That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind?
This hot burning topic has captured everyone's eye primarily on twitter and facebook. The success of the mission has been brought to a matter of money and Nation’s priority. Indeed, The mission has been publicized like a state owned industry has produced a low cost, fuel efficient flying “nano”.
Well, I failed to understand why we are obsessed with one side of the coin irrespective of our knowledge and common sense. It’s important to look both sides before choosing head or tail.

I am neither here to pose a rosy picture of the mission nor to grow thorns. This is my personal analysis after reading about mission. Choice is completely yours whether to opt head or tail.

1. No Doubt that the money spent on this mission could/should have been spent somewhere else which could have provided the immediate benefits. The total money spent on the mission has been 450 crores. The country serves more than 120 crores of people which means 3 rupees 75 paise (apx) was the cost each person has to bear for this mission. Mission on Mars has a cost of Rs 7 per Km but we are too happy paying more than this to travel in auto and cab every day.

2. India is a home to more than half of the hungry people and I wonder how 450 crores would feed all of them? On the other side, current food security programme is going to cost 1.2 lakh crore each year to the government.

3. Most of us have closed our eyes to the real facts and figures and some of us have deliberately turned the eyes in order to prove there points. The budget allocation is for space programmes is 0.35 percent of the total budget and out of this, only 7-8 percent has been spent on the mars mission.

4. The country runs few of the biggest schemes in the world in terms of money allocation, administration or governance like ICDS which has the budget of Lakhs of crores. Our lack of ignorance has also made us to accept the fact that the funds from these programmes have been diverted to such “futile” space programmes.

5. ISRO is not a hungry fire which sucks all the money invested. Many sound minded among us are unaware of Antrix Corporation Limited which is the marketing arm of ISRO for promotion and commercialisation of space products, technical consultancy services and transfer of technologies developed by ISRO. The Antrx has recently launched five satellites including one for France. Such efforts are not visible because we have lost the art of appreciation. This commercial arm generates a profit of more than 100 crores annually for its commercial operations. I don’t know where the money is being spent and how but this is a small step towards self-reliance. It would further add to the forex reserves of the country which plays a vital role in the health of economy these days and indirectly affecting inflation.

6. As a part of our foreign policy we have started playing a greater role in the continent. I affirm to the fact that India is racing with China in arms, space programmes, marine technology, etc rather it should focus on GDP and poverty but this would further improve the further credentials of the country as a soft power nation which many of us have failed to see. 450 crores is not the amount to create so much of hue and cry when we are committing billions of loans to our neighbors which is broadly known as Gujral-Doctrine.

7. ISRO should focus on the immediate needs of the country rather than investing something which would generate benefits to the future generations but at the same time, we are always bragging about brain-drain in the country, such missions can install the trust in the country and would attract the coming engineers and young scientist who choose to fly out of the country for growth.

8. ISRO has internal problems. Its employees have been suffering from family problems due to over involvement in such missions. Many of us are also aware about the law-suit filed against ISRO by Airtel for not meeting its contracts on time but we have failed to go deep into the technology which is used in the mission which has application in weather forecast, computer technology, health and medicine in future which could further be used to solve larger problems.

9. It is important to focus on issues of Malnutrition, Malaria and other chronic diseases but those who dare to dive deep bring the stones. The universe is an unknown hallow. If we remain obsessed with our current problems and issues we would never dare to think beyond and find solutions. ISRO has installed a new methane detector in the mission while NASA had already claimed that there are no signs of Methane on mars but the matter of fact is that ISRO’s Instrument would scan the larger area of the Mars while NASA reached the conclusion by scanning a small area only.

10. It seems ISRO has learnt a lot from the recent elections campaigning. It has brought its focus only the Mars mission leaving aside all other pending or stalled missions due to problems in Geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle which can carry payload up to 2500 Kgs but at the same time space research is not a futile waste. We have failed to recognize the success of mitigation efforts during the Phalin Cyclone in Orrissa which has saved millions of lives. This was possible only due to accurate weather forecast.

P.S – I tossed the coin and it’s still above due to 1/10^th of Gravity. :D :P

5 Seconds

This particular piece of writing was written three years back when i experienced earthquake for the first time. A lot has changed between the time when this post was written and when it it being being published on my blog ! A fresh new start again with a past reminder. 

