seen him in confused state, incapable of taking a decision. He would even stumple for a decision to enter his room and would occassionally stand still at the door thinking what to do! Such individuals, though geniuses in some areas of intelligence, are dealt as lacking common sense or practically foolish or stupid.

Every one of us, being imperfect, do reflect some of our stupidities at some point of time, if not often. The degree of our stupidity varies from individual to individual and group to group. But when our foolish acts are predominant over shadowing our wise acts then we fall in the class of stupid people in general.

When we are too stupid, we fail to recognize our foolishness and that is a much more serious problem than being stupid at times!

Foolish people generally lack the ability to differentiate between facts and falsehoods. They also lack the ability to differentiate between good and bad. When they are too foolish, they argue a lot to prove what they think as right regardless of the realities.

Unfortunately, when stupid people are in majority, it would be wise for wise people to keep quiet. Perhaps this could be the reason why in India in these times, we hardly see any wise men or women open their mouths to express their views! They are quietly realizing the most difficult thing in their lives!

Stupids in majority make stupid laws and intrepret laws foolishly making the society and nation hellish. When they try to come out of the problems caused by one stupidity, they do ten other stupid acts.

But come whatever may, they never seek wise directions from a few wise men and women here and there to come out of their miseries caused by their own foolish acts.

They can relish on rotten food and enjoy drinking sewage like liquids. They declare such foods and drinks as too good for health even while they suffer from chronic dysentry and stomachaches. But at the same time they accuse the cook who made clean, delicious alternative food for them for years and also kick the cook hard  that he is forced to run for his life! They are indeed stupid to realize the causes of their dysentries!

Is it not a situation similar to burning the home for killing the rats?

We have been doing our activities without application of our intelligent minds in several of the instances making our acts effectively stupid. That caused our air, water and land polluted. We now do not have naturally occuring fresh water or fresh air in most parts of our regions. Ofcourse, the wise among us knows to device means ot over come such problems. But we are so stupid in our collective acts that we never allow our learned experts to do the work properly for us. Instead, we create such stupid hue and cries that our engineers shy away from doing any effective work!

The stupids among us know only to shout punish, punish and punish, but do not ever say reward, reward and reward! We still virtually live in the medieval era where the kings and chieftains believed stupidly in the effectiveness of punishment only for getting any work done. Our laws only talk about punishments and nothing about rewards! Our stupid minds recognize only sticks and no carrots!

So we do not mind to burn our homes for punishing that naughty rat that went inside our home with least regard to us! We want the perpetuator killed at whatever be the cost! For that matter we want all perpetuators to be killed, not only the rats! We want our laws to be re-written that way, if ii is not that way now!

Our stupid minds cannot recognize any justice system other than the archaic tooth-for-tooth-and-eye-for-eye laws of the old!

Education has only made us to be masters of formal sciences and arts. Some of us have the highest educational degrees and scores. Unfortunately, our education has failed to remove stupidity from our minds!

So we justify and scientifically prove the usefulness of burning the home for killing the rat! We don't agree that we are stupid fools. We know each and everything and there're nothing on earth that are not known to us, we boldly claim. Are we stupid?

For us what is right is that what the majority endorse. We hardly give any weightage to the opinions of a few here and there even when they are telling the truths. Our media men and media managers know this fully well. They know the art of making the not-so-thinking public to swing in favor of what they think as right! This is cleverness of getting the stupids swing!

Our social media is full of boastful know-it-all individuals who consider all others other than them as stupids. They use all kinds of profanities to bulldoze and intimidate such people whom they consider as stupids! Had there been any chance, they would have considered it a better option to literally bulldoze those who did not agree to their ideas rather than using the verbal threats that they are so used to now.

Eliminate all those whom you do not like, even when it amounts to burning your own home! There is no stupidity in those line of thoughts, they argue!

If history is any indication, collective stupidity destroys civilizations and nations. When stupids are on the rise, the wise start thinking about the imminent fall that is nearing!

The stupids will start burning their own homes out of fear, making the whole nation burn!

Can it be prevented? 

If you think this as a stupid question, the time for the rise of stupidity perhaps has begun!  

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Ramifications of the Great Indian Noodle Game for 'Acche Dins' Ahead!

