The Caste System and its implications ... my perspective.

It was pointed out recently that the Ambani's are celebrating the 80th Birth anniversary of the pioneer Late Shri Dhirubhai Ambani by inviting Brahmins to their home. The programme, spread over two days, will witness elaborate pujas and other rituals at the family temple. It has been pointed out by some that in the Ambani household reunion feast, only Brahmins & Baniyas get invited. This has renewed the ageold controversy regarding caste system and its derivative, teh controversial quota system. I am giving here my thoughts on this matter.

Caste system should be shunned by all Indians. It is indeed an retrogressive and despicable social malady. But along with it should also go the caste based reservation system prevalent in Modern India. Why only blame the Brahmins? Just for a custom being followed by a family in Gujarat? The same caste system actually comes into play when quite well off communities like Jats claim OBC seat. In fact, the day this caste system used to benefit the Brahmins are long over ... a thing of last century. Now it is the privilege of the sarkari damads. Brahmins are at the receiving end of this fallacy for the last 20 years or so.

So, yes, I do want the caste system to end. and with it should end the quota system as well, which is nothing but disguised vote bank politics at its worst.

People who blame Brahmins for the caste system should not apply for reserved seats in Universities, colleges and govt jobs.

When someone goes to tehsil offices to apply for SC/ST or OBC certificates so that his/her highly incompetent children can occupy a college/university or govt job seat in a totally unethical and biased way, is that not caste system? Where does the sense of fairness go then? Why water the same caste plant so much when we think it is benefiting the Brahmins?

There is no shame in claiming SC/ST or OBC seats,no shame in claiming that "hey we are very backward and socially incompetent people, we need crutches to survive" .....

But there is anguish in thinking about how brahmins exploited the caste system in the last century. How, in some pockets, the caste system is still being exploited.

The same people, who claim govt protection from competency, constitute the so called Khap Panchayats which award death penalty to people if they fall in love, even at this age and day.

Yes, let us silence the so called "gun of the brahmins" and let us also at the same time, break the quota crutch.

It has been pointed out that the Ambani Family is no ordinary family. That they should set good precedents. I have my own thoughts.

1. Whether the family is extra-ordinary or ordinary does not matter. Why should ordinary people be exempted from social responsibilities? Social change will be brought about only when everybody starts following better social norms.

2. Why not start a discussion on the regressive vote bank policy and how everyone should boycott the quota system?

3. Brahminical dominance as I have already stated is a thing of past. There is no such thing as this except in some minor pockets. Atrocities in the name of caste, as you can see in all recent example,s have been perpreted by Upper classes who are not Brahmins for examples Thakurs, Jats etc.

4. The fact that Brahmins once were a privileged class does not give logic to unfair practice such as quota system. Infact quota in education is still understandable as it may increase the competency in the so called "unprivileged" class, but on what preposterous logic is quota in govt jobs based? How can anyone justify such injustice? such gross bias? If you are giving quota in educational institutions so that unprivileged class may get better education or access to education, why should you give quota in jobs after the same unprivileged class has availed of the subsidised and watered-down educational system and become "as competent as" a Brahmin?

5. Merit and Merit alone should be the criteria to be selected for any job, whether in Private or govt sector.

Everybody wants a piece of the cake called quota system. but no body is really serious about solving the caste system. Targetting the brahmins is not going to solve the problem. If someone is really serious about it, let him try to get out of the caste system in all its forms and manifestations, including the haloed quota system of Indian Government.

Petrol Prices - A comparative study

There is an on going debate in Facebook regarding the petroleum prices in different countries and how the Indian Petrol price is more than that of neighbouring countries.

I found this comparison interesting and did a little bit of internet surfing on this matter to get some idea of what this is all about. Given below is what I found from the Internet.


There is in fact a website in which such kind of data is compiled (with necessary disclaimers of course) ... and hence I thought I would also incorporate the same disclaimers here ...

Disclaimers:
1) The data has been garnered from various sources on the Internet. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
2) The prices are not strictly comparable because:
(a) They cover different grades of petrol
(b) They cover a period of .... 6-7 months? ...
(c) Some prices are inclusive of local taxes, while others are exclusive
(d) Prices vary across different regions within a country (wildly ... seems it is a free for all, unlike
the price of other commodities).
(e) All the data on this page is gathered from internet. I did not go around to all these countries
gathering this data.
(f) I am not responsible for the accuracy of the data.
(g) If you detect any mistake, please let me know and show me the source of the correct information. Only then I may think of acknowledging my mistake.
(h) I did this unnecessary exercise just out of curiosity with no profit objective. I am not
responsible for any gains or losses of any kind that anyone derives from this page.

Now comes the Information:
All prices are in Indian Rupees
Notwithstanding the disclaimers, we get a fairly good idea of what the table means regarding the petrol prices.

