Rights, gender, violence, Imbalance ...

I have been watching the trend of converging feminist and modernist movements. Equal status across genders and immunity to (or protection from) violence is called for in a nation wide movement.

A call for stopping violence (of any kind) - is what we need.

"The World did not see the deaths of civilians in Syria as victimization until the 'red line' of usage of conventional weapons deploying chemical weapons began." This has almost created a perception that conventional forms of violence are acceptable. Thereby the world has almost condoned, rather than condemned the violence in Syria.

In modern work environments, water-cooler/cafeteria conversations of women may center on multiple topics including men. Equally, men go about comments in their vocabulary on women who work with them. Yet, it is more frequently published that men 'talk dirty.' This is an observation (of published text) and never a generalization.

I have been in the company of colleagues who have seldom made comments on colleagues who are women or of the opposite gender (to theirs) in any form. Rewarding cultured behavior is seldom done. All focus of media is on abhorrent atrocity. Why?

The focus too, as someone pointed out is on the demographic that provides stronger readership or viewership (for Television).

Evolution has differentiated male and female genders, in physiology, neurology and every way over several billions of years. Is this so difficult to accept, that instincts and perceptions are different even amongst humans across genders?

UNHCR reports record sexual violence is inflicted in perhaps equal amounts on both men and women in interviews. (This includes several scenarios - police-states, civil-conflict, civil-war and inter-state warfare.)

What is this media-frenzy that focuses on making the streets safer for women? Are we preferential to violence that is equally mediated across genders or mediated exclusively on those who are not women?

We must work to cessation of violence and violent behavior. This is no small task for a species evolved originally as a predator. Solutions are never as simple as censorship and police-patrols which may be initial steps toward solutions.

Literacy: Is it truly necessary?

The letters are easy, yet read the names and words and see that their pronunciation and usage are anything but easy

Many of us schooled in India, perhaps even elsewhere in the world have been told that a good percentage of the population of India is still illiterate. They are literally unable to 'write'. Most of us (at least within the groups I have spoken to) have been taught that the "lack of schools" or the "lack of primary education" is the primary cause of illiteracy.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Indian systems of writing were extremely well developed and evolved. Evidence of a 7th Century CE carving here, shows the "engineered" Grantha script - ('Grantha' literally means script, and is a phonetic script that can ideally be used to represent any language.)  Those who made these carvings that remain today are unlikely to be royalty or even priestly folk suggesting that language was available to artisans and craftsman. Further written scripts were to be taught after the fundamentals of speaking a language was taught.

2012 Arab Spring: Impact on Africa, SE-Asia, Analysis

 

An observation and analysis of these changes and their impact is based on the data available openly.

Urgency over efficiency - A cause of Stress

Human beings, irrespective of their profession have always been affected by trends from various echelons of society. Reading news articles, especially from Scientific sources that are on the lines of "We probably found the Higgs Boson" (ref: CERN press release today)  or "We have evidence of extraterrestrial microbial life" (ref: Mars Mission) has been quite frequent of late. Scientific method demands verification, the possibility of an antithesis and the dismissal of the antithesis based on facts or conjectures that can be repeated.

The new trend is not restricted to scientific articles, but also to Consumer Electronic products, the arena of Embedded Software Systems I work on. The pressure today is to deliver solutions to customers almost at 1/3rd the duration they were being delivered in the prior year.

This is a clear indicator of the aggressive motivation of growth. This "unhealthy" phenomenon is further exacerbated by economics seemingly inclining in favor of asymmetric or asymptotic growth patterns of material value generators in society.

In this world, where the everyday rush is not unlike a gold rush, it has a significantly "unhealthy" effect on both the perception of services provided and products delivered. A new acceptance of the 'incomplete' solution has began to dominate sectors including the automotive sector. Telecom companies have resorted to solutions like Android, where the com.phone.android (the core phone application is bound to restart, and is not as rigorously tested as prior.)

On the one hand we have a lot of momentum on increasing our awareness to the Environment and the Hazards we generate. Yet, the root cause of this lies in the want and the need to deliver ahead of the prior benchmark, oftentimes without sound reason or at times against reason.

