Some Blog Articles that You Would Never Like or Share Because they are Bitterly True!

There are some contemporary topics about which the author of this site has given some deep thinking resulting in some articles that have already been published in this site.

These thoughts or ideas may not be very much palatable to people who are inclined towards day to day living only.

People who are biased with their own religious beliefs or political inclinations may not like these.

Those who think they are well informed and well connected may not like these thoughts from an ordinary fellow with no patronage from big personalities or celebrities of the society.

People who are averse to reading may not have the patience to read these.

Now those minuscule numbers of individuals who happen to read these may not agree to these ideas or thoughts.

People keep opposing ideas or thoughts of others. Click here to know why?

Why do we have conflicts too often? Click here to know more!

For example what possible errors we as individuals, societies or as nations keep doing that cause pandemics such as Covid-19. Click here to know what this author think about it!

Does our democratic systems of governance has any thing to do with out problems? Click here to know!

Are there any method by which we can improve our societies or nations? Click here to read the thoughts of the author!

I find most people do have some enthusiasm in life with several passions that keep them going. But what happens when your enthusiasms overtake your wisdom? Read this thought!

How do you feel about these thoughts?

Would you share this or any of these articles with any of your friends or family?

If not would you mind expressing your views in the comments below?

Electronic Voting Machines: Can They Be Fully Reliable?

Electronic Voting Machine is a programmable electronic gadget that can be used for casting votes in any democratic process of electing representatives by majority votes.

Now the question is whether the use of this machine is fully reliable without any risk of manipulations by vested interests?

The straight forward answer is a simple 'No'.

That is because of the inherent design feature of any electronic gadget that is essentially programmable.

Conducting elections for democratically deciding the elected representatives who would eventually form the government is not a simple process for any nation. 

The process becomes very complex and expensive for countries like India with large population and several other constraints. India, like most other nations, had been using the paper ballot system for almost all elections prior to 2014. But as an experiment, it had used the electronic voting system for the first time in 1982. 

Interested readers may click this hyperlink to read the Wikipedia article on the Electronic Voting in India.

A few other nations too tried using electronic voting system. But most of them have either abandoned the system or limited its use because of the serious unreliability issues observed.

Now only very few countries use EVMs fully for their general elections. Some countries use them selectively while many have totally withdrawn or even banned electronic voting. 

You may use this link to see the Wikipedia article on the status of electronic voting in various countries! 

In India, however, the EVMs have been now used for all general elections even when there are rising apprehensions about its reliability and potential for manipulations by independent assessors! 

Interested readers may visit this page for one such study report.

The machines used in India are manufactured by central public sector companies such as Indian Telephone Industries Limited and the Electronic Corporation of India Limited. They are reportedly fully designed indigenously without any foreign technology back up. The Election Commission of India and the Government of India, maintain that these machines are highly reliable.

But at least a section of the people of India and several political parties have been  expressing their apprehensions. 

There are several opinions for and against the electronic voting system as being adopted in India now.

Here is one that tells about the apprehensions. (Click the hyperlink to read)

This is another newspaper report some time ago.

And there are several in support as well that one can search and find in the internet like this one.

But as an individual voter in India, I feel that a system that is felt as non reliable by at least a minor section of the people, should not be used, as elections to elect peoples' representatives to form governments in a democratic system should be above doubts.

Some may argue that all governmental actions are debatable and get support as well as opposition. That may be right. But the Election Commission is constitutionally maintained outside the purview of government as a constitutionally safeguarded independent authority because it needs to be above doubts!

The basic question to be answered is why most of the advanced nations are not using electronic voting system for general elections even now. Why several nations have banned it? Why several nations have reverted back to paper ballots? Is India so superior in electronic information technology to device electronic voting machines that are independent of human interventions in between the voting process?

No convincing answers from any source other than assertions! 

There is something behind it. Isn't it?

 

Why Do People Keep Opposing Opinions Of Others?

Whether you tell a truth or an untruth, chances are that you find a majority of your colleagues, family members, relatives, peers and even good friends around you might disagree with you. If you have a majority who agree with your opinions, you need to consider yourself as a lucky guy or gal.

In this regard I consider myself not so lucky!

