Urs Siva » Revolution

Can this composition of Indian Constitution Work ?

Admin — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:16:57 +0000

Can this composition of Indian Constitution Work ?

1. Instead of relying on the unrelated and unqualified ministers for approval , now the head of each department , for eg , Head of Nuclear department can propose plans in the parliament .
2. The People elected representatives can either approve or disapprove the said plans based on the merits / demerits .
3. Retired SC Judges can give great insight into the legalities of the proposed plan.
4. Concerned civil groups can make suggestion , point out the flaws etc.
5. Opposition which is now largely a speed breaker in almost all proposal by the ruling party will be now removed from the equation , yet still be given appropriate representation. Also its no longer a matter of this party vs that party.
6. Now the HOD`s have to propose and describe each plans in detail , their merits, demerits , cost involved , sectors benefiting etc to the entire members and similar to current system , the voting will take place at the end of the proposal and possible amendments to be made.
7. This will largely remove the "ignorant" factor posed by the unqualified (education wise) politicians in blocking good proposals
8. The civil group will be changed or willing citizen can participate ,register their thoughts and appropriately vote.
9. All proposals will be announced in advance and civil groups / citizens who wish to register their thoughts will be selected at random.
10. No more can a party simply pass laws after laws without any opposition (mostly walked out) , each one has to be discussed now.
11. As Ruling party will be no more than a voting / opposing group , corruption , scandals , imo can be reduced (They will find loop holes at the end of the day) , and when the money making capabilities are reduced , it will be no longer seen as a profession for making money , and greedy will eventually quit , at least that's what i imagine !!
12. All HOD`s will be elected in a transparent manner by the usual election process which happens via respective departments.
13. People now have direct say on their society and for their jobs as they now elect two representative.
14. This also removes the brains behind each minster (currently) to propose their plans independently without the interference of ministers. This IMO , is the greatest benefit of all

IMHO , one shouldn`t be authoritative over a subject ,if he doesn't know that subject or have experience in it

Shall I speak ? Will it offend you ?

Admin — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 04:06:02 +0000

Recent months have seen increase in freedom of expression and freedom of suppression from one side !! Many of you by now should have known the timeline of events concerning Kapil Sibal`s efforts to censor internet and High courts pathetic display of ignorance and arrogance towards Social media sites and Constitution as a whole! Internet, unlike anything in the past, is a spectrum of ideas and it can’t be defined with particular ideology. One is quick to compare it with news medias, books etc. Internet can be anything depending on what you want to see it as. It can be from online gaming portal , place to gather information , a bank (don’t remember when I last visited my bank in person) , a place to meet friends , discuss and solve issues , to meet your loved ones who are on other side of the planet , a stage to spill all the dirty beans (scams , scandals ) and much more. So putting a blanket term for internet is plain stupidity. Internet has been very effective in one thing , spread of information. For a person from rural area , if there was no internet , it would take ages to find even the simplest information. Today I can not only find the information I want , but also relevant , agnostic information pertaining to it. For eg , difference between Jan Lokpal and Govt`s Lokpal. It has also made world news and world events more reachable. Previously we used to depend on 5 minutes “World news” section in local news channel, which won’t even give enough emphasis on the issue. Or one page allocated in newspapers for world news. And world news coverage usually was given to entertaining news, rather than pressing issues. Today I can track any event happening in the world with minute to minute update, in-depth details, and varying thoughts about it. Internet in the hands of the rural villagers is a boon which no government or education system can achieve, bringing entire knowledge of this universe upon few click of a button.

