RESERVATION: HOW CONSTITUTIONAL IS IT ?

RESERVATION: HOW CONSTITUTIONAL IS IT?

Young citizens of India are very much aware of the provision made by the Government of India called Reservation! A boon to some while a curse to others, it is one of the ace cards of caste politics used often by politicians to gain political vendetta. Nowadays days we have reservation in every sphere. How beneficial is it to the nation in the long run, does it achieve its cause, what harm does it do, and, above all is it constitutional? I shall give my ideas in the following paragraphs.
When a reservation is provided to a particular community either for education or jobs it is done so as to relieve the community of social burdens and to earn a respectable place in the social hierarchy. We have 15 percent reservation for scheduled castes in the public job sector. Long ago when the nation was newborn the majority of the population, that of backward castes was poor and oppressed. The leaders therefore decided to grant them reservation in education. This provided the oppressed with a neat platform to come up in life. Later, the same community began enjoying reservation in the job sector too! So the people got good education as well as great secured jobs, all provided by the government.

All this sounds good for the tribal, scheduled castes etc,. Later vote bank politics came into play and the politicians began granting reservations to the Muslims, Christians etc,. The surprising fact was that the Muslims and the Christians came to be listed under the backward caste category!! These religions are not supposed to have any caste of their own and they even proclaim this very proudly! But when it comes to getting easy jobs and education they are no
backwards. Today, only about less than 30% of the seats in a government education institution is via open competition (except the IITs). Now what all this reservation does is it makes the job all the more easier for the already well to do Muslim or a scheduled caste family. These people study pathetically, get about some 60% and get a seat in some top ranked institution! Later they also get a govt. job with ease. Good for one generation, but the thing becomes more annoying when the son of the above person is provided with the same provision.
The question is, does reservations really help the oppressed or is it a case of nurturing a single community even if it is not worth all the facilities! What about the people who burn the midnight oil and score great marks but only get into some average institution, just because they are from the forward community? We thereby lose precious talents for our industries and our workforce consists of people who simply do not deserve their jobs. There is a proposal to give 5% reservation to Muslims in the public sector. On an election promise made by the Andhra CM YSR Reddy an attempt was made to provide 15%reservation to Muslims. But thanks to the judicial system the High court put down the move saying it was unconstitutional!
Ours is a socialist, democratic, SECULAR, sovereign republic. Secular means that the state does not have any discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, race or religion! But what happens here is a total paradox! The state gives reservations on the excuse of safeguarding secular interests!!! At what cost, I ask, at the cost of quality manpower? The reasons the IITs are a success story is because they have no reservations (there is a proposal to introduce one)! The talent coming out there is pure and based on hard work. The private sector has no reservation and companies insist on quality manpower because these are the people who will help achieve success for a company internationally. When, the company is forced to take a candidate even if it does not feel he/she is capable, the standard of the company falls.

More so it is a question of challenging the rights of a private establishment to choose its own workforce!! It is important for the govt. to give reservations on the basis of economic status and not based on castes. The socially backward may not be economically backward and the socially rich need not be financially well off!
PS: These are the authors own viewpoint and do not represent the feelings of any community. Any comments are welcome to vivek1086@rediffmail.com

Swadeshi vs globalisation

Swadeshi vs globalisation

Bharat Jhunjhunwala

THE globalisation lobby holds that swadeshi is outdated, it indicates an unwillingness to upgrade production facilities to global standards; and Indian industrialists love swadeshi because it enables them to sell their shoddy products at exorbitant prices. The car industry is considered a classic example — fuel-inefficient Ambassadors and Fiats ruled the market until Suzuki came in with new technology and models.

The criticism is valid. In the 1980s, swadeshi helped protect inefficient domestic industries. It is obvious that the quality of goods available in the Indian market has undergone a dramatic improvement since the economy was opened up in the 1990s. The quality of cars, television sets and textiles has improved tremendously.

There are three ways of introducing competition and breaking the `backward' mentality — domestic competition, free trade and foreign investment. Swadeshi involves embracing domestic competition and free trade but rejecting foreign investment. However, foreign investment is a different ball game altogether.

Consider the car industry. The Tatas had sought a licence to manufacture passenger cars, but it was rejected. The result was a duopoly between the Birlas and the Walchands. Had the government promoted domestic competition and the Tatas had produced the Indica 20 years ago, the country might have emerged as a major car exporter by now. It would have been the ideal policy.

