Socially Screwed

It seems a new 'fad' has spread among  India's primary occupation. This bizarre trend was first noticed in the early 1990s by an empathic journalist 'P  Sainath ' and was quickly silenced by the often loved and sporadically hated government of the upcoming and self-titled superpower of the world- 'India' because of its emotive nature. Perhaps our all-knowing and little fearing leaders shook in their knees and wet their Dhotis in mock anguish at seeing Indians becoming aware of their fellow Indian's pitiful  conditions? As this worry gained momentum, the government finally relented and released its underplayed statistics which after being studied by experts conveyed that more than 17,500 farmers a year killed themselves between the years 2002 and 2006. Maharashtra,  Andhra   Pradesh ,  Karnataka ,  Madhya   Pradesh , and  Chhattisgarh  account for over 2/3rd of total farmer suicides in the country. With  at least  16,196 f...

Media is a technology that facilitates the distribution of news, ideas and perspective to a large number of people. Newspaper, Radio, Television, and in modern times even the Internet have become an aspect of communication media. It is rightly said that media is one of the four pillars of Democracy as, without an impartial media, citizens of India would have no way of discerning truth from fallacy. And soon we would find that the government has a free reign. We have numerous examples of this happening. For example, most of the news channels on the television constantly fight over TRPS and overly sensationalize news. And a lot of people lose complete awareness of what is happening in India, let alone the world. We do also have examples of impartial media who have not forgotten their role. The Hindu is a wonderful role model as a print media that focuses on telling the news as it is, allowing the reader to decide for himself what is happening in the world. And for that reason, social...

In a democracy, the party winning by the majority number of votes becomes the government and the rest become the opposition. In a successfully running democracy, both the government and the opposition are of equal importance. A government without any opposition would soon become autocratic with no one to question its choices. Thus the task of the opposition is to consider itself as the voice of the common man and to constantly be aware of any bills and laws passed by the government that may not be in the best interest of the people. At the same time, they must endeavor to keep the government at its toes by questioning them in case they do not fulfill the promises made at the time of elections. And to bring to notice issues that the ruling party might not have paid heed to. It is, of course, possible in certain cases that the opposition instead of focusing on the betterment of people starts to focus only on deposing the ruling government through malpractices and then the governance ...

Ganga, the auspicious river that is deeply embedded in our culture and mythology, has over 40 percent of India’s population dependent  on it in one way or the other. Over the years, due to the rampant industrialization, lac k of focus on cleanliness and general misuse, it has found itself growing increasingly polluted. The dirtiness is apparent to all those who make their renowned yearly pilgrimage to Rishikesh or Haridwar yet nothing with any pronounced effect has been done . As of 2015, when Shri Narendra Modi was elected, the first step he took was to start up a 5-year project costing an incredible 20,000 crore focusing on cleaning our Ganga and returning it to its almost sacredly clean state by the year 2020. The project is to be divided into three tiers, beginning from short to medium term and finally long term goals. The goals range from cleaning the surface, building crematoriums near the ghats, building toilets to prevent open defecation, and spreading awareness in the sho...

The namesake of this virus is a small village in Malaysia called Sungai Nipah. Way back in the late 1990’s when pig farming became a rampant activity in Malaysia, a few farmers got infected by the pigs, which were just the intermediate carriers. The pigs were in turn infected by fruit bats, also known as flying foxes. The fruit bats are the host carriers of the Nipah Virus and are unaffected by it. This virus is a zoonotic pathogen, which means that it can transfer between different species. The symptoms of the infection are similar to encephalitis, which are fever, headache, disorientation, mental confusion, coma, and death. Soon after, the same pigs were exported to Singapore, which is where the pathogen spread further. Very recently it was discovered in India as well, killing 18 out of the 19 infected. The reason this pathogen is considered dangerous is because it has a fatality rate of above 40 percent and it can transfer through contact. Furthermore, no vaccine has been inve...

The father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi, once declared that cleanliness is even more important than independence. Keeping that in mind Shri Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in 2014. The purpose behind this mission was not of a political but rather a patriotic nature. This mission has two components. At one level, it is aimed at cleaning 4041 cities and towns all over India. The focus is on cleaning the roads and streets and on efficient disposing of the municipal wastes. And on a rural scale, the mission is focused on the prominent issue of open defecation in rural areas. The government is making efforts on constructing both personal toilets and toilets for public use. In programs at such a large scale, it is even more important that each individual takes the success of the mission as his prerogative. We must stop littering the streets, making sure our society or community disposes the garbage properly and similar measures. The government has allocated a portio...