I was lying down on my bed, earphones were in my ears, mobile in my hand, eyes hooked on T.V, lips were whispering something, mind was somewhere else; may be in some deep thoughts about the life that I was trying to figure out from last two months. I tried everything, from the latest noisy illogical comedy T.V serials to the movies like Zindagi na milegi dobara, from the killing silent moments in life to the highest forms of vulgarity in rubbish discussions with friends but i was failed in my every step, then an experience of fIvE seconds cHaNgEd mY LiFe fOrEvEr.  ddddhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr(5, 4 , 3, 2, 1 ) yes it was a bloody scary sHoCk and technically we call it "eArThqUaKe".. In fractions of seconds my eyes travelled from TV to the wall and it was shivering like a kid who just came out of the bathroom in the chilly winter season..my lips stopped whispering and they kissed each other suddenly like a girl and a boy kissing for the first time, a message flashed on my cell phone's screen "dude, Earthquake"., before giving a thought to the message that i received, my mind went twenty one years back and then again came back to that moment. My hands were literally paralysed and I looked at my sister who was sitting like a sloth on the bed with stretched haunches and legs from one end to another, I said "Earthquake ". I had doubts in my mind whether it was really an earthquake or I was into a dream.(?). I came out of my room and looked out the street and heard some voices of women screaming and penetrating to my ears "reeee...Usha...Bhukamp...hoo., oye bhukamp, haawww..geeta bhukamp...it seemed like as if people had come out of their homes to celebrate the joy of triumph for something or it was the best moment in their lives that they ever came across. Everyone around me was so happy that they experienced a natural disaster (thank God, it was of low intensity.. otherwise.. we have seen the consequences many times in the past). Yeah, i was also there, experienced the same and had the full right to enjoy for experiencing the thing which is being experienced by only lucky ones and sometimes they become unlucky too. For me it was not just an earthquake or a shock, it was like a door of a wonderland which I couldn't open in 21 years of my life was opened naturally in just 5 seconds. It was not like a wonderland of Alice which was full of fiction rather this was a real wonderland with full of reality. Things around me were same but the perspective of looking @ them was totally changed as for the first time in my life I experienced and realised that life is too short. From the last 2 months I was trapped immensely in the past that my life was stopped and those 5 seconds were like as if someone had removed an old battery from a stopped clock and had put a new one into it and the clock started working again and so did "I". Life is too short and Unpredictable too (yeah, i know you all know this :D). Nothing is permanent and no one is immortal. So laugh a lot, love like you have never been hurt because every single second you spend upset, is a second of happiness that you will never get back. Don’t be afraid that your life will end ( yes,it will and it has to) rather be afraid that it will never begin again.. So before another eArThQuAkE comes, "STOP EXSISTING AND START LIVING"

A New "Class"

It's not only the people of India who are demanding a government which is more transparent, more accountable, more responsible and more effective. The whole world's middle class has been drawn into the symmetry of movements whether it is Ukraine in the North, Thailand in the east, Venezuela in the south or Bosnia in the west.

After the imagination of Karl Marx being cut down, an era emerged in the 20th century and the different class of people came into existence - The middle class. Just a few years back it was predicted that it would be the middle class who would drive and lead the world's economy. They would be the one who would shape the world of cactus into a rose and of course would provide stability along with the mass consumer markets under the ambit of democracy. Some how we saw the results, the middle class grew globally at the other hand, the hope of being a rosy picture was dashed to the ground and what we got is a broken democratic government full of corruption coming in conflict with the annoyed people, the so called middle class people.

Taking the two urban examples who are one of the leading economic nations: First one is Brazil , the country was shaken with massive urban protests after the President Dilma decided to spend gorgeously on the two upcoming major global events - The football world cup and the Olympics and eventually the burden of this over spending was transported into the pockets of urban common people by raising the transport fares and by making the exchange value of the Brazilian currency hit hard on the hollows of people. The city of Istanbul went into the flames of protests last year when the state decided to reshape the city with new construction projects which even included the closing of the Gezi Park who is a valued urban haven. Both of these countries had to back down from its policies and had to reshape them complying to the demands of the people. These two countries are the perfect example of a place where the middle class is not just a sloth consumer or a meek voter rather the are resisting the state who are running away from its role of being more accountable, more transparent and more responsible. Countries like Brazil, Venezuela, Thailand, Bosnia, Turkey are teaching a lesson Globally that if the drivers of the dawning democracies are corrupt and who consider the matters of the national interest as their personal matter would give rise to the flames of anger and protest.

Every corner of the world is into the remarkable flames of anger and protest by the urban middle class. Despite being at different corners, the contemporary events in Ukraine, Thailand, Bosnia, Brazil, Venezuela and India (2011 protests- Annacracy and Kejiography) can be threaded into a single garland of similarity. Giving a glimpse at the IMF income index, the income tells us that almost all the countries mentioned above fall under the middle income category where the Oil king among them Venezuela tops with 73rd in per capita GDP, Thailand at 92nd, Bosnia on 99 and Ukraine, the poorest among the middle class in the above mentioned comes at 106th place.

Keeping India aside for a second, rest of the countries has a heavy chunk population literate population which is now relying on the state to create greater economic opportunities in the country for the current young generation and for the future generation, social security for the elder generation, decent amount of public services for all. All of this depends profoundly on the leaders on the nation that where do they take their country, whether they choose the path of progress and prosperity or they drive the nation into the doomed and bedevil nation wrecked with corruption, inequality and injustice. The countries have reached a point where combating corruption has become the top most priority through increasing accountability if the people want to catch up with the standards of high HDI countries or poorer ones. Many times statistics can be misleading also specially the indices of short term economic performance . The short term indices do not take into the account the disparity in the prosperity and how the gap of economic growth emerges into the different sects of people and how the corruption accelerates the economic growth. Looking at the two countries which recently has emerged from hustle and bustle of democracy - Egypt and Syria; just before the protests, the nation's economy was growing at the rate of 5.5 percent (GDP) and 6.0 in case of Syria.