Now when someone disagrees with you for no reason that you can logically think of, you get dejected and unhappy. And an inner happiness does set in when someone likes your opinion!

And that happiness is the driving force that is making social media giants such as Facebook to mint millions!

When someone disagrees with you, you might either try to reason with that person with more of your logics in an effort to make that opposition to go off or withdraw unhappily just to avoid a collision of opposing ideas.

If you and your fellows around are non compromising on your opinions, then collisions of ideas progress forward to conflicts. 

Severe conflicts can further develop to destructive enmity!

This situation is encountered by every individual in some manner when they have to interact with others.

Differences in opinions then create conflicts, both minor and major.

There are husband-wife differences and conflicts.

There are parent-child differences and conflicts.

There are brother-sister differences and conflicts.

There are family-family differences and conflicts.

There are group-group differences and conflicts.

There are religion-religion differences and conflicts.

There are nation-nation differences and conflicts.

And all conflicts are causes for destruction of peace!

And we all say we are peace loving!

Humans are not like animals, we keep saying.

We all love to live in peace and harmony!

But we are unable to do it. Conflicts keep taking place both internally and externally, destroying our peace!

Have you noticed this? Within our mind itself, there are differing opinions and conflicts.

Have you ever thought of the reasons for this to happen?

Whether you ever thought about it or not, the reasons are very simple and I can list those here. But you may not agree with me and most likely differ in your opinion for the same reasons!

Yet I am listing those below:

Reason No.1: Differing Mind Capacities

All human beings are unique, intelligent creatures. They are not created equal by their creators. Yet they are with abilities by which they can enhance their inherent shortcomings to a considerable extent, though not fully. So long as their mind capacities differ from one another, their mutual understandings can differ. So they can agree to each other in those aspects where their understandings are same or similar. In other areas even while one may be fully right, the other can differ.

Some mind capacities are simple while some are not so simple. For example, mind capacities required for day to day living may not be very difficult for most people to understand in the same manner. In this too, understanding can be different when there exist some physical short comings among people.

But higher truths that require extensive learning and experience can only be appreciated in more or less same manner only when all the persons concerned have acquired that kind of a mind capacity by learning and experiencing. This is the area where most differences occur that get enhanced to conflicts and enmities. Science, history, religion, politics and the like come under this category. That is because most people have undergone some learning and experience in these but most have not acquired it well but only partially. Partial knowledge and experience can lead to much problems and conflicts!

Truths involving philosophy or spirituality  are still more difficult and all persons may not possess the physiological brain capacity to understand those equally. Hence, in this area differences can be more. But such differences may not always escalate to larger conflicts because most with the biologic shortcomings do not venture often to express their disagreements!

Reason No.2: Human Desire to Boss over Others

Most of us have an inherent desire to be the king or ruler or boss over others. While no human is perfect with all skills, knowledge or abilities we are supposed to be of some service to others always. We need to help others where we have better abilities and in turn get help from others for those things where our abilities are limited. Leadership or administration is just another skill like doing a mason's job or a carpenter's job. That is the way in which our creators have made us. In other words, a leader is just another of our fellow with some leadership qualities while he cannot be a mason or a carpenter for which he does not have any skill or ability. Both are required for our society to progress and none should feel bigger or smaller. Unfortunately there exist a tendency in us by which we consider another one's job superior in which we lack ability. In this process it is quite natural that we all start considering the work of a leader or administrator most simple and desirable than all other. In turn by our ignorance we make the leader's position more and more enviable and lucrative that we all tend to do any thing to get a leader's position even when we lack the ability to do it well. In turn we develop a tendency to boss over others whenever we get the slightest opportunity. Disagreeing to the opinions of those when we have nothing to fear can develop out of this complex suppressed desire to become a boss!

Reason No.3: Projecting Self or Ego

The desire to boss over others can make those with inadequate mind capacities to go out of way to project self importance! Such persons become too egoistic and cannot tolerate any one who do not agree with them or give them due importance. Normally ego develops in inferior people or those with some kind of mind shortcomings. Since they are the ones who do anything for satisfying their self importance, in an under developed society of majority people with such shortcomings, many times we find such people getting their way to leadership positions. Once they get in to such positions, their egoistic nature becomes devilish and they often do much harm to the society. Egoistic leaders and people hardly give any importance to good advice or opinions from others. They always tend to consider themselves as right. They consider opinions of others like them who are trying to please them for some hidden agenda with opinions falsely made just to please them. This process is called sycophancy!