Country	Petrol/ltr	Diesel/ltr	% Deviation from India (petrol)	Comments
India	66 to 73	41 to 45	0	Over 40 per cent of the price of petrol is made up of taxes. While petrol has been freed from government control and is priced at market rates, diesel continues to be sold at government-dictated rates. Petrol prices have risen byabout 25 per cent since they were freed from government control in June last year. http://www.petroleumbazaar.com/newsdetail.aspx?id=10145 The Government earned Rs 1.02 lakh crore by way of taxes on these items in 2010-11. Now where does this money go? May be we should ask this question to Mr. Kalmadi, Mr Raja, Mr Amar Singh etc.
Pakistan	46 to 47	51 to 52	-35%	No subsidy for diesel ?
Bangladesh	47 to 50	29 to 32	-31%	Diesel is subsidised
Nepal	65 to 70	47 to 50	-4%
Bhutan	60 to 65	45		Same as in India, Bhutan is better than India in the Transparency International's Corruption Index
Sri Lanka	60	40	-17%

Literacy rate in India ...

Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material (source wikipedia).

The idea of Literacy in India has always been that of the ability to just scribble one's name on a piece of paper. Hence, this 82% (men) and 65 % (women) literacy rates (by itself these are low figures) quoted by government are nothing but delusions. What we consider Literacy in India are not real literacy. The moment someone is able to write one's name, we declare the person literate and add one more person to the "literate" population thereby increasing the percentage. This kind of literacy is another example of how much corrupt Indian society is.

It is no longer sufficient to consider whether a person can 'read' and 'write' some preliminary words (in India it is just the name of the person), and it is necessary to consider more meaningful aspects of literacy in education and in society as a whole, if we are to complete the transition from a backward country to a really developing country.

Rather than a meaningless literacy rate, we should have something more on the lines of "education rate" and count only those persons who are educated to a minimum level of matriculation. That would give a more realistic picture of India's state of literacy.

I think then the real Literacy Rate would come down to 20-30 %.

As you sow, so shall you reap !

People all over India had been shouting foul about how incompetent our government is and how lax our security and intelligence systems are. I do not think they have anything to complain about.

"We the people of India hereby solemnly resolve to elect to our parliament and legislative assemblies, totally incompetent, irresponsible, unscrupulous, unworthy, and criminal candidates, every five years or less, on the basis of religion, caste, regionalism and favouritism and cast our votes for money or cheap desi Liquor or unrealistic and populist election promises."

This is the motto for the common man of India. How on earth do we expect to have responsible and proactive political class? We are getting what we deserve.

I do not think that the people of India has any right to complain about the numerous terrorist attacks, financial scams, corruption, riots, red tapism, poverty etc etc etc in our beloved "Mera Bharat Mahaan".

I ask the common man of India -
Where was your sense of justice, your sense of righteousness, and your sense of patriotism when you had voted for the wrong candidate just because he was of your religion, or your caste or may be from your community?
Why did you cast your vote in return for some petty sum of money or a bottle of cheap desi liquor?
Why did you believe in a man who makes populist promises just to come in power and then forget the plights of common man?
Why did you not cast the vote based on merit and competence?
If you do not believe in competence, how can you expect that from people who have been chosen by you?
How can you expect incompetent, unscrupulous and irresponsible people of your choosing, now suddenly take right steps?

You are reaping the harvest of your own sowing. Why complain?

Opposition to Anna's movement

The opposition to Anna's movement seems to be based on two main points (I welcome more from my readers):

1) How can a common man (just a civil leader) be better than the the elected representatives?
2) This protest is causing loss of man hours and disturbance in the peaceful Indian society.

Isn't it funny? 64 years of democratic government became oblivious to common people's difficulties and aspirations causing a 78 year old man to take up the job of setting up a proper regulatory system. He, without any major financial or political clout, set out to do the needful. Public support has been spontaneous, not the type the political parties garner by distributing cash or bottles of desi sharaab. Public support has come from all walks of life, region and religion. That's the beauty of this movement.

Yet some feel the entire thing is wrong!

What are the alternatives?
Keep on living in a decaying and decomposing society where only the bastard children of corruption and greed become powerful?

When crores of people watch cricket matches for hours or even days on end, is it not a massive wastage of man hours?
What do the common man, the public gain by watching some people playing with a stick and a ball and earning millions of dollars?
Why do this self-proclaimed intelligentsia not shout from their rooftops, as they are doing now, that this is disturbing the Indian society?

May be because, the cricket matches help the corrupt polticians, rich businessmen and movie actors earn millions of dollars. These are the people who have kept these pseudo-intellectual people alive, isn't it? The common man has no time to listen to the rantings of people like Arundhati Roy. They are too busy earning their bread. It is the rich and corrupt people who pretend to keep the glorified literary halo alive. And hence, it is but natural that these so called proponents of right thinking in India have been so critical of a righteous man's effort to bring about a long-overdue change.