Let them know

Few days ago, I was going through my daily dose of newspaper. My eyes caught a clipping about permission granted by local administration to school for providing sex education to students. It reminds me of late 90s when some schools introduced weekly classes for sex education but due to objection of Parents and teachers, initiative was backtracked. My school was one of them. It was not that I was disappointed because at that time, I did not how it will help and why people are opposing it. Well, some of my friends were ruing at the missed chance. I do not have much hope from latest initiative. It will be taken back after sometimes because guards of our culture are against polluting young mind. Talking about sex has always remained a taboo in our society. So, legitimising discussing about sex in such a way is just out of question



Even today, I do not understand why people so bothered about sex education. Its an obvious thing that you have to know at some stage. Would not it be better if these information can be provided at right time through proper channels. These two means are either parents or school. Most of teens and youths do not like to share their problem with their parents. They want to become self-dependent and thus, like to tackle their problems themselves. Moreover, teens do not like to open themselves with parents. They generally feel hesitation in talking about their adolescent problems, doubts and any new developments. Even parents feel hesitation. They always have doubt about the timing. For example, after watching a family planning advertisements, if your son in early teen want to know what is condom, it will become a embarrassment for you and you will just try to divert his attention.



So, school become the obvious place to discuss adolescent developments. Now, here if proper guidance is not provided, students will resort to advice of friends. Here, they can come across many misconceptions prevalent among teens. These days, students are tech savvy. There are helplines and forums on the web. But these sources of information are suspicious and no one is responsible for wrong advices. Even that unreliable guidance is available to urban youths. What about majority of teens living in villages and towns ? Most of under-20 Indians are still equipped with wrong information. Few months back, I was watching 'Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam'. In a scene, Salman Khan kissed Aishwarya Rai on cheek and she posted the question whether it can lead to pregnancy. Sometimes, movies intentionally or unintentionally reflect some harsh truths and it was bang on target.



Sex education is an important aspect of life. These days, there is a huge danger of sexually transmitted disease. Information is the only defence against these fatal diseases. At some point of time, a human has to cross the line. Is not our society in name of decency and culture, playing with lives of teens? Being having knowledge, next generation will be more equipped with challenges of the new world. Well, giving formal course of sex education will deprive them of some of the interesting memories. There will be no all guys meetings to unfathom the most difficult mysteries of world like 'where babies come from' , 'is a marriage some sort of magic wand which tell god to deliver the babies' and the mother of all, 'what the hell whispers are for?'.

Lets face them

Recently, there has been a string of bomb blasts throughout the country. An organization named itself as Indian Mujaheddin has claimed the responsibility for the blasts. This time we are facing a very strong enemy. These are not just some misguided youths with polluted mind who have masterminded the blasts. This is a network which has some clever brains with a plan to destabilize our nation and thus , convert it into a failed state. These hi-tech terrorists have long -term plans. The terrorism they are propagating is psychological terrorism. These terrorists are more interested in affecting psychology of our nation than actually killing the people. They have opened two fronts. On one front they are challenging law-enforcement agencies and government and on other front, they are playing mind games with common men. The later front is decisive front because it will prepare the stage for efficient execution of whole plan.

If you look at the pattern, you can easily understand. They have staged attacks in states which are ruled by a party which claims to be saviour of Hindus. And then, they send a email putting responsibility on shoulders of Indian Muslims. They want everyone, especially Hindus to think that this task has consent of all the Muslims and 'Indian Mujaheddin' is representing them. They have chosen BJP-ruled states because Hindu fundamentalists are supposed to be strong there. Now, it is a psychological battle. They are challenging Hindus to attack their fellow brothers. Very cleverly, they have raised all local issues in their emails to TV channels and claimed to be avenging for the injustice met out to them. By doing this, they removed all chances of claiming a foreign hand by government or even exploring the possibility of it. In their mail, they threatened Muslim film stars against acting in the movies. They are frustrated with Khans because they proved that Muslim has ample opportunity to become successful in India. These stars can become role model for aspiring Muslim youth. This can give them confidence that they can be accepted as all-Indian boys. What medium can provide a greater access to masses than cinema ? Success of these stars is example of false propaganda by terrorists. One more aim of these hi-tech terrorist is to create a empire of fear. Look at the sheer number of blasts that took place in last 4 days. They were more interested to cover every area of city rather than to kill more people. In this way they were able to touch life of nearly every person in the city. This type of organized terrorism is a new phenomenon in India.