Having been a hyper-workaholic, I can easily associate my habits with the work culture that has impinged our society. I have grown to understand that a calmer, consistent, measured and sound approach based on factual reasoning has a higher probability to succeed than a quick hack. This is something that has to be imbibed by entire companies as part of their culture and thereafter entire societies or groups of associated people.

An approach combined with commitment and the ability to reason and resolve the root cause of issues can benefit everyone in the long run and relieve several people in the chain of work from unnecessary stress. This also has to be done with the understanding that we, humans, are not machines, and have our biorhythms that are not always aligned with the day/night or a company's working hour routine. A solution that benefits both can easily be worked out considering that the result will always be a win-win.

I would personally be interested in hearing different thoughts on the same, especially on methods to curb the 'urgency' syndrome in the larger part of our responsibility to society and the environment itself.

Traffic, the Deccan Queen: Lessons for Life

Driving through Pune traffic has never been a pleasant experience. This would apply to almost every Indian city considering the absolute lack of civic sense and the value of patience among those who use the roads. This includes vehicle drivers, pedestrians and any type of commuter.

The concept of lanes seems abnormal as people try to get their vehicle into the nearest available slot of free space. The one shown on the wide enough to be an 8-lane highway, but definitely not accommodate the chaos that is visible. Unsurprisingly people changing lanes in their personal life too is not unusual.

The time at which the roads get used to their maximum is one element that lends to the chaos. In the morning you do find alert commuters, but impatient commuters who are willing to break any rule. Lanes are for changing or worse yet blurring. This concept escapes the mind of the otherwise intellectually savvy commuters. The time is not essentially imposed by Daytime or by fixed office-hours, but largely by a biorhythm that forces people to use the waking hours to do all their work.

Self disregard

The next picture shows a slightly less dense crowd, except for the fact that two wheelers and four wheelers are attempting to use the same algorithm to place themselves on the road. If you take a keener look at the picture, you would notice a majority of those using two-wheelers not using helmets. Once they reach a highway for commuting to a far away office or industrial park, this becomes extremely unsafe. One can then diagnose that this self disregard will show up in the way individuals handle their own lives to a great extent.

The two wheelers, being the highest statistically in any city in India, cause extreme chaos - the riders do get fatigued because of the same chaos which doesn't seem to rid itself.

I have learned a few lessons from the Traffic here, which transcends the traffic in itself. This chaos resulting from a blatant refusal to follow any road rules is a cyclic problem that is being infused in the Indian psyche. The solution can only come from homes, schools and as the new generation gets educated.

Enforcement in populations at the scale of India is difficult. If anyone believes that 'enforcement' will work, they are advocating 'dictatorship' for I have seen smaller scales of the same problem and have seen that 'enforcement' in most cases tends to be dictatorship as all enforcers cannot be trained to follow a benevolent system.


Lack of Public Transport
The primary cause of the problem is the lack of proper public transport. Most Industries and Information Technology companies have created their own solution to transport which is an added cost to their operation. However tax free, their operations might be, this burden is borne additionally by the Employer and the Employee. In India Governance is a mere farce where the complexity of issues renders it impossible for anyone to attempt to effect changes to simplify and streamline systems. However, introducing public transport and preventing private vehicles from taking on the road cannot be a solution that would be rolled out in a day. This leads to delay in implementation. Every second of the delay results in the problem from becoming larger than it was prior. Postponement always makes the problem tougher rendering sense to Einstein's statement "A problem cannot be solved at the level at which it was created."

Lack of Personal Safety Concerns
In the land where human life is aplenty, the concern for human life itself becomes reduced. Worse yet, this problem resembles a "resource availability" problem. If a resource becomes plenty, its inherent valuation decreases. Hence each person cares much less for their own safety and almost naught for the safety of the rest of the populace. This is a huge issue.

Culture Shock
India, especially in cities like Pune is witnessing a transition from what is actually Indian culture derived from the days of the "British Raj" (colonial period) to present day Western Independent and Free-Thinking Culture. India has been existing with its cultural nuances for at least a thousand years and removing the cultural roots seems impossible. Hence the resultant culture shock is also absorbed with a sense of confusion. This is later displayed in every situation - "customer service", "bean counters", "queues", "stranger interaction" where the basic human psyche is so confused that people now identify themselves by language, geography, similitude but seldom relate to each other as human.

