Information Pollution !

Sometimes we tend to believe that by reading everything, by writing whatever we want to and sharing whatever we like, we are exercising our fundamental right to free will which is also reinstated by the founding fathers of our nation via document publicly known as constitution.

You and me, i.e We, want to take unbiased decisions out of our own free will. We want to process all the information available to us and then would like to decide, what is right and what is wrong for us, them and everybody else around us. No matter how much powerful we think our brain is, at least the conscious brain has some severe limitations. It can only process X amount of information at a time and only a total of Y amount of information every day and after analyzing and processing all that information, it needs Z amount of rest.

Today anybody randomly can generate Data by touch of a button. And randomly we keep feeding, harping and sometimes even critically analyzing those pieces of irrelevant information.

What happens next! Fatigue, tiredness, sore eyes, loss of appetite, headaches, cramps, never seen/heard/ experienced before cravings, liquor as we gain weight on our way to Consumption Nirvana !

I am not against consumption, don't get me wrong. Infact I think that's the purpose of our lives. This post is only about the by-product of Consumption Revolution, i.e Information Pollution.

Marketers, Media and a very less know, but perhaps world's best know marketers knows about this Information Pollution very well. Infact they are sitting at the helm, with desire and power to worsen this pollution, create a hazy cloud of information always in front and even behind our eyes, so that we see what they want us to see, dont act and always react, so that they can make hay even when the sun is set. Yes, I am talking about our age old friends, our so called representatives, who are here to serve us, so that their interests are served to the maximum, our friendly, but not living in neighbourhood anymore Politicians!

Those of us who can, in order to save time, are busy buying gadgets and later on updating and upgrading them simply because we need them inside our toilets, cars and offices and bed-rooms. We are spending this saved time or whatever time left with us, in consuming more things and in the process generating more and more data about what we consumed today, who's the biggest consumer among us, what our friends must consume and what they should not etc.

We try to analyze all the advertisements, test, taste free samples and buy the most appropriate Cream or Mobile phone for us. We tend to believe that we have made a rational decision by buying the best product. I think actually we are simply buying the best marketer. All the shampoos and toothpaste available in the market claim to solve all your problems, yet none of them does solve anything. Perhaps we know it as well, yet we buy, consume something, because we have to. So is this A battle of creating most luring pieces of information (by the ways of advertisements, paid reviews, social media campaign, save the world campaigns, videos, news paper ads etc) only ?

Call it Irony or Travesty, but we don't realize Our mind works on the same basic principles on which a computer works. Yes, its widely know as GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out. No matter how much we try to be a Free Thinker,  we become what we consume !

They (the marketers,the media and our cute politicians) also know about an almost forgotten principle in an era of Quad-core processors, FIFO- First In, first Out!

That's why our cute politicians tend to chillax, make money day and night for the first four years of their tenure and announce some populist policies, attend marriages, opening and closing ceremonies and feed us with whatever possible, in the last year of their tenure, so that we recall them after we enter the Ballot Box. They know that Elections will happen on a hot, sunny day. Their will be a huge ocean of people behind each of us, and our GIGO mind will FIFO the candidates, confused by the plethora of information bombarded by several sources (including the neighbourhood uncle-ji, brother-in-law from Patna and Boss's sister's husband from Rai-Bareily) muddled with intrinsic desire to consume something as soon as we get back home, will take only few seconds to decide, push the button or put the stamp to handover our future in safe hands.

So next time, whenever you are thinking, think before thinking whether your free willy thoughts, your assumptions and even your seemingly innate desires to Consume and Act Freely are actually influenced and literally governed by this Information Pollution!!

Democracy & Capitalism- Its Time to Adapt !

I wrote a post in March last year hoping that 2011 will be remembered as an year of Democracy. Things changed significantly since then. Though nothing concrete has been achieved yet, but we have taken a giant leap in its truest sense. Call it a coincidence, but somehow then I felt that the winds of change which began blowing from the deserts of Middle East can sweep the globe and can potentially bring change, for the good!