Lessons for India 

The Indian flames for the so called second Independence began with the mock stage set by a combination by primarily two persons (I am ignoring the back stage) in 2011 who tried to initiate a plethora of new pythagoras in the Indian politics by challenging the Perpendicular UPA and the base NDA with a new Hypotenuse called Jan Lokpal (UPA² – NDA² = Jan Lokpal(sq) but eventually it emerged as UPA² – NDA² = AAP(sq).  We tend to forget that the people who were looking for alternative in the Indian politics accepted the new formula not because of the precipitation of poverty, inequality and insecurity in their lives but because of the annoyance and the acrimony against the state who had/has became the biggest hindrance in their lives to move forward.  

It should be noted that the countries which had been discussed above are also one of the most corrupted countries of the world along with India. Democracy is no more a game of numbers and the one who would achieve the magical figure of 272 would run the country according to its own wishes, is not what the people are seeking now. The emergence of Global Middle Class reflects in the major events in the countries of Brazil, Venezuela, Bosnia, etc that people are asking for greater accountability, responsibility and an essence of real good governance and they are ready to challenge the state corrupt administration.

The events in the different corners of the world set a close and early warning for the state of India and for its upcoming new government that just like those countries India, being the largest democracy has become home to a greater chunk of urban middle class who desires for a better sense of life and security. The new government should understand that old age formula of providing assurance to people is not going to work in the country where the products and gains of modernization are unevenly distributed with higher amount of disparity. This problem is going to be at its worse if the next government continues to ride its administration on the Mantras of Corruption, regionalism and religious chauvinism. The on going elections in the country creates a ray of hope for the new government which would put the country back on the rapid economic growth and which believes in the Mantra of "Co-existence with differences". The day will not be very far when the flames of protest like Egypt, Brazil, Bosnia, etc would ignite in New Delhi if the state fails to deliver what the country needs.

Just like those countries, the people of this country also aspires a government which is stable, more efficient, effective and creates a system and legacy of good governance in the country which will ride the country further on to the stations of prosperity and progress of all. 

MY PEN, STOLEN !

The decision of penguin India to revoke Wendy Donniger's book; 'The Hindus: An Alternative History' from its publication which was an outcome of legal pressure from a certain group of people has ignited the question of public expressions in public domain in the county. This act raises the question that who governs the freedom of the people? and those who govern, how they carry their narrowly defined baggage of identity, religion, faith and caste? The act certainly boosts up uncertainties with regard to the side-effects on the scope of freedom and liberties of the citizens in the country.

The act takes us back into the Pre-Independence era where the Britishers controlled and administrated Indians through initiating strong legislation to curtail the freedom of speech and expression. It's been more than 60 years the country got independence but it is still living in the single umbrella of thoughts. I would also take this opportunity to mention here that the country was never under a single unit of administration rather it was a blending synthetic amalgamation of more than five hundred princely states. Over the period of time, the country was suddenly discovered by few scholars who tried to put this blending solution of society under the one unitary umbrella of administration, identity and religion but those futile efforts also resulted into fatal consequences.

This kind of act is not something very new in the country. We have seen different groups coming together to oppose the writings of the various other authors in the past. The situations reached a certain level, few years back, when a writer was not even allowed to attend a literary festival in the pink city of the country. Writing, no matter of any kind, is an exercise where the writer tries to engage the readers through his or her ideas, thoughts which are sometimes deeply lonely and sometimes tries to connect the different dimensions to communicate the result of that engagement with the readers. The writer, while writing tries to connect certain things in a single thread and take the courage to present them to the readers which sometimes may be profound in nature. The journey of a writer goes thought a marathon where he/she experiences multiple situations, arrogance of others or sometimes the mockery towards the work. 

There is always a certain form of joy in writing. The kind of joy that no one can explain and it can only be felt by the writer while writing or if the same joy is felt by the readers then the work of the writer becomes worthwhile. The work of the writer is never meant to cripple the sentiments and the feelings of others rather it is the manifestation of a joy which comes after days, weeks or years of struggle which is misinterpreted by a group of people for their personal, political or ideological gains. 

Claiming an author or a writer as an outrageous, unreasonable, crafty deceitful by a certain group of people is totally an absurd idea and they have no linkages to the reality of writing, the joy of expressing and the euphoria of glaring the thoughts. The writers' work is to engage comprehensively with the people through studying philosophy, history, literature etc and Wendy Doniger is one of them who has devoted her life in presenting the alternative dimensions to the history and society.

The recent act of banning the personal opinion in the public sphere clearly reflects our obsession with singular dimension whether it is religion, caste, or identity in this vast universe of Indian society or better be called as "HINDUSTAN" .

The ideas of those fundamentalist maniacs and extreme fanatics needs to be castigate and excoriate.