Lack of Self Management
What is often described as "Time Management" is truly Self-Management. This is one of the key necessities of any population transcending into a highly productive value group. Unfortunately, the culture shock and the 'chaos' of the plenty results in blatant disregard for others. This shows up as poor time management. The simplest test is to find out why something was late. The answer is usually that there was an external influence to blame on which the person or persons responsible had no control. This grows in complexity and ends up slowly as a huge disregard to self in various aspects of life that become visible slowly.

The fraction of the population who identify the problems and work towards pulling themselves out of these are kept down by the inertia of a system of massive proportions. This goes on to such an extent, that Aldus Huxley's "Brave New World" or a similar system might even work for a high-population environment like India.


The Nature of Traffic :: State of Society :: Chaos here
Chaos everywhere (evident in the nature of traffic), is the price we pay for the level of Freedom which we experience. Civic "conditioning", sometimes referred to as better civic-sense is in every sense another form of "Big Brother" control. Cooperative tasking in a large scale is possibly most difficult to achieve. That leaves India and China as the few countries who are experiencing a problem to which the world will soon be introduced to aplenty.

Here we are, with understanding of an issue that envelopes us and is easily visible in our daily life.

Will we get better or wait for a rather bitter event of rapid population decrease resulting from natural or unnatural circumstances to address and resolve these issues?

Expression on the Internet

The Internet today is a distributed medium enabling free expression worldwide. Freedom of Expression is under threat by measures of Censorship initiated across Nations.

Quoting William Blake, "Everything that lives, Lives not alone, nor for itself." Humans like to express opinions to others. If we observe or listen, we may respond at least in thought. Communication is also an essential means for survival. Hence, increasing the number of media of expression is to our advantage. Erroneous content and falsified content also exists within media.

Nothing we see, hear or experience is verified individually or by groups. Verification is the realm of "Scientific Method." Objectionable material, to individuals [breaching privacy] has existed for long. What is Gossip, if not privacy intrusion? Erroneous and Objectionable material is found in all media.

Creation of the free world began with tolerance and permissiveness of expression. The Renaissance was rebirth of freedom of expression. It spread across the world during an era of trade and colonialism. The Individual became more magnified in society than ever before after renaissance brought more freedom of expression. Freedom to elect governance, gender freedom, educational freedom followed and are still in a stage of growth.

Security: Strong Passwords

With Identity Theft and Information Security being compromised in several instances in the recent past, users of the Internet and Electronic Digital Services have a duty to improve the quality of the passwords, the keys to their Digital Real Estate. Here's a nice infographic (src: http://lifehacker.com/5876541/use-this-infographic-to-pick-a-good-strong-password ) which shows how to get it stronger, and why it isn't strong at the moment.

Click to View Full Image in Picasa

Let's at least keep our doors locked properly and not provide a walk-in to Internet thieves. We owe at least this much to our 'digital' selves.

Bitching, Gossip and Politicking

Whilst working in India, I notice that in several semi-urban Companies/Organizations, a large percentage of time is spent in gossip, politicking and bitching (blaming a third person who is not present) in a conversation.

This habit of gossip and politicking stems from the fact that we are a native populace who are over a millennium old at the very least - even the migrants among us. We have enjoyed large reserves of food, and long periods of time to kill - and during this time, as part of a social structuring exercise much time has been spent in gossip and politicking as means of reworking social structure. Early evidence of such politicking is evident in historic annals of the Nanda Dynasty (which destroyed the Gana Sanghs of the Gangetic Plain and gained strong control) and had many achievements but eventually fell to a more actionable successor - the Mauryas led by a strategic expert 'Kautilya'.