Image Credit : Hindu

So why censor such technology? The very reason it unloads entire information on your screen, is the very reason our rulers are afraid of. A single tweet is all that is enough today to bring out a major issue to the public domain. Previously it has to pass through various mediums, like reporters, editors etc. And already with many news agency in the hands of powerful and rich , the effectiveness of such major incident could be down played , or totally suppressed ( Occupy wall street , SOPA , Paid news , allocation of homes by indian govt to reporters , etc etc..). And for the rulers it was easy to handle countable number of media outlets . But with the increasing number of users online and the anonymity it offers, anyone can be whistle blower! And it becomes even more difficult when the content one posts , could not be taken down by the rulers , since it is no longer within their reach. Google transparent report is all one needs to look at if one wants to know the real motive behind the recent censoring crusade carried out by our rulers! Obviously our rulers cant parade on the media stating, many are posting critical stuff of us on internet and we want it removed , which will eventually lead to more coverage of such posts. That is where religion comes in. Religion on the other hand is a spectrum of stupidity and irrational ideology. When we have plenty of religion and particularly in india , anything and everything , one way or the other , in one religion or the other can be taken as offending , sinful and outright objectionable. It is also very easy to draw the lines of “It offends me” ,where one sees fit , mainly because it is their personal “Wall of rationality” , smaller it is , more offending anything can be for them. Religion as such in my opinion is evolving too. Many of the practices in many of the religion are now considered “Too medieval” . It is the hard-core fundamentalist who want these condemned practices to be upheld ,even if needs sacrifice of Freedom of speech , expression. What they forget is this very freedom that enables them to carry out such speech , moral policing , upon others is possible because other secular citizens have allowed them to do so. This very fact is always forgotten. Minister Sibal has knowingly or unknowingly have unleashed the war for rationality. The core issue will now have to be scrutinized , ie the religion itself ! Will the courts take the words of medieval books to uphold ones faith , at the same time suppressing the freedom of expression and speech ? How far are we going to sacrifice freedom of expression and speech to soothe the fundamentalist ? Today few photoshopped picture offend the fundies , tomorrow it will the atheist who will be in spotlight for speaking against religion . By saying that “God doesn’t Exist” , even today in some rural places and hard core fundies , can and will elicit a undesirable response. Actually in recent news , one person posting the same on facebook have resulted in 5 years of jail in Indonesia, Even though we are from it , but we might well be laying the foundation for it today. For them , what they know is the sanctity and sacred field . Anything against it or opposing it cant be tolerated that easily. Mainly because, search to seek the truth is almost died in them. If you have been a frequent viewer of “Neeya Nana” program in Vijay TV (Tamil Channel) , you will come across such deep rooted , undeviating ideologist and practisers on the show. However well you tell them its not true or doesn’t work ,it will not have any effect , mainly because , their mind is so tuned and fixed to the thought , it doesnt works. Call it a placebo effect or repeated exposure to false information and false stimulus to attain a fixed response and thought towards the stimuli. It so happened with my grandma , when I told her that Sai Baba`s ash formation is a trick , she didn’t believe me , but when I showed her the video , she was first taken aback , then later resorted to “ But he does good , who cares if it’s a trick or not “. I don’t blame her , its years and years of BELIEF , which cant be changed overnight. Even though I don’t totally support the morphing stuff , because to oppose to these medieval practices doesn’t necessarily need extreme content . At the same time , as one quote says , which I love too

“Even though I disagree with what you say , but I will fight till the end for the right for you to say it “

If religion has any effect on these true believers, then its time they show it with love and affection. They should even have the courage to say that “ Those photoshopped materials have ZERO effect on what we believe” , ie , in my opinion is the honest and truthful faith. Nay speakers will continue to spill venom , and they cant be stopped on a medium such as internet. What might be small victory , if the websites in question are blocked , will be the starting point of moral policing in large scale supported by politicians for vote bank !

Stop SOPA

Admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 07:23:07 +0000

THIS WEBSITE IS DOWN TODAY

TO OPPOSE SOPA

Want to know more ?

Visit this website for more detailed information :

http://americancensorship.org/

Asking for the impossible

Admin — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 11:04:24 +0000

The rage over IT Minister Kapil Sibal was very evident on twitter than any other social sites. Indians were quick enough to create a Streisand effect and almost instantly proved how Sibal was wrong on all fronts. The very idea of controlling the social site contents met with enormous amount of “could be Deemed Offensive” contents via tweets starting with the hash tag #IdxotKapilSibal.

(Image courtesy : Labnol )