If domestic competition does not bring forth the desired upgradation, the second step should have been to allow import of cars. This would have either pushed the Birlas and Walchands out of the market or forced them to upgrade. Free trade is beneficial.

India would have had to earn the dollars to import the cars. That would have led to increased exports in other high-skill labour-intensive sectors in which India has a comparative advantage.

The objective of free trade should be to provide an `optimal challenge' to domestic car manufacturers in the above instance. Very low tariffs can deny legitimate protection to a nascent industry and nip the domestic challenger in the bud. Very high tariffs could encourage inefficient production. With such an orientation free trade becomes an instrument to cajole domestic entrepreneurs to adopt global standards.

The swadeshi objection is to foreign investment. Certainly this policy also provides goods of global standards as happened in the 1990s. But there are other long-term negative effects that need to be considered.

Foreign investment leads to wealth repatriation by MNCs in the form of overpricing imported components, royalty payments and profit repatriations. The trade unions at Maruti have been stressing this fact which, unfortunately, mainstream economists have refused to look at.

This strategy had disastrous effects in Africa, which received huge FDI flows in the 1960s but became a basket case in the 1970s. Similarly, Latin America received huge foreign investments in the 1970s and the 1980s, but the 1990s proved to be its `lost decade'. Domestic competition leads to increased production in the same sector and free trade leads to production in export
sectors. However, foreign investment leads to neither. Some statistical studies have found no impact of MNCs on technology.

Thus swadeshi seeks domestic competition, and free trade-led globalisation and opposes foreign investment. The fundamental contradiction of the present foreign investment-led globalisation is that it grants free movement for capital while hemming in the people within national boundaries. It is inevitable that many developing countries will lose their capital to other
countries while their people stay put.

There are only two ways that the good of the people can be secured. The ideal
method would be to allow the free movement of labour and capital.The second way is to keep the capital of each country within its borders and develop, howsoever slowly, on a swadeshi line while adopting policies of domestic competition and free trade. Swadeshi stands for domestic competition and free trade and is against foreign investment.

This has to be understood clearly by the proponents of swadeshi, who often oppose free trade, and the opponents, who ignore the disastrous long-term effects of foreign investment..

(The author is a New Delhi-based freelance writer.)

Culture - Mantra

Mantra

What is Mantra ?
Mantras are the chanting
of specific words which helps to condense dispersed energy. Chant is a sound vibration which awakens a particular energy in human. According to Physics everything we touch is a field of vibration with different rates of intensity. Hence this vibration can be used to change our mind and health. We become what we repeat. Like in some personality building books it is given "Tell your
mind daily that you want do …… in …….. many days." This repetition eventually develops strong desire for that thing we want to achieve. So this is a process of building strong attitude. The same is done by mantras and to be said more than these management techniques.

How does it work ?
There are several Mantras that our Rishis have given us. Each Mantra corresponds to certain purpose. The only thing is we need to know what we want to achieve. The words present in our Mantras correspond to names of God or Goddess. The important thing to be noted is that each & every word present in Mantra has effect on our health & mind. The vibration produced by each
word has particular frequency & has effect on particular nerve in our body and thus energizes them. Repetition of these Mantras strengthens our nerves and provides us with inner strength. Meditating with these mantras strengthens our mind and helps in awakening that sleeping mind (sub-consciousness) which a normal person can't achieve. When this mind awakens person experiences that joy which can't be expressed in words.
There are different Gods for different Mantras and we visualize that particular God depending on what we want to achieve. Like Saraswati Mantra helps to increase knowledge, Hanuman for good health etc. The only intention behind these Mnatras is to get good for ourselves. Even hearing Mantras has good effect on us.

There are both good & evil in this world. Evil is said to be the negative thoughts that take shelter in our mind. These negative thoughts acts as blockage and eventually retard our mental & physical health. In such circumstances people generally approach poojaris/Acharyas and they tell us some Mantras to chant for some time. Have any of us tried to analyze this purpose? No. The reason is these words when chanted repeatedly create a sort of vibration that
activates particular nerves and removes the blockage caused by negative thoughts and refreshes our mind & body. Even when tensed or suffering form some diseases we can make use of these Mantras. Through medicine it can be cured temporarily, but through Mantras permanently. In today's world also when science has developed so much we can get various
instances to see the miracle of Mantras.

Culture - Ekadashi

EKADASHI

Ekadashi
As human being requires some rest at certain intervals of time to relax his mind and body, in the same way our Digestive system also requires some rest at regular intervals of time and this is what we call fasting. Our Rishis were very much concerned about our health and had designed various ways keeping it fit, out of which fasting is one. They also fixed the day on which it has to be done. This day is called Ekadashi, the Eleventh day from Full-moon or Black-moon day. Now this has been proved scientifically. Below are the details.