Reason No.4: Fear of the Unknown

Lack of adequate knowledge, skill and experience leads to fear. Most often people who live in a society where egoistic, devilish rulers have been in governance can become starved of adequate knowledge, experience and unreasonably fearsome. They lose their ability to judge whether their fear is reasonable or not! They fear telling the truths where they know fully well that it is true! They also fear supporting good things and facts that often lead to the development of a society of falsehoods! All this happen because the fearful people do not have the courage to confront falsehoods! They often like to become sycophants or supporters of other people who are egoistic with much desire to become the boss!

Differing opinions leading to conflicts in the society is not a desirable situation and it can hamper progress and development to a considerable extent. A society with much differences is good soil for evil to develop that ultimately harm individuals and the society itself.

Since most individuals are with some mind characteristics that lead to differences that cannot be  sorted out by logic or facts, such a society and its individuals are bound to suffer. Often, generations would be required for such a society to eliminate its differences! That's because every new generation of individuals is in some way better than their immediate ancestors. And that is a mandate of the creators of humanity! Yet, no miracle normally happens in just one generation! 

What Could Be the Reasons for Unprecedented Petroleum Product Price Rise and Slow Covid Vaccination in India?

India is the largest populated nation in the world. It is a constitutional democracy where democratic system of governance has been in operation for the past over 7 decades. It is a federation of states where the central government and the state governments have powers to enact and administer laws in accordance with the written Constitution.

In the event of any disputes or contradictions in the laws, the Supreme Court of India is empowered to intervene to set things right!

Though democracy might be the best form of government for the best kind of people with reasonably high knowledge and wisdom, it may not be the case for a nation like India where the average Indian has not attained that kind of a stature so far!

In other words, the average Indian is a mediocre or perhaps below mediocre individual. For that kind of people, democracy deteriorates over time to yield governments by mediocre or below mediocre individuals! Unfortunately, the best kind of people though available in large numbers but less than the mediocre are often overpowered in a democracy that has adopted adult franchise as the democratic election process.

A nation with a complex population with varying individual or group understanding, likes and qualities, complexities in administration are quite natural. And when such complexities are dealt by a mediocre group of law makers, administrators, media and judiciary, the complexities of the nation are bound to rise with time. In such a democracy, people keep facing problems of various kinds continuously for several decades. They use their democratic powers to change their mediocre administrators but may not find success because they have only mediocre fellows to be selected as the replacements or their own mediocre abilities keep failing them from getting the desired outcome of good governance.

Indian citizens have been witnessing such a phenomena for quite some time. They felt that their government was not doing any thing to control prices of essential commodities such as petrol and diesel and the ministers in government talked and showed arrogance that they could not tolerate any more. That was the case prior to 2014 when the Indian National Congress and its allies in the name of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) were ruling the nation.

The Indians easily got carried away by the other major opposition group called the National Democratic Alliance, NDA, led by the Bharatiya Janatha Party or BJP. People believed what they told. The secular appeasement of minority religions of the nation by UPA was the reason told by BJP for rising prices and lack of opportunities!

So they voted the ruling UPA out of power and installed NDA to do good governance of the nation, in 2014! 

The new group in power on a fine evening declared withdrawal of certain currency notes in circulation, a step that is noted in history as the 'demonetization' step. The motivation for this step was told as for eliminating black money concentrations in the hands of many in the form of unaccounted cash. The idea was perhaps good, but its unplanned and haphazard implementation did more harm than good.

This one step caused great problems to millions of people in India. More than the direct problems it affected the lower level economic activities of the nation in an unprecedented manner. It caused unceremonious closure of millions of business activities of the nation which so far had been predominantly working on a currency based system. But no one ever noticed it as none had the ability to view the country as a whole! But it began to show in tax collections by the central and the state governments. But the mediocre administrators preferred to ignore the signs!