A couple of days ago, early in the morning I got a call from my son from Bengaluru. He was anxious to discuss about the sudden disappearance of Maggi noodles from the Bengaluru markets and making him and thousands others like him starve for their daily calorie needs.

" Dad, we have been eating Maggi from our childhood days. We never had any problems. Then what is this thamasha (Indian word for irresponsible acts) this government fellows are doing now?" 

He seemed a bit agitated and that was quite a natural response because, youngsters like him who are working in India's metros for making India shine have been dependent on this quick-to-cook-and-eat noodle packs produced and marketted by one of the world's largest and reputed food product companies from their childhood days. Parents like us have been taking advantage of the modern food technologies as brought in by innovative, technology oriented multinational companies like Nestle.

In fact consumers like us have been happy and believing. Believing the company and its decades old reputation. We also believed the wisdom of the governmental authorities who apparently did the detailed investigations before giving the licences for such companies to produce and market their food products in India just as they did it in their own countries and elsewhere. I remember reading the company's noodle packs and their ready to cook soup packs containing the details of the contents and the declarations and cautions about these tasty foods containing MSG (mono sodium glutamate) as a taste enhancer. [Note that this substance is found in many naturally occuring food items such as tomatoes, cheese, mushrooms, etc and has been in use world wide for more than a century now!]

But that was not any botheration for us. Because we considered the foods made by the company's fully automated plants much more safer than all other kinds of ready to eat food as available in the Indian markets. We also knew the limitations and competency of the government's food testing laboratories and their inspectors and it was quite logical to believe the company more than the latter!

As ordinary citizens of a democratic country, having its legacy from several kingdoms and the later British rule era, we had been always under the notion that governments are for the good of the people. It is very difficult for ordinary citizens to assume that the government could do any thing detrimental to the people. If at all such things, that were only possible during any foreign rule like what we had during the British times. Our own governments that get formed by our own people can never do any thing wrong! That have been our wishful thoughts all these past decades. 

It has been very difficult for us to believe in the unholy nexus between our own people directly linked with business and the governments and about the possibility of their unholy mutual enmities which could develop as cold wars affecting our own lives!

Businesses are essentially a service to the citizens at large and no population or country can exist without some people doing business activities. Under this concept, businesses involve providing essential human service. Businesses provide the opportunity for all to meet their essential needs to survive and no one can imagine a situation where in businesses do not exist. Human civilization will vanish when businesses cease to function. They are the essential human invention by which we do and regulate all our activities. When there is no business, perhaps there is no nation or no government. We go back to our primitive days of tribal existence in the jungles. 

Industry and business are needed for us to progress and it is essential that we keep on inventing new avenues for doing more and more business activities as our populations keep growing.

While businesses give benefits to the consuming public, the business owners get a chance to make money. Ideally, they should make reasonable money as a reward for the services they do. From the money they make they should also share a part with the government as taxes for meeting the expenses of the governments. But when things go unreasonable, the society at large suffers either directly or indirectly. 

When businesses are managed  by unscrupulous or incompetent  people, detrimental problems to people arise. So, in the interest of the people at large, the people are required to develop rules and regulations for doing business. Governments are for that purpose.

But governments are also formed of people and when unscrupulous and incompetent people manage governments, detrimental problems to people arise. 

Thus it is the unscrupulous and incompetent people in the business and in the government that create problems for the people in general.

Unscrupulous people in the governmental systems might do acts arising out of vested interests, lack of knowledge or pure incompetency. 

Let us take the Maggi noodle case as an example. The company developed a process by which this food product with a long shelf life is produced. The government gave the permission to the company to produce it in their factories and do the marketing in accordance with the laws. Maggi became a house hold name and gradually became the major profit earning product of the company in India in a time span of about thirty years. The company contributed to the government in taxes and also provided direct and indirect employment to thousands of Indians. For all these years, the governments food inspecting authorities and licensing authoritied did not find any fault with this company or its product. In my knowledge, no government authority of India gave any public caution notice about this product so far during the last three decades.

When a product is existing for such a long period with full public and governmental patronage, it is normally assumed as a reputed product. But then what has happened all of a sudden in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh that the food inspectors of that region find this household food product tested as unacceptable for human consumption? Why did many states like the NCR react immediately by almost making a kind of ban on this product?