Today, Companies & Organizations where people get too comfortable because they are blindly trusted by their superiors or management end up having a lot of politicking and gossip. If a leader does not see this and leaves it unattended, providing time and opportunity for politicking to continue, this negative culture erodes the entire organization and effectually decreases or neutralizes productivity. Slowly, the Company (or Organization) marches towards certain extinction until a point where even a Turnaround Leader (like a Lee Iaccoca) can no longer make amends. This culture usually stems from people who earn strong trust, but continue to feel insecure despite that deep trust. The worst type of leader in an organization is the 'yes-man' who never tells facts and contradicts management/investor/stakeholder's requests. They always say 'yes' when it is the top-boss/investor asking for some result and then try, but eventually fail when it is physically impossible. Slowly the rot of politicking erodes the organization like the termites of Saruman (frm: LOTR) and leaves everyone's morale in a low, also spreading mass stress usually combined with indifference and depression.

If you are inside a company where your boss pretends that factual reality is wrong and relies on perspectives of some individual on whom she has invested all her trust, it is a sign that you ought to leave. This is the true manifestation of 'Maya' (as Indian Philosophy calls gnosticism.) There is little to be done after the decision-maker is swayed by the virtuosity created by her trustworthy lieutenant. The one thing you can do is to leave the organization without scruple, for the repairing the damage is no longer in your hand. Unless you can bring your boss back to reality and see beyond the veil created by the trustworthy lieutenant who is creating the virtual realm and simultaneously harming the organization, there is not much to do; except if you believe in revolt. Switch to an company or organization where people spend much less time blaming, in gossip, in politics and more time producing and attending to their customers.

If you are the one feeling insecure and creating the virtual world, stop and think. Eventually your hunger for control (which is the same as the hunger for power) and your assumptions (which were never based on fact) are about to bring the ship down. If you do not have true affection and concern for society and are feigning it, then you are about to see truth reflect on you - for it always triumphs, and "truth's triumph" doesn't mean that the resultant is sweet. The bitterness might leave an organization and its people in shambles. Provoking people and making them talk about a third person to feed your own egotist self is the best way to tear down morale and trust below you. Finally no one will respect you nor trust you - for this nasha (or madness) will be your own undoing of yourself - for you will find that true happiness will elude you and leave you in perpetual pain, (even if you were a sadomasochist.) 

You need help first, you need to understand that nature does not take kindly to those who eat into organizations into which they are most trusted by their bosses. Nature is strong and when it reflects on you - no human can save you, for you will be destroyed, not by people. The longer you continue, the stronger will be nature's backlash. The organization will turn unprofitable, revenue will be difficult, customers will be slim, employees will have no morale, no attachment - they will create smaller cycles of the same evil you do to others. 

Eventually all will fall, with no one to protect you, save Nature itself and the Omnipotent Creator. Save yourself and prevent it. Remember that this world changes almost instantly and only all the good you have done or have tried to do will be with you when you find dire straits - you can get back and undo the damage you have knowingly or unknowingly unleashed. Blame someone else when you have all the authority, time shall wear you down - for you shall continually find hell on earth and be accustomed to repeat your vices. Life is short to be wasted feeling hell.

When you look for a new job, check the employees about 'blame-games', 'finger-pointing', 'gossips', how they spend free time, actual profit/loss statements, achievements per unit time in the recent past and then invest your time in that company. 

Do not, in desperation join an environment that robs you of your sense of fulfillment and happiness because of a politicking marauder and a hyper-trusting top-boss. Real organizations will not work in binary/extremes. They will create balance and an environment for people to shine, not whine. Find this for it exists in the subcontinent, do not spend your career in a pained place where everyone is suffering and passing only the suffering on to employees and customers alike. Stay alert and try not to hurt anyone no matter what.

The 'Yes-man' will not exist in an organization where the Top-Boss listens and senses the environment with empathy and logic, thereby removing them and placing realistic achievers who achieve, yet never say 'yes' to every request. This is the best environment, where you will find mentors, not bitching/gossip/politicking - these environments exist for India is soaked in deep wisdom of its past. Finding them is also easy, it merely requires diligence.

Find them and escape those vices that can destroy you. Life is what we experience through time, and it is ill-news to waste it feeling pain. Life is to be relished, enjoyed every moment. Life is not a wave of joy and sorrow, it is ultimately what we feel and paradise is on earth, it is our response to the environment; and it is our choice to choose or create this environment where we find paradise and no pain. Mukthi and Nirvana is achieved on earth, for our great past has taught us much. Mere dressing-up and make-up will never have true results. Mere talking will never help for your identity is derived from what you do; "you are what you do."