One of the biggest significator of a high standard of living can be none other than good health, and for this reason entirely, on the first of February 2018, our Finance minister, Shri Arun Jaitley announced Ayushman Bharat Abhiyan. The world’s biggest government-funded health care program for the financially unprivileged. Ayushman Bharat Abhiyan consists of two components; the first is the health and wellness center. This program envisions 1.5 lakh clinics throughout India that will provide comprehensive health care and free essential drugs and diagnostic services. The fund allocated for this is 1200 crore. There is a possibility of private sectors being involved as well. The second component is called the National Health Protection Scheme. It foresees a protection of up to 5-lakh per year for 10 crore vulnerable families all over India, which adds up to an estimate of 50 crore people; the fund being allotted for this component being 2000 crore. And to further enhance the access...

A democracy with equal rights and privileges for each individual, no matter what social strata he belongs to, is the highest aspiration of our constitution. And for this reason, Jan Dhan Yojana was announced by our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on his first Independence day speech in 2014, as a financial inclusion scheme. Most of the underprivileged people in India do not have bank accounts, either because they do not have the minimum amount necessary to keep a bank account active, or because it’s a strange foreign world they have no knowledge of. To bridge this gap, the Jan Dhan Yojana provides a zero balance account to everyone, along with an overdraft facility after 6 months, and a Rupay Debit card with free accidental insurance of 1 lakh. Now all people from unprivileged backgrounds can easily save their money in the bank, generate interest and take it out with the help of their card. All monetary transactions from the government are directly done into the account, thus ...

Indian citizens owe their freedom and security to the men on the Indian border on guard for imminent threat and dangers, ready and willing to forsake their lives. And in homage to this, the defense minister inaugurated the 'one rank one pension' scheme in 2014. Earlier, if two separate servicemen retired at the same rank, and with the same period of service, but had a different date of retirement, their pension amount would be different, depending on the pension scheme at the time of retirement. Thus the one who retired in the earlier years would get a lower pension at no fault of his own. To remove this disparity, the OROP scheme was set in motion. Under it, all army servicemen who have retired at the same rank and with the same number of years of service would get paid the same amount, and arrears would be given to pensioners as well. The pension amount would be decided as an average of the highest and lowest pension of the year 2013 as a base year and evaluated every 5...

The reason India is considered an emerging superpower is because unlike other developed countries, a significant portion of India’s population consists of people below the age of 35. And as our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi said in a speech, Indian youth have the capability and ideas, they just need a push. For this reason the Start-Up India, Stand-up India Yojana was launched on 16th January 2016. The objective of this Yojana is to provide a mechanism to assist capable individuals in setting up a Start-Up from scratch. They will be provided loans, and legal and corporate roadblocks such as License-Raj and many others would be removed or lubricated to make the process smoother. They will also be provided with Start-Up Support labs all over India. There are as many added features such as tax exemption for 3 years. One of the highlights of this Scheme being, that it’s especially centered around encouraging SC/STs and women towards taking an initiative. The positive consequences be...

Two thousand years ago, the great philosopher Aristotle said “Injustice arises when equals are treated unequally and when unequal are treated equally”. The Reservation system was initially established to balance the disparity caused by years of preferential treatment of one or more castes over others. And till a large number of years it did work and perhaps still does to a certain extent but gradually it too started getting taken advantage of in several ways. It was soon understood that the benefits that were to reach all from the ST/SC and OBCs were instead misused by those who were already at a financial advantage and it helped them gain further clout in the government and educational sector while the unprivileged counterparts in different rural areas of India were left unaware. Recently this gained more complexity when different castes from different states too started to ask for reservation, after having not understood the entire significance of said treatment. Another proble...

Since the advent of the Internet in 1990, more and more people, institutions and businesses are transitioning online for all sorts of requirements, ranging from entertainment to advertisement to communication and business. And some indulge in malpractices and take advantage of others for their benefit. These malpractices are called cybercrimes and the perpetrators are known as cybercriminals. Without efficient safeguard measures the entire Internet and thus the world would be at the whim of the cybercriminals, as in current times, almost all information in the world, whether personal or confidential is stored online. Even monetary transactions are increasingly done online, especially with the Digital India movement. A few examples of such crimes are Phishing, in which a hacker creates a fake version of an authentic website to lure an individual into sharing his information. Then there is email bombing, in which the hacker sends an enormous number of spam emails to someone to clo...

India has had a rich culture of several thousand years far before it had any interaction with western countries. It was completely self-reliant, technologically adept, and had scientifically and artistically transcended its western counterparts. But over the years we lost that uniqueness and started to rely more on our peers. To bring back our dormant uniqueness, our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi launched the Make In India movement in 2014. The objective of this movement is to encourage the investment of Indian and Multinational companies towards establishing industries in India. This will generate employment, help in skilling the young, raise our Gross Domestic Product, and bring to fore India’s presence in the global market. With the simple slogan, ‘Zero defect, zero effect’, this movement will reveal its strong support towards being environmentally sustainable and generating products of premium quality. One of the major hesitations foreign investors and businessmen used to h...

‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.’ Having a similar intentions in mind, the government of India had launched the Skill India mission in 2015, with the aim of skilling 400 million people by the year 2022. A majority of the Indian population is between the ages of 18 and 60. And a very minute portion of these are skilled and/or employed. The rest are unemployable because of a variety of reasons; such as no access to formal or vocational training, most have not completed their education, and a lot have no guidance. To cover this gap, the Indian government will work along with National Skill Development Corporation to train individuals from all strata’s in all manners of courses ranging from Industrial to Vocational to Entrepreneurial, thus helping them become employable and add value wherever they are. There are certain reservations in regard to this mission as previous programs with similar intentions have not ...

The term ‘Simultaneous Elections’ suggests a process that allows for simultaneous occurrence of the Lok Sabha and all the State Assembly elections once in 5 years, instead of them being throughout the year. As endorsed by the President and the Prime Minister of India, Simultaneous Elections are certainly what is needed in India for better functioning. As suggested by experts, there are many ways in which having simultaneous elections would be conducive to India. For instance, the significant finances spent by the Election Commission of India and the political parties in the elections time and again would be considerably reduced if the elections happened just once in every 5 years. And the finances required by the political parties can only be generated through corruption or lobbying. Then because of the election season, the Model Code of Conduct is constantly imposed, thus paralyzing the political parties from making a decision that would remove them from favor, whereas in case o...

The last joint venture between India and Japan, in the field of transportation, that is, ‘Maruti Suzuki’ found itself to be a resounding success. This kept the path open for further such projects. And last year, Indo-Japanese relations took another step forward with the Bullet train project, covering a distance of 508 kilometers between Ahmedabad and Mumbai. It is a 1.1 lakh crore project, out of which 80% will be funded by the Japanese government, to be paid back at 0.1% interest in the next 50 years, and the rest would be funded jointly by the Gujarat and Maharashtra government. The top speed of the train will be 320Kmph and it will cover the journey in 2 hours. And the ticket would could an estimate of 3000 Rupees. It is a venture that is highly looked forward to as it will open many pathways for India, such as generating immense employment and lessening the travel time considerably. And without a tie-up with Japan, India would not have been able to find funding at such a low...

Introduced by the British, Indian Railways span the length and breadth of this country, and is used for various purposes such as transportation of goods and travel. But in all these years of operations, the Indian government has not been able to avoid accidents. There are many reasons for this, but it all can be pinned down to carelessness, mismanagement, and non-upgradation of the railway technology after all these years of functioning and lack of regular maintenance. The Ministry of Railways accredit the accidents to a lack of proper funding but critics point out that the ministry chooses to focus on secondary issues such as providing Wi-Fi, catering, concessions to gain favor from the public instead of taking ownership of the situation. The primary cause of rail accidents is rail derailment and the secondary is unmanned level crossings. The rail derailments happen mostly because of the non-renewal of the rail tracks or upgradation to account for increasing usage and burden o...

The Right to information is right to democracy. A democracy cannot function efficiently or justly without complete transparency and accountability. For this very reason, the right to information act was passed on the 13th of October 2005. Under the purview of this act, each citizen has the right to ask any public authority about any information regarding its administrative and quasi-judicial decisions in any form as long as it does not jeopardize national interest or is expressly forbidden to be disclosed, or the disclosure would be considered as a contempt of court and other things of similar importance. Later on, similar legislative mechanisms were also created to strengthen the functioning of RTI. As an example, Whistle-blower protection act to protect anyone who exposes alleged wrongdoing in government bodies; Grievance redressal bill to ensure that the failure of delivery of the required RTI information would lead to action against government officials, leading to assurance...

India is recognized as the oldest civilization in the world. She holds pride in a rich cultural heritage, and scores of scholars adorn her history books. India is known as the land of epics such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. And the number of Gods and Goddesses worshiped are many. Yet there lies a dissonance between worshiping Goddesses and at the same time treating women as unequal. Gender discrimination is discrimination based on one's gender. And India’s patriarchal history underscores this inequality. One of the finest examples of this bias in our history is Sati. The stigma of Dowry is still prevalent even after being prohibited by the Supreme Court. And even in the 21st-century crimes such as female foeticide and infanticide are still quite common even after being banned in 1994. Gender Inequality is more pervasive in rural areas where in most cases the girl child is not permitted to go to school and stays home cooking and is thought of as a ‘Paraya Dhan’ as one...

The 5th of June is globally recognized as the World Environment Day, with this year’s theme as “Beat Plastic Pollution.” And this year, the honor of hosting the world meeting was with India. To give a running start to this theme, Our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi vowed to curb the use of all single-use plastic by the year 2022. India produces almost 26000 tonnes of plastic daily, out of which very little is recycled and the rest ends up in landfills and oceans, even ending up in the food chain of all sorts of creatures and causing untimely death, and polluting groundwater through leaching, increasing flooding by blocking drainage, etc. Estimates suggest that almost 9 billion tons of plastic have been produced globally since the 1950s, and since it takes a 1000 years for plastic to decompose, the remains are still lying around at the bottom of the ocean. The reason plastic is so widely used is because of the ease with which it can be manufactured and at a nearly minimal ...