Scientific Reason
According to calculations moon moves 12 degrees in 24 hours. On the eleventh day he will be between 120 - 132 degrees. This position of Sun-Moon and Earth is called Tricone (Triangular Position) stithi. During this period moon has maximum influence on Earth. Moon is known to influence mind and water. You might have observed that on Full-Moon Day or Black-Moon Day tides in ocean are very high. It is due to the affect of moon, the power of attraction by moon is very high, which has been scientifically proved. Since human body is made up of 80% water it is also affected by moon, especially on that particular day. Very delicate Digestive organs are more attracted, due to which food does not digest properly if present and human body suffers from various diseases. To avoid this it has been suggested to fast on that particular day. By fasting body develops heat which helps in destroying various micro-organisms harmful to body. By depriving the body of food for a time ,the organs of elimination are given opportunity to expel, unhampered, the overload of accumulated waste from the system. During fast body feeds upon its reserves. Being deprived of needed nutrients, particularly of protein and fats, it will burn and digest its own tissues by the process of autolysis or self-digestion. The building of new and healthy cells are speeded up . The capacity of the eliminative organs is greatly increased as they are relieved of the usual burden of digesting food and eliminating the resultant wastes. You might ask why on that day and not on other days? The reason is obvious. From that particular day the attractive power of moon starts and as said "Precaution is better than cure". In order to avoid any health related problems in future fasting has been suggested on that day.

References :
Researches made by Western Scientists on "How health improves by fasting" "....Starvation is a form of medical treatment was mentioned as long ago as 400 B.C. by Hippocrates, the Greek father of Medicine and the people have been arguing the pros and cons ever since." "....One firm believer in it is Grant Sarkisyan of Armenia - He used controlled starvation to combat many diseases including Diabetes, obesity and Gangrene often drastically reducing the usual doses of insulin and even cutting out altogether. His cure consists of first a Spartan diet and then a growing amount of food based on the patient's individual needs."Source-D.H. 29-1-1978
Dr. Arnold Eheret, the originator of the muscusless diet healing system, describes it as " nature's only universal and omnipotent remedy of healing" and "nature's only fundamental law of all healing and curing. " In fact this was known and told by our ancestors long before Hippocrates or Dr. Arnold Eheret.
How do we perform this Fasting ?
This falls on the eleventh day from Full-Moon or Black-Moon day and we can get this information from Panchanga. On this day neither food is consumed nor water . Next day early in the morning food is consumed. This is the actual way to perform fasting. But this can't be performed at once, we need to practice this. If not possible to fast completely some food in the form of banana or milk is taken, but in limited quantities.

Who can perform this ?
Anybody on this earth who is born as Human being. This is not concerned with any particular religion. It is common to all human beings. This is a way to be healthy.


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CULTURE

Culture is nothing but the rules and regulations that are to be followed as a human being. There are many Religions in this World and especially in India. Culture is the base for all religions. These are those rules which our Rishis found out after years of meditation. By their continuous effort through meditation & chanting of Mantras they were enlightened. With this special vision they saw the use of these rituals and they preached us what they got after many years. Since in those days people were more inclined towards religion and followed all rules strictly our Rishis preached these with the base of Dharma. Might be they thought since people are afraid of God and doing sins it is better to preach with the base of Dharma, so that people will not move away from it even in their dreams. But as the time changed the way people lead their lives changed and their way of thinking also changed. People started moving away from Dharma slowly. They started violating the rules one by one. Since the work done by man changed they could not find time to follow all the rituals and today the time has come where many people even are unaware of these basic rituals. It has gone so further that we do not believe in that. We believe it only when it is said by outsiders. In many cases the situation is people follow some of the rituals but do not know the importance of it. Since they do not know the importance they don't explain it to their children and this continuous from generation to generation. But now the generation is such that they don't believe until they are proved scientifically. So here I have tried my best to convey the scientific reasons for some of the basic rituals. Below are some of them.

References : Books of H.K.S.Rao


Anyone who wishes to know more details about these things can read the books of Sri H K S Rao(Books are in Kannada no idea whether they are printed in other Languages also)


Address :M S ChakrepaniS/o H K S RaoMoudgalya,

# 231/1,7th CrossKeshtreyya Road
K R Mohalla
Mysore - 570 024
P:0821-4422550 M:94803 25776