Below is the brief excerpt of the article written year ago -

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2011 will be remembered as the year of democratic reforms, reforms by the people, for the people, as it was meant to be. 2011 will also be remembered for the pace at which these reforms/ uprising/ revolutions have materialized. Let us leave the task of categorizing these events as people's reforms/ uprising/ revolution to historians, but what is more important is the fact that Arab nations which were never associated with ( in popular media, stereotypes) a place where free will, free speech prevails can embrace democracy. So whatever was considered impossible, is actually possible !

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As we are venturing into 2012, we feel more optimistic then we were couple of years before. Greed and lust for power and money bred anger and hopelessness. In 2011 we saw a controlled outburst of this anger caused by acute state of hopelessness, which slowly gave us the much needed hope and belief in ourselves ! We saw what  a common man in Syria and India can achieve.

Post World War II, Democracy and Capitalism have stopped evolving and past 2 years have highlighted significant flaws in both the systems. We always thought that these systems are perfect but slowly we ourselves discovered the severe shortcomings in both. What started on Wall Street ended up in ballot boxes of Middle East and soon it will be extended to ballot boxes in US and India.

In past few years, Democracy and Capitalism have learnt a lessons from each other.

We all are aware of the founding principles of Democracy - by the people, of the people and for the people. Easier said, wrote, discussed then executed. Democracy which was supposed to be all inclusive, equally beneficial to all has been grossly misused by a handful of people in almost any country of the world post second World War. Though we are living in a Era of Information, but still we cast our votes, select our rulers, government based on our age old instincts.

The premise of Capitalism lies on maximizing the benefits of the all the stakeholders in proportion of their stakes. Capitalism appreciates merits, pays for hard work. If Democracy (i.e We the People) truly starts appreciating the hard-work, fire the unworthy, identify and reward based on merit and not on birth, color or sex, things can change significantly over next few decades. A lot of problems about governance and corruption which democracy bred, knowingly or unknowingly can be solved if Democracy borrows few ideologies from Capitalism.

Capitalism though promotes merit, has remained highly selective and restrictive at times. Lot of people worked hard for generations, but remained poor, lost their voice. Capitalism enthroned 'selected few' on the other end of the spectrum. The 'selected few' grew rich, powerful, untouchable and even mightier than the democratic governments.

The gap between those sitting at Zenith and Nadir in both the systems, Democracy and Capitalism has increased exponentially in past few decades.

ultimately took a nose-dive off from the peak tasting dust. If Capitalism can be more inclusive and participatory, open and accountable as Democracy is, lot of problems of greed, financial crimes and corruption can be solved in a jiffy.

Quiet surprisingly, more than 15% of the people in the world do not seems to care about either. Lets see for how long !!

I am sure in years ahead will be bit more Democratic and a bit less Capitalistic!

Remembering Bapu

Time and again, I try to revisit Gandhi ji, His thoughts, his actions, his beliefs and message. I always find something new, something which is so much more relevant as time passes by. Gandhi ji was a great scholar and   whatever he said or whatever he did was always backed by so much of thinking, reading and analysis. His life was an open book, without any internet based Social media those days. He relied on the real world, human interactions and real life based social media, wherein anybody can walk to him anytime, support or oppose, understand him or make judgment without understanding at free will.

Let’s revisit some of words of wisdom and try to understand in our own context, the relevance of these words-

“The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles”

A very complex statement, each and every part needs to read and re-read so as to get to the gist of the underlying rational. 

We seldom wonder, who we are, where we come from, how are we different from others, other life forms etc. A simple thought, a restatement which was said by numerous religious and political leaders in the past, 

A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, Nothing else. Mahatma Gandhi

While some of modern philosophers and thinkers have written off religion on accounts of scientific grounds, but just because religion cant contest and win with Science on some of the grounds, does not mean that Science is the supreme, ultimate truth. Both Science and Religion are tools to discover and comprehend the chaos in nature (which includes human body, mind, thoughts, earth, extra-terrestrial, inter galactic matters etc). No Religion which is narrow and which cannot satisfy the test of reason will survive the coming reconstruction of society in which the values will have and character and not possession of wealth, title or birth will be the test of merit. He foresaw the changing times and the changing fabric of the society. He realized that Religions are not sacrosanct and should evolve to address the changing times, should be able to stand the test of Logic. A firm believer in Meritocracy, his above statement was ahead of his times, when the Indian society was deeply marred and divided on social, cultural, religious grounds.       The statement below is quiet an interesting statement. He does not support the whole idea of living life based on blind ideologies. While we are the way we are and we believe in whatever we believe, but Gandhi ji argues that the Ideologies and Beliefs should not be followed just to feel good about ourselves, to appear consistent to ourselves and to the rest of the world.