Till now, our people have acted with caution. There had been no reports of communal skirmishes. Even Gujarat has remained peaceful in aftermath of bomb blasts. This kind of resolve is needed in this hour of crisis. Narendra Modi has let down these merchants of death. He was more than diplomatic in his reaction to blasts. The bitter bickering that was on between various political parties has toned down. Rather than asking for PM's resignation, opposition has resorted to need for federal mechanism and stringent laws to tackle terror. We have won first round of mind games and save the day for nation. But government and law-enforcement agencies cannot afford to lax. It is difficult to ignore dead bodies and grieving families. The propagators of this heinous crime should be brought at disposal of law.

Good Guy, Bad Guy

I have'nt watched latest batman movie 'The Dark Knight'. Our caped crusader is taking on its arch-enemy, joker. Everyone who has watched the movie is showering praise on joker for displaying evil with perfection. Nobody has time for batman. Batman has taken some sort of backseat. This is not a new phenomena. Our cine goers and film critics always have been smitten by powerful anti-hero. Whether it had been Rahul of Darr or Langra Tyagi of Omkara, these guys always have got away with best laurels. The more mean and evil they are, the more popular they will become. If they are powerful enough to instill a psychological fear into other characters of movie, they become a legend. We just love evil. Our parents may have teach us in our childhood to be a kind, good-natured and soft spoken fellow but these characters just brought all the bitterness and anger against society on the silver screen. Everyone could relate their anger and frustration with those portrayals.



In real-life also, Osama bin laden and Robert Mugabe has bigger fan following than the honest and efficient head of states who are working tirelessly for welfare of their states. It is part of human psychology. We always worship who inspires awe in us. Well this is true for at least for 90% of the people. Ya, I know you are thinking that you belong to 10% minority. Everyone thinks like that. Actually, parents and teachers are wrong in representing the rosy picture of world around you. One should present practical picture of the world to their wards. By instilling feeling of sacrifice, veracity and social welfare in an excess, they just make their ward a emotional handicap. People know that their companion is using them just for their cause or they are going to be cheated by someone, they just let themselves to be exploited on the pretext that they cannot hurt anyone. They just say that it is too late for them to change themselves. It is not just that. It can make their inner self very dark. And they find someone portraying their fantasies on the screen and in real life, these anti-heroes become their god. Now again we are good guys in our own perspective and here lies the main reason for mass popularity of these villains.

Well, there is nothing wrong in it. It is better if people are satisfied with considering beast on screen as their alter-ego. The glamour, power and terror wielded by them is a dream for majority. So, all self-proclaimed good guys an gals say in unison Hey Mogambo!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Citius, Altius, Fortius

Citius, Altius, Fortius. This is the motto of olympics. These three Latin words mean "Swifter, Higher, Stronger." These words are a source of motivation for the athletes all over the world to achieve excellence in sports. Olympics is not just a sports competition today but a question of national pride and honour throughout the world. Our country also participates in olympics. 80 years back, our hockey team announced arrival of India on international sports arena by winning a gold. Dream run continued till 1964. But from thereon, there is a haunting silence. We get a single medal sometimes in olympics and that is all our 1 billion nation has to show in world sports gala. Father of modern olympics, Pierre d Coubratine once said that participation is more important than winning. Our olympians have taken it to heart.