Going by the past experiences the following could be the possible reasons:

1. Possibility of mischief: There could be some vested interests somewhere who wants to tarnish the image of Nestle so that they could possibliy gain. Business rivals doing such mischiefs are not uncommon in modern history! They can do it in many ways by manipulating the samples or by manipulating the tests done in the food testing labs. Personnel that man these systems  are not fully unpliable!

2. Possibility of error in sampling and testing due to incompetency of the food control staff. The governmental laboratories usually do not have very good test facilities or very good analysts if one goes by the usual standard with regard to governmental facilities in India.

3. Manufacturing process errors. This is very unlikely as the company has been doing this for years under strict quality control systems. Being a multinational technology innovator, the company is likely to have a better testing and quality control facility than the governmental labs.

4. Impractical chemical quality norms as fixed by law:  The problems highlighted in Maggi's case now is with regard to the allowable limits of lead content and MSG content in the noodles. India does not have authentic research facilities of its own to arrive at conclusions of this kind. When even the technologists and scientists are not sure about the impact of a micro constituent in any food or drink, how could it be made for sure as a legal norm? It is normally as a result of lobbyists  or the law drafting technocrats copy pasting some foreign study materials to be evolved as some impractical laws of the land which cannot be so easily reversed. The difficulty with this kind of technical laws are that they are never understood by the legislatures nor the enforcing agencies who are all essentially non-technical as far as their competencies are concerned. Once an impractical law gets enacted, it provides much under-the-table opportunities for many enforcing authorities to be too whimsical in their acts!

5. An effort to arm-twist the business entity for various reasons: It is a common practice in many countries to use law to arm-twist peoples, groups or companies. Some people having power of governance do this for various reasons. This happens when they work essentially for self satisfaction rather than the common good of the nation.

6. Absence of governmental authority: Govermental determination and decision making go here and there when the govermental leadership is practically weak and visionless. In such a scenario, errors due to incompetence and ignorance keep happening at various levels of governance resulting in unpredictable governmental actions and responses. In the Indian context, it is normally the genaralist bureaucrats making the final directions towards decision making. When highly technical issues are involved, these directions become mutually contradictory and often funny.

It could be any one or all or several of such reasons that creates this kind of situations in governance which for the learned citizens appear as directionless and contradictory to the generally perceived vision of the top leadership of the country. For the ordinary common folks, it makes no difference as they are always confused and divided as ever!

In this case of Maggi noodles, such administrative goof ups might be creating tensions for the Nestle India officers, distributors, stock holders, suppliers ,  employees and perhaps consumers like us who have to think now for alternatives for meeting their easy food solutions. 

And incidentally the air that we breath has more lead than in the Maggi!

But what are the ramifications of incidences like this for the whole of India?

India keeps on proving that it is not a business friendly country. Not that any one should be allowed to do any kind of business by violating all rules. But, there should be transparency and governmental ethics that reciprocate with business ethics.

I have heard Indian small and medium scale company promoters talking about the umpteen numbers of fines and penalties that the authorities now force on companies for silly matters. The Indian bureaucracy does not offer solutions to the problems faced by the industries while they seem happy to enhance problems. Perhaps, it could be due to their unhappiness over their equally non-responsive political hierarchy above!

Will 'acche din' (good daysever come for business and industry to do make in India honestly a success? It is easy to dream about beating China and going ahead in full steam. How many in India really understand the fundamental systemic efforts made by the successive Chinese governments that enabled China to go far ahead of India in the last 20-30 years? 

India keeps failing to learn from others. Rather it refuses to do so. This reluctance in the whole system is too visible now than in the past. That is my experience. The reason are many. Most importantly, there are few who understand the root causes to make any intelligent effort to correct areas that went wrong.

Systemic errors can even make great nations humbled. Erstwhile USSR was one typical example. Perhaps, the USA too is moving in certain wrong paths here and there which could make that country too humbled in the near future unless they become wise to correct it. Fortunately, these nations have competent people who realizes mistakes and helps them to correct their wrong course.

But in India, apparently things are not appearing as so easy. Lack of competency and character in key positions is one major factor that is unfavorable for India as of now. 

Though difficult, it is not something impossible. But to make that happen, there should be honest efforts to recognize our weaknesses and rectify the cumulative errors that keep braking our progress ahead!