Some mediocre bureaucrats who happened to be near to the top administration of the political bosses in governance seemed to have advised the latter for the need of quick implementation of what is now known as the GST system of taxation for improving the falling tax collections! The new system had double advantages, they told the bosses! Most importantly, the new system would make all tax money to go to the central government account and the latter would later allot the states' share. It can be used as a whip to control those states ruled by those not liked by the individuals in the central government! Besides, the new system is fully computerized and that will make any attempt of tax evasion by any business fellow, impossible! Interestingly, the GST system was something that was adopted by several progressive nations that was getting planned for implementation by the Congress led UPA government and vehemently opposed by the BJP when not in power.

But when BJP led NDA captured power and formed the new government in 2014, they immediately seemed in agreement with the previous government. This happens because in several instances, the policies are framed by the bureaucracy which for all practical purposes remains the same.

So the new political masters hastily approved the idea without much thoughts or preparations. The mediocre bureaucrats implemented it too quickly by issuing orders after orders. They never gave any thought of the practical difficulties that would be faced by the good majority of remaing business community with so many complex rules and procedures to be adopted by them! The illustrious individuals in the government considered it unimportant to make the business people understand the system and get experienced with it! They simply thought that harsh punishments and fines would make every one fall in line too quickly! So the GST system of commercial taxation was adopted in a fully digital and networked system by executive orders. It had to be operated with faulty or inadequate computer network, server computers and perhaps a hastily made up software system!

This caused havocs to millions of small and medium scale business groups to the extent that their operating profits and cash flows got affected adversely. Many businesses that survived the demonetization a few months earlier now became unviable and became sick in a matter of months! Perhaps only the large businesses with enough resources could overcome those quickly. The bureaucratic and political individuals in governance paid little attention to the falling tax collections. They simply didn't do much to help the tax payers overcome the difficulties due to unplanned administrative actions. They failed to save the businesses who were earlier paying handsome amounts as both income and commercial taxes!

The cascading effect of this was closure of millions of businesses, both manufacturers and traders. Yet none thought it important to look in to it!  The effect was not immediately visible to the public. But it was clearly visible to the government. Their tax collections were falling drastically!

But how can a group of mediocre people in governance admit their wrong decisions? Only high caliber people are broadminded enough to admit follies. Mediocre people are highly egoistic in nature. They can never ever admit their own mistakes! When they are too reluctant to admit mistakes, how can they ever look for rectification of mistakes?

Due to corruption, inefficiency, wrong policies, high ambition to enhance military and policing have been causing Indian governance a high cost affair. Indian governments have not been able to have enough resources to fast forward economic development to satisfactory levels comparable to other nations with good infrastructure, social security, healthcare, literacy, employment opportunities and reasonable per capita income. They have been with ambitious plans without enough monetary resources to implement the plans properly in time. Regretably, those in key administrative positions never made any proper plans for having a balanced budgetary roadmap for governance!

They seemed to ignore the fact that a robust economic stability is essential for the governments too to gain financially. Heavily taxing the burdened economy was the only method they knew!

And that constrained the economic activities of the nation. When people have lesser incomes, they cut spending on goods and services that are not so essential. That in turn causes downward shift in the markets affecting business profitability. In turn tax collections too get affected adversely.

To add to the woes of the Indian economy, the Covid-19 lock downs also came into effect in 2020.

So the Indian government and consequently, the state governments have begun to lose revenue and income by way of tax collections. Instead of quickly adopting rectification of the problem, they preferred to adopt other methods.

And one such other method was enhancing the taxes of essential commodities like petrol, diesel, gas, aviation turbo fuel etc. The high taxation on the other hand are making more and more businesses to become unprofitable and unviable.

So now India is in a vicious circle. It is increasing the taxes for enhancing the governments' income without attempting any thing to reduce its several wasteful expenditures. The higher taxes are reducing the profits of businesses and their tax contributions.

That's making the government to increase taxes further! That in turn is making prices of all commodities to rise in an unprecedented manner. Covid lockdowns for over an year has almost caused drastic reduction in the income of people in the unorganized sector. In turn their spending too has come down affecting the markets.

As profitability of several corporate entities got affected, performance linked pay hikes of majority employees got adversely affected. 

Employment opportunities in India fell drastically! Unemployment is rising!

All these have drastically affected the financial stability of the central and state governments. They are constrained to spent money for essential things like buying Covid vaccines for the people in a timely manner. But like a brave head of any ruined family they're showing a brave face by borrowing from all sources known! 