The very idea to raise this issue during the parliament session would raise doubts about the intention of the minister. People are now more aware than before and quick to see through these political smoke screen. UPA tried to create a diversion with FDI which met with backlash from all quarters and now this censorship diversion. Even if we take it in its face value, the concept of pre-screening is a Himalayan task to achieve. He also said he didn’t want it to be automated, but to be screened by humans. Many recalled this to the emergency period of India, during which all press publishing office used to be filled with party people and each line should be approved by them before it gets printed. The very nature of putting someone or some group to screen a traffic which is almost amounts to at least 20-40% of world`s user generated comments / pictures could be considered a punishment. That doesn’t include the personal bias one might have on a comment and also regional language one has to deal with. This very idea is laughable at most and anything similar to word filter could be bypassed within seconds using # , or * or whatever and our human minds are now well programmed to grab the core with just few starting letters .. like “SH^T” or “ A$% H@#$ “. If then, govt should openly come out in public and spill out the words it intend to censor , which I think would be epic to look into. That was the easy part , what about pictures and video ? Even though there are rudimentary tools to deal , like “similar images” from Google image search , but then a computer simply doesn’t know in what context the picture of someone or a thing is used . It could be an event , a genuine party press meet , is this govt going to censor it ? And where does the govt draw the line on which photo to be included and which not ? [ad#ibig] This is all pure fantasy by a minister who simply doesn’t understand the working of the internet and its more about personal (party) fulfillment to take down contents which is critical about their party. With so many farmers dying daily , inflation soaring to new heights , rupee plunging to new low , corruption rampant at every corner , Does this govt has any point of concern to these than sticking out their head where they are very eager in taking away the peoples liberty ? These people (illiterates of technology) should know that we netizens are already up in arms if any such socially offensive stuff pops up and we also make sure those kind of stuff doesn’t reach the “casual users”. Also to create a myth that internet will serve as communal violence planning hideout is too hilarious. Even if such people who are determined to do so wont able to create enough momentum from a 5% population (net users) . These people , whatever screening you do will find ways to send out the message . When this tech-savvy population is even reluctant to come out to vote , the myth of them going out on street to start a communal violence is just too good only to be in movie , possibly starring Ar!ndham Chow… Its time IT minister gets his priorities right than creating myths and possibly using it as a tool to suppress critics upon his party. How about IT minister call upon ISP`s and order to bump the basic speed upto to at least 1MBPS within 4 months for a start ? How about asking them to launch feasible 3G plans for people ? Or even setting up or encouraging Host providers to have their servers wholly in India rather than in U.S ? and cut the peering cost within India to half ? When you can easily take something lightly when a opposition says seriously and in turn give a funny rebuttal , its not too much to ask to a national party to take things lightly of these petty stuff and carry on with much larger picture of making India a better place. Also I would happily say “Welcome to Internet !! “ . It is also high time for net users of India to know about Net neutrality , Right for Privacy (read UID ), and spend little time on politics , economics and world events , as they have serious repercussion in India directly or indirectly (Eg : Fall of rupee ) I will leave with this picture :

Mega Troll Govt

Admin — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:47:11 +0000

Past Few months have shown how really our govt is dragging on key issues and gives us a peek into how laws for this country are made , without giving any rational to it. I am also wondering the state of other bills , laws passed by this government. Luckily we had the chance to look indepth about this bill. I simply cant understand this stupid govt. 1.) First they call only one civil society group on framing the Lokpal bill , not giving a F about others who have other says on the bill too 2.) Omits key issues , promises the team anna to table both bill , but the end becomes D-Bag and tables thier bill 3.) Then after pressure , now calls the same team to frame , now includes all but few points from jan lokpal , If so where they blind and deaf at the first meeting ? [ad#h5t] 4.)Then they call upon all-party meet to discuss upon the bill 5.) When they first tabled thier retarded bill , didnt they know it was flawed ? and if they are so sure about thier bill , why did they now include points from Jan-lokpal bill ? 6.) Now they are reluctant to remove their flawed bill stating few rules , If its retarded bill , why waste the time in reading it out, making others listen and waste precious time of the standing committee ? This govt should be awarded the MEGA TROLL AWARD . I wonder the precarious state of other similar bills passed by this govt.

Few Resources on Lokpal Bill

Admin — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 06:54:25 +0000

I previously posted about Arvind Kejriwal`s speech on difference about thier Lokpal and govt`s Lokpal Bill. Today I just want to post few resources where people can use to print , spread and even equip with basic knowledge on Jan Lokpal bill. There are too many doubts going on about the Bill. Its it better to know the difference between the Jan Lokpal which is proposed by Anna`s Team and govt`s Lokpal bill. Instead of me taking sides and favoring to one side , I will let you decide. Few resources : 1.)Jan Lokpal Bill on Wikipedia 2.)Complete Difference between Jan Lokpal and Govt`s Lokpal with critics views 3.)Jan Lokpal Bill Version 1.8 – PDF WARNING 4.)Arvind Kejriwal On Lokpal Bill 4 Part Youtube Video 5.)IAC – FAQ Following are listed by Vardhan [ad#ibig] 6.)Jan Lokpal vs. Govt Lokpal 7.)Jan Lokpal Bill – a detailed analysis 8.)Govt Lokpal Bill 2011 9.)Lokpal Bill – IAC draft 10.)PPT on Jan Lokpal Its better to be informed and educated rather being sorry for not knowing the cause of fight. -Urs Siva