Constant development is the law of the life and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself to a false position.

In quest for truth and knowledge, one can or sometimes can’t keep harping the age old (may be a year old, a decade old, a millennium old) philosophies because some wise men said so.

Gandhi ji’s Life was his message. 

He said what he believed, he constantly questioned what he believed, and he did what he said and said.

A day Apart ?

Once it was just another date.

A date, a history, misery,mistry,

A tragedy, some even consider it a conspiracy,

For few it brought sorrows and pain,

While some corporates stands to gain.

A War on Terror !

Or a War and Terror?

Lost blood on both sides,

Of the same color !

If Love can overcome hate,

Then why hate the hater?

Can we forget,

Can they?

I blame them,

And dont expect the same!

Neither I will take the first step.

Nor will they.

Cant we give peace a chance?

Tolerate differences?

Respect freedom,

Shed prejudices.

Cant we not stop,

Hiding behind a date,

And come forward

For open discussions.

Once it used to be,

Just another date,

But not any more.

Once Ten and Eleven were,

A day apart, but,

Not any more.

Anmol Water

Scott Harrison - charity: water from Big Omaha on Vimeo.

Amazing story of Scott Harrison and his inspiring journey. His speech touches hearts and souls because its honest and he really knows what he is saying and he genuinely cares about what he is doing. Simple sentences, no blabber about all that is wrong in Africa, India and other developing and under developed nations, plain simple, practical and powerful solution to one of the most dreaded problem of modern times.

It is so heartening and refreshing and inspiring to hear such people who are real, bubbling with confidence, enthusiasm and optimism and yet subtle, real and feel very much human.

Life started in here billions of years ago and fast forward to present and still over a billion people don't have access to the most fundamental necessity -Water. Unfortunately the governments in developing countries somehow don't focus on most fundamental issues such as food, water, electricity, health facilities and hygiene and sanitation. And so, slowly over a period of time, people start adjusting with situation, some fight with it, some surrender, a few win and few other loose their lives during this battle. As Scott very correctly says that these people don't have time for micro-finance or education, because they are wasting their precious time and efforts to obtain water.

However I feel that a holistic approach will be much better and that should be undertaken by local authorities, government perhaps using the Public Private Partnerships (PPP) model. Unfortunately all the fundamental problems ( Education, Poverty, Livelihood (food, water, electricity), Health, Hygiene and Sanitation) forms a vicious circle and all of these issues must be addressed if possible at the same time so as to ensure that communities, regions and countries can get rid of such circumstances, slowly and steadily and can feel happy to be born as human!

Several non profits have decided to take on and solve this problem so that in years to come, safe drinking water is accessible to everybody all across the world.

Water.org

Focused on solving the issues pertaining to lack of access to safe drinking water for over two decades now.

Operation Blessings International

With focus on some of the key areas such as poverty, hunger, disaster relief, micro enterprise. Runs several programs to make drinking water available to rural communities.

Just a Drop

Another notable non profit in operation for over a decade

The battle is on and stalwarts like Scott will make it happen. As he mentions its about you, me and everybody, our stories, our believes, our action, so lets do our bit, feel happy and most importantly make someone happy who has almost no idea about what does it mean !!

Arun Gandhi: Non violence in the age of terrorism

Sharing simple yet powerfual thoughts of Mr. Arun Gandhi ( grandson of Gandhi ji) about relevance and more wide and core meaning of non violence and how it can help us counter terrorim.

This is one of the most powerful speeches of recent times, I have seen and heard. The principle of non violence is not new to this world. Every religion teaches non violence as the way of life and thats what Gandhi Ji reminded us. Mr. Arun Gandhi shares interesting ancedotes on how small events shaped his life and firmed his belief about non violence.