There were few olympics in between where we failed to won a single medal. Australia suffered same humiliation in 1976 olympics. They revamped the whole system and started to nurture talent from school and college level. Their trainees in government sports hostel do not have to worry about jobs and future. Government take care of everything. They are given proper exposure to foreign tournaments. Resuts were there to see when Australia finished fourth in overall medal tally in 2000 olympics. China did not send its team till 1984 olympics because they were against sending the team just for sake of participation. Today they are best sporting nation in world after US.

Well, I am not going to lecture about how India can improve its performance in olympics. It is of no use. Olympics are from 9-19 August. For sure from 20Th to end of august, we will see angry reactions from public and media. Our 24-hour TV channel will show clipping of people blaming players and federation for national humiliation. There will be articles in newspapers about how to produce champions at ground level. Yuck......I am bored of it man. You guys are doing same things in postmortems of last three olympics. I can bet if India win the champions trophy(of course cricket's guys.we cannot qualify for hockey's for last 4 years), the following month, everyone will forget about all this olympic fiasco. Well, you can ask why I am even bothering about debacle at olympics. It is not as important as injustice met out to our crickets in Sydney test match. Right!!!!!!!. We need a halle gebrselassie to remind our athletes about Citius, Altius, Fortius. Now I will not tell you about him. Try on google.

Are we ready?

We are living in a difficult time. Price rice is on a roll. Share markets are falling. Suddenly, everyone is apprehensive about job security. People are running to trademark companies rather than small ventures which give hefty pay package. There is shortage of food and fuel world over. Everybody is getting hit. Cliches like booming India and India shining have suddenly become part of distant past. Well, last economic depression was two generation ago and even if I would have my grandfather with me today, he certainly would not be able to explain economic depression because mighty british empire took the hit that time.



Today, situation is different. Britain has lost too much muscle and our independent India is yet to gain power to face this crisis. In India, literacy rate has improved and pockets of people have also become heavier but still, we like to live in dreams. Our leaders make populist promises without sparing a thought about consequences. Who can forget that 60000 crore loan waiver for farmers or free electricity promises in state elections. And what about fight for distributing elctoral freebies like DVDs, TVs and cycles to voters during recent assenbley elections in Tamilnadu. This kind of irresponsible and short-term promises increase fiscal deficit which is more or less responsible for current crisis. According a report punlished in a leading national daily, atleast 10 different loan waiver packages have been declared for vidharba region alone in last 6 years.Suicides have continues throughout this period and there has been no improvement in economic situation of farmers. Where that money has gone? Who is answerable for such a utter waste of taxpayer's money?



If government is really serious about stopping current crisis from converting into a full-blown economic tragedy. it has to make long-term plans for improvement of agriculture. Current policies favour farmers who go for cash crops. So, most of farmers are going for cash crops rather than cereal crops. Due to this continous growing trend, today we have to import food grains after a gap of 30 years. Most of farmers who are under debt grow cereal crops. This discrepency has to be removed from the system. Government has to open the gates of foreign investment to increase the confidence of small investers. FDIs are responsible for recent bull-run of stock markets. These FDIs pull local investors like magnet. New sectors are needed to be identified.



Finally, we have to accept that everything is not in our governemnt control. For example, government cannot do anything about global oil prices. It cannot force Americans to go for shopping which was driving force behind double digit GDP growth of most of third world countries for last 5 years. But same measures can be taken to improve happiness quotient in our public. We can introduce social security plan for senior citizens and jobless peoples. This plan is operational in USA and UK. Some study of their implementation will be helpful in reducing chances of misuse of this facility. It will be a big relief to salaried people who are currently under severe trauma because of losses incurred by their american bosses and the farmers to whom one monsoon means end of the road. Again, key lies in its implementation. It will be successful only if it is properly monitored, accounts are maintained fairly and goverment have genuine zest for public welfare. At least, it will give believe to people that in this hour of crisis, they can bank on someone. Maybe, I am hoping for too much but we have to be ready for worst because this time we really have something to lose and there is no british empire to hide us. We have to face it straight on.