Arvind Kejriwal – Difference between JanLokpal Bill and Govt`s Version

Admin — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 09:53:44 +0000

By the way government has dealt this bill , it seems they are unwilling to let go of the power they hold to conduct illegal activities , to reap and loot this nation. Arvind Kerjiwal explains in detail the difference between thier version of the lokpal bill and governments version. As I said in reddit , to quote :

From the beginning they knew what will go to parliament. thats why they somehow managed to block the video recording of the meetings , and they promised to submit both drafts but at the end they tabled thier version. this is all a master plan by Sibal , chidambaram , No wonder Kiran bedi was afraid of these two.

Its better to hear from the expert , than me explaining.

[ad#250]

Support the movement atleast by spreading the awareness about lokpal bill. Please feel free to share this on facebook , twitter , google plus , through email etc.

-Urs Siva

Internet and Censorship

Admin — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 06:34:03 +0000

Hi.. Yesterday few members of www.broadbandforum.in (IBF) started posting replies that the popular file-sharing sites like Mediafire, Rapidshare , Megaupload etc are been blocked and a notice is put up saying

"This site has been blocked as per instructions from Department of Telecom"

Sushubh(Admin of IBF) too reported the same on Google Plus. As the story started to develop , more number of users on IBF , G+ , Twitter started to report the same and posting screenshot of the blocked page. I am on BSNL and fortunately BSNL didnt block those sites for me. I asked Sushubh to log the tracert and post it , and Vishal Laul , a G+ user was also helpful enough also posted a log , and fortunately we found that all the blocked sites were routed through Flagtel.com . As story began to break major websites , things got pretty heated up by today afternoon , after numerous reports pouring in. Many also found that the blocked sites were passing through flagtel.com . By evening , Airtel lifted the ban it seems , from seeing the replies posted on IBF. but still users on Reliance are facing censorship. A recent article by Medianama shows more details on why the block occured. As i quote from the blog aritcle

File sharing websites have been blocked in India since yesterday on some ISPs because Reliance BIG Pictures got a “John Doe” order allowing them to service cease and desist notices on movie pirates pirating the film Singham, Mahesh Rangathantan, COO at Reliance Entertainment, told MediaNama. Singham is releasing in theatres tomorrow. What is unique about this order through, according to Big Pictures VP (Music and Anti Piracy) Sanjay Tandon, is that it also covers Internet Service Providers, and not just people selling pirated DVDs or cable operators. “A John Doe order is given against unidentified people, because the copyright owner doesn’t know who is going to infringe. We anticipate that certain entities are going to infringe, and the Delhi High Court has granted us a John Doe order,” Tandon said.

So what we have is a court order which gives the Movie company to pursue the infringers . Movie company in return have asked the ISP to block the sharing of the movie. ISP to escape from liability and future problems , have totally gone in full swing in blocking major file-sharing sites. There are few interesting points here. First , the court order doesnt order the ISP to block sites . It only gives the direction to the movie company to go after the links ( not the site as a whole) on internet which they deem to be infringing. [ad#250] Second , the ISP on thier part cant filter contents and IMO dont have the power to muster that kind of task . ISP should have responded to the movie company saying " Get us a court order saying which one to block , which one not to block , If a file-sharing site or a site in general is hosting , contact its admin or send a DMCA take down" . Most of the file-sharing sites have specific page to report such infringing files and many sites remove those files ASAP. Third , while the site was blocked , it simply said , the site blocked as per DOT , no further details were provided , either by DOT or ISP. So legitimate users will have to either contact the CC of ISP , which i am sure will have no clue what the user is talking about. and contacting govt body like DOT , TRAI IMO is like speaking to a deaf man. Until more internet users are educated on various stuffs like net neutrality , FUP - fair usage policy , censorship , etc these so called blocking without order will continue to go on unhindered . Its high time someone forms something similar to EFF in India -Urs Siva