The 'war against terrorism' has failed to achieve the ends. As Mr. Arun Gandhi points out, the war never was and cannot be solution to any problem. It will only augment it. The solution lies in peace, non violence and tolerance. Mindless killing and reckless war will only increase the rage and hatred in the heart of fundamentalists, who are hell bent on proving their point. By killing a few of them today might reduce the visible number of terrorists in near future, but after few years somebody else will come and will spread the hatred, terrorism once again. We simply cannot remove the hatred by hatred, we cannot win a war against another war. We must develop the tolerance towards other point of view which might be diametrically oppposite to our, we must learn to co exist in peace. 

Violence is simply not the solution to Terrorism. Wars do not address the root cause of the problem. It just superficially cure the symptoms, in a very expensive manner that too temporarily. The undercurrent, the real reason for which people hate each other and carry out such heinous crimes at large scale. The only community benefitting out of this is defence contractors, suppliers who are supplying these weapons, arms and ammunitions to these fundamentalists and government both.

Its time for politicians and global leaders from around the globe to retrospect and to understand the power of non violence. I think even if all nations from around the globe pledge to spend 1 full year of non violence and tolerance, several lives can be saved, billions of dollars can be saved which can be channelized in welfare programs and perhaps the root cause of terrorism can be solved for ever.

United Prosperity

United Prosperity a micor finance mission started by Bhalchander Viswanath. This initiative has the potential to solve some of the India's critical problems of poverty, unemployment, rapid urbanization, education, health and general standard of living in rural India. Supporting rural entreprenurs...with small needs can create big difference as it will make them self reliant...boost their confidence level....increase personal income level...create long term employment opportunity for them and their family memebers...all this in turn will decrease migration to urban areas...increase the standard of living of rural India, which in turn will encourage them to send their children to schools and take proper education without any urgency to earn money for the family. Heres an excerpt from Bhalchander about this new mission -
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Combat poverty and multiply the impact of your money

United Prosperity (http://www.unitedprosperity.org/) is the world’s first person to person loan guaranteeing website. Small entrepreneurs all over the world need funds to start and grow their businesses. Banks however don’t lend to them without collateral. Small entrepreneurs cannot provide collateral since they are often very poor. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) lend to the poor without collateral but they in turn (especially the smaller MFIs) need guarantees to borrow from banks. The general public can help the entrepreneur earn a better livelihood by providing cash collateral – a guarantee – on our website. The guarantee allows the entrepreneurs to access a microloan through one of our partner Microfinance Institutions (MFIs). On loan repayment the money is returned.

United Prosperity is unique in several ways:
a. Maximum impact: Due to United Prosperity’s innovative guarantee model which involves additional capital contributions by the bank and MFI, $1 in guarantee could lead to $2 to $5 in loan to the entrepreneur – thus maximizing the impact.
b. Local linkages: United Prosperity creates relationships between domestic banks, MFIs and poor entrepreneurs rather than encouraging dependence on foreign assistance.
No foreign exchange risk: Since the loans from the Bank to the MFI, and from the MFI to the entrepreneur are in local currency, there is no foreign exchange risk involved. Only in the relatively rare event of default, when the guarantee is called will a cross-border foreign exchange transaction take place.

Operations began in India in May 2009 and over time will expand to other countries.

Key supporters include Cognizant, O’Melveney and Myers, Hanson Bridgett, Berkeley Law at UC Berkeley, Tempus Law, NetSuite, and Books2taxes.com.

You can support United Prosperity in several ways:
a. Spread the word: Write about United Prosperity in your blog or website and tell your friends.
b. Become a social guarantor: Visit United Prosperity’s website and support poor entrepreneurs by making guarantees. There is no minimum amount and you can make payments with PayPal or a credit card.
c. Join the community :
Facebook http://bit.ly/1bFgtg
Twitter http://twitter.com/unitedprosper
d. Share your expertise: Volunteer your expertise to help build and market our website.
e. Support our mission: Provide grants or loans to help scale up United Prosperity’s operations in the US and India to help us reach more poor entrepreneurs and further our mission.
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