Where are we going?

Who has got the courage to bell the cat?

If you ask me, only the people have the power for that. Indian people have to think while electing their representatives such as members of the parliament or state assemblies. They have to use their precious democratic power to make the individuals in politics and bureaucracy to do the service of proper governance wisely and for the benefit of the nation and its people.

They should learn to reject people without character, competence, compassion and courage who are fielded by political gangs for getting elected as their representatives. They should learn to reject people who are merely slaves of their political bosses who play from behind the curtains!

They should support political parties who have logical manifestos for making overall improvement to the nation rather than those with vague or twisted agendas.

Most importantly, the people should use their common sense to weed out evil political outfits who adopt all kinds of tricks to fool people to capture the power to govern the nation to fulfill their own vested interests rather than the nation and its people!

When that's done, India will have good governance by good people who would be in a position to find out and implement better methods of administration.

Such a government in India, like several other better governed nations, would not be required to tax people to suffocation! Such a government in India would use every rupee collected judiciously for the welfare of its people!

Indians would  then be proud of their democracy and no more would be cursing the demoncracy that they have been subjected to so far!

Is there any hope?

Why did the three Central Farm Laws of India Enacted in 2020 Become Controversial?

First let us find out what exactly are these three controversial farm laws of India enacted in 2020. 

Essentially, these three laws comprise of the following two new central laws and an existing law amended. 

The two new acts that got passed by the Indian Parliament and became laws are the following:

1. The Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act 2020. ( Click Here to Read it in the e-gazette!)

2. Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act 2020. (Click Here to Read Online!)

Concurrently the existing Essential Commodities Act got amended to make the laws consistent with the existing laws by promulgating an Ordinance as below:

Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance 2020. (Click Here to Read it Online!)

I am not going to the details of the clauses of these laws and amendments. 

Essentially what these new laws achieve is de-regulation of essential food items grown by farmers all over the country. So far, farm produces were regulated by various laws and rules. Free movement, storage or trading of farm produces have been under various government controls.

With the above said laws in actual operation across India, the existing practices would become a thing of the past! Both farmers and traders get freed of government regulations! 

In a way it's good for everyone when viewed in an innocent manner.

But things won't go that simple when greedy merchants and business houses get a free hand to operate unregulated. There are all chances that such forces would now get ample opportunities to work out things in their favor and the sufferers would be the original farm producers and the consuming public!

Unscrupulous traders and business people with their money power can create situations in which farmers are forced to sell their produces at throw away prices during harvest season and hoard those produces indefinitely to create shortages and price rise, exploiting the consumers too. In effect a few large business groups with the ability to mobilize large funds would be in a position to make huge profits!

Both the farmers and the consuming public are going to suffer while a few would get opportunities to make extreme profits with no effective regulations in force!

If one examine carefully, it can be found that the existing provisions in the Indian Constitution and the laws had been to safeguard against such an undesirable situation getting developed in the country!

Obviously, these laws can only do good when the business community in India, doing businesses in farm produces, is essentially good and non-greedy. Unfortunately, that's not the case! A few unscrupulously greedy businessmen or corporates can make a small percentage of people getting richer while a larger percentage of people struggling for existence!

That means grave consequences for the common people of India in the time to come when these laws become fully operational. Farmers might not get reasonable prices for their efforts while the consuming public might face rising prices year after year in essential commodities including food items such as grains, cereals, vegetables, fruits, oils etc. And the governments in the country cannot interfere as they used to do so far!

The haste in which the present government of India enacted these laws bypassing some constitutional provisions creates suspicion in the mind of any unbiased citizen capable of understanding these laws and the Indian economy.

Now only some farmers from a few states surrounding New Delhi are protesting in an uncompromising manner as they seem to be the first ones who are directly affected by these laws. They're demanding withdrawal of these laws immediately!

Many citizens like me wonder why the government is rigid on this! There's no sense or logic for any well meaning government to go this far against a long, massive people's agitation of such a magnitude!

Only time will tell what's going to happen in India with the new farm laws of India enforced!

What's perplexing than these laws or the agitations, is the blind support the government of India is getting now from sections of the society on account of political polarizations!