Faith Vs Science

Admin — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 06:16:09 +0000

Hi , Yesterday i posted a message in my Facebook Page , Its simple , hypothetical question . If i kill a person based on a belief that God spoke to me in my dreams or in my ears in day , will the judge sentence me imprisonment or find me not guilty based on MY belief and agreeing that god does exist ? It has a deep implentation .. It will question the existence of GOD from a law point of view . It will lead to more implemenation on law level. Government can dettach from itself from Religion. It can seperate it from the clutches of religion. When i recently filled in a form , i was FORCED to enter my community , What if i dont want to carry the community from which i come from , what if i want to be a Indian , a human being ? What if i dont want to follow any religion , Why should i enter my religion in Gov formed Applications ? -Urs Siva

Should India Move towards Industrialisation at cost of Agriculture ?

Admin — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 11:55:20 +0000

Hi, Today i read an article on Hindu, in which our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has explained that, to keep GDP up and to eradicate poverty among Farmers, we should focus on Industrialization and leave agriculture...This may sound good for short term basis, but if we look at the future or say other countries who moved towards industrialization, we would get an idea that, it’s mostly about monetary and still would keep poor out in the dark. Let’s just take an example here. Countries like India are only good as long as crops are cultivated, and we are great at it. Just see how much we are exporting to other nations. We have surplus amount of resources, mainly in agricultural department. As they used to say, we feed the world’s second largest populated country and still able to export stuffs to other countries. That’s how vast our resources are. Just say country like us plan to move ahead for sake of money , as currently it is the one, which governs all other commodity . We kill all the cultivable land for sake of industries. And let’s say all other similar countries do the same , by 2020 , the world , i didn’t say half the world or quarter of the world would starve , i really mean that , the whole world would STARVE. There won’t be any cultivable areas... and when money is prioritized over food / water / and other basic amenities, we would end in a world which has no resource but only man made money. In the future Food, Water will be the most important resource to the entire planet. Not a car or a mobile or any other fancy stuff. That said, let take another living example ... DUBAI. Dubai has no cultivable land; it imports nearly all the food from other countries. How? They have one good resource ... Fossil Fuel... and researchers have already predicted that within few years fossil fuel would be depleted and Dubai which is now one of the richest countries would be a deserted land and would be there is but tall sky scrapers. There won’t be any job and already people from India are leaving because of recent oil crises depleting wealth among the riches. Dubai cannot sustain such an industrialized environment. [ad#250] One thing we have to remember is we people are one among many species which share this world. One world. Instead of a mutual understanding with nature and environment, we are still going crazy over exploiting the LIMITED resources which our planet could offer. Always remember that, this is a finite world, there is no bowl which gives infinite food or no river which flows even in drought … We have to learn to live within our limits at the same time embracing both nature and human progress as a species. We are becoming intelligent and more sophisticated as each day passes, but that doesn’t mean we have to kill nature and move on. Many countries in the world have adopted agriculture as their main industry. Many people have started growing plants and trees and are almost self-sustained. We as a country cannot compromise our pillar – Agriculture for sake of industry and to increase GDP. GDP measures all product and by suppressing agricultural products and increasing oil based products ( nearly all products from plastic / rubber / car are oil based ) simply won’t help as anyone who just sees the future just a 10 years from now would know that oil based products are not the best bet any country would take. We have to find ways to improve agriculture and at the same time make agriculture a profitable business model , as there are many who have already left agriculture for sake of short term profit like real estate to make them realize that this the future , which we have to live with and improve upon.

There is already water scarcity, and India has signed pact with Alaskan Private Company to import water. When we have got great rivers, we simply don’t utilize them properly and politicians are not willing to take step to make amendments within our country. Instead these corrupted politicians are signing agreements and allowing foreign multinational Corps to invade our agricultural land and place a irreversible chain, thereby we are becoming more and more dependent on foreign nations for basic commodities. As a present trend for farmers is to leave their land for sake of money as government is not willing to help them and move on to nearby companies. This is setting the balance off and as more real estate business men are offering large amount, more farmers are ready to move on. They are our invisible pillars, and we are losing them at a faster rate. Where 5-10 years before we had agricultural land, we have either big companies or vast villa`s … This surely is not a way to progress …. And sooner the big heads realize, better would be for tomorrows